I have the good fortune to belong to two great weaving guilds.
One is the NOBO Handweavers of Newburyport, MA. We formed just a little over a year ago and it blows me away how wonderful this group is.
The other group I belong to is the Weavers Guild Of Boston, the oldest guild in the country. Also a great group of weavers with the extra advantage of having most of the day devoted to our monthly meeting.
Starting at 10:00 AM there are morning workshops. Then there’s a lunch break (and a quick trip to their extensive library!), some business and finally a wonderful afternoon speaker.
Yesterday was the first meeting of the 2009/2010 season and I attended a class called “Wiggles, Squggles and Lines” presented by Marjie Thompson of Cumberland, ME.
It was a history lesson, plus detective work, of deciphering weaving drafts from the past. Reading pattern drafts is what I stumbled with the most when I first started weaving. Still do from time to time!
Marjie is an extraordinary scholar of weaving history. She explained to us that paper was a precious commodity in the past. So, weavers developed their own shorthand versions of writing down their drafts to economize on paper use. This was different for each person and that’s where the detective work comes in.
Here are a few of the examples Marjie shared with us:
Marjie explained what each draft represented, which is good because I couldn’t figure out any of them on my own.
Can you?
It was quite an interesting subject and maybe someday I’ll be able to read these wiggly, squiggly drafts.
In the meantime, I’m thankful for our abundance of paper and standardization!
P.S. I brought the bag Benita made for me to the guild meeting. Lots of compliments and it held everything I needed perfectly.
That warms my heart about the bag. I’m glad it’s in use and I hope it gets used so much that it one day wears out.
The bag you made me is going to Chicago with me tomorrow and will haul all my supplies for the day.