(2019) Fiber Frolic

Fiber Frolic

Weaving, Spinning, & Dyeing for Ages 10 to Adult
(ages 7–9 with adult family member)

Leadership: Becky Ashenden, Sara Jeanne Burke, Julie Parsons, Emily Walsh Gwynn, Bettie Zakon-Anderson

Dates offered 2019: Jul 1–5

Come spend a week with weavers of all ages in a beautiful natural setting. Imagine bringing your child or teen for an unplugged week sharing picnics, playing old-fashioned games, and exploring a variety of fiber arts, in addition to weaving on hand looms both big and small in our barn studio.

Weaving for the young

This unusual opportunity to try your hand at weaving on a floor loom is good idea because a floor loom is really fun to use! You get to throw a shuttle back and forth and beat with a big hanging beater. Each participant can expect to take home their very own rag rug and handwoven towel or napkin. There will also be time allotted on our band looms. A group project of making a tablecloth from scratch on one of our biggest looms will be raffled to benefit future weaving weeks like this one.

Projects

  • Weave on a really big floor loom
  • Make a rag rug
  • Make a towel or napkin
  • Weave on a band loom
  • Weave on a replica of a Viking loom
  • Natural dye yarn
  • Spin wool

Viking loom

Weaving on an old Viking style loom (a warp weighted loom) is an experience never to be forgotten. The swinging loom weights that weight the warp threads, the big stick you pull back and forth to open the shed, and the big wooden sword you use to beat in the weft are all very tactile and memorable experiences.

Food

  • Bring a lunch for our adventurous picnics
  • Enjoy snacks with local food eaten on table linens you just wove yourself

Noontime adventures

Who can resist a picnic? Each day our picnic lunch will offer new experiences, adventures, and old-fashioned games. We may roll hoops one day and dance with handwoven ribbons around a Maypole the next. Our handwoven napkins will be used to wrap lunches, tie them to a stick with the a handwoven band, and over the shoulder and away we go into the woods to a beautiful private spot to enjoy our lunches in the fresh summer air.

Stylish afternoons

Our afternoon snack time will be served on a new and beautiful table setting each day featuring various locally grown foods and handwoven tablecloths. Our week culminates with a grand feast Friday afternoon, when we invite parents to join in the fun with our “candlelight dinner”: we will pull the shades, dress the table with all of our newly handwoven goods, and enjoy a candlelight high tea.

Finished items

After the excitement of seeing the new fabrics come off of the loom, participants will have the opportunity to sew the beautiful fabrics into finished items such as bags or pillows.

New perspective

Textiles play such an integral and often unnoticed role in our daily lives, yet how few of us have a real understanding and tactile experience of how they are made? To see and feel exactly how fabrics are made will give anyone a whole new daily perspective, each time we put on a piece of clothing, use a towel, sit on upholstered chairs, walk on a carpet,…

summer project

Becky coaches two new weavers

summer project

weaving on the Viking loom

summer project

barn full of dressed looms

summer project

dressed looms, aerial view

summer project

setting out for a woodland picnic

summer project

picnic on handwoven blankets

summer project

maypole with handwoven bands

summer project

stylish afternoon snack

summer project

team sleying

summer project

group threading, aerial view

summer project

young weaver

summer project

showing off handspun wool

summer project

cutting the finished piece

summer project

sewing lesson with Lisa

summer project

plaid fabric off the loom

summer project

beautiful rainbow tablecloth

summer project

laying out the finished fabrics

summer project

proud final group photo

Location: Farm Studio

Max enrollment: 10

Location: Barn Studio at 80 Bassett Rd., Shelburne MA

Course fee: $325

Materials fee: $50

Days offered: Five-day session, Monday–Friday

Schedule: 9:00–3:00

Carpooling: We will gladly connect parents who may want to carpool.

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