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For Hannah Thiessen Howard, slow knitting isn’t about the speed of making stitches or finishing projects. Swift and leisurely knitters alike can embrace the purpose and experience of knitting and how it connects crafter to community. Selecting materials, choosing projects, and approaching your work with an open mind all contribute to a meaningful knitting life. Knitting can offer refuge, inspiration, and self-expression. It can also be a step, large or small, toward bringing about the kind of world that you’d like to see. From her first yarn-industry internship at a large international company, Hannah has gravitated to smaller and more independent projects, such as her work with the Hudson Valley Textile Project and consulting with small fiber-based companies. She has a new project in the works, a yarn-focused stock image website, that will provide photo resources that accurately reflect what crafts and crafters look like. Although knitting is her primary professional focus, Hannah’s fiber practice wouldn’t be complete without spinning, both for the education it offers about yarn properties and for the connection to animals and farms. Not only do spinners have a more intimate experience with a fiber source, but they often provide meaningful financial support fiber farmers. And what could be a better complement to slow knitting than the hands-on process of making yarn yourself? Hannah’s latest yarn passion is the carefully, lovingly curated collection that so many knitters mention with a hint of shame: her stash. Diving into the skeins she’s adopted over the years is an opportunity to reflect on her slow-knitting values . . . and decide what she wants to carry forward. Links Hannah Thiessen Howard’s website and Instagram Slow Knitting and Seasonal Slow Knitting books By Hand Serial Greater Cumberland Fibershed Hudson Valley Textile Project’s Common Threads This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com. You’ll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you’ll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Yarn Barn of Kansas Learning how to weave but need the right shuttle? Hooked on knitting and in search of a lofty yarn? Yarn Barn of Kansas has been your partner in fiber since 1971. Whether you are around the corner from the Yarn Barn of Kansas, or around the country, they are truly your "local yarn store" with an experienced staff to answer all your fiber questions. Visit yarnbarn-ks.com to shop, learn, and explore. Peters Valley School of Craft logo Peters Valley School of Craft enriches lives through the learning, appreciation and practice of fine craft. For more than 50 years, accomplished artists and students have come together in community at our craft school for powerful creativity and joyous life-long learning in the beautiful Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. We are firmly dedicated to inclusion, diversity, equity, and access through all of our programs. We value and welcome the experienced professional artist, the new learner, the collector—and everyone in between who can be touched by the power of craft. Visit petersvalley.org to start your journey today!

Although she grew up in the freezing winters of New York, Keisha Cameron and her husband decided to move their young family to a peri-urban spot outside Atlanta, Georgia, to set down roots and rebuild their connection to the land. They began with raising what their family needed for food and other daily necessities, but over the past decade, High Hog Farm has developed stocks of rare-breed sheep, angora rabbits, and chickens. In their gardens, the family cultivate produce as well as medicinal and dye plants. As returning-generation farmers, they not only love what they do, they also feel an obligation as stewards of their land. Rediscovering the traditional ways of cultivating and using plants, Keisha has sampled different types of indigo, madder, marigolds, and a range of dyestuffs. The farm offers naturally dyed fibers as well as dyestuffs and classes in natural dyeing. As she grows attuned to her soil, she appreciates the multiple roles that a single plant can play. As a cultural seedkeeper, she focuses on not only preserving a diversity of plants but on reviving the knowledge of how they can serve a variety of needs. Although High Hog has been home to a variety of different farm animals, Keisha fell in love with sheep. She felt an instant affinity for Gulf Coast Natives, a rare breed that can carry color genetics and are exceptionally well suited to her location. Her insistence on participating fully in the lives of her animals has led her to explore fiber arts—but also to learn the demanding skill of shearing. As a crucial part of her animals’ health, shearing is too important to leave undone if they can’t locate a shearer when needed. For followers around the country, High Hog Farm is mainly accessible through their newly relaunched website and online store (as well as their enchanting social media accounts). For the community closer at hand, the farm has developed a variety of programs in fiber arts, photography, food preservation, and a variety of other agrarian arts. On being part of the grassroots fiber community, Keisha says, “I want to encourage everybody else, all the fiber artists and fiber and dye growers, to keep doing what you’re doing, because we are the people who are bringing color to the world.” Links High Hog Farm website High Hog Farm’s Instagram This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com. You’ll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway’s array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you’ll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Stewart Heritage Farm At Stewart Heritage Farm in New Market, Tennessee, farm to fiber and yarn has been a part of their story for 20 years. Home to a small herd of alpacas, Stewart Heritage produces small-batch roving, yarn, and finished goods available in 100-percent alpaca and natural blends in natural tones and brilliant hand-dyed colors. Discover the fine quality, long-lasting comfort, and soft luxury of alpaca to wear and enjoy in your home. Explore and shop alpaca at stewartheritagefarm.com. Peters Valley School of Craft Peters Valley School of Craft enriches lives through the learning, appreciation and practice of fine craft. For more than 50 years, accomplished artists and students have come together in community at our craft school for powerful creativity and joyous life-long learning in the beautiful Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. We are firmly dedicated to inclusion, diversity, equity, and access through all of our programs. We value and welcome the experienced professional artist, the new learner, the collector—and everyone in between who can be touched by the power of craft. Vis

Justin Squizzero loves exploring the frontiers of technology, seeing how he can tune a piece of equipment to produce a complex textile. The technology that fascinates him reached its peak before the 20th century. Weaving on an old loom doesn’t mean trying to turn back time, though—it means choosing the most refined technology to create the handwoven fabrics that he envisions. If a modern tool is better than the historic one (like the laser cutter that produced the small metal rings called mails, which were needed to to convert his loom from weaving coverlets to damask), that would be one thing. For all the supposed advances in technology in the last several hundred years, though, the best tool for weaving fine linen damask is still the one invented by Joseph-Marie Jacquard more than 200 years ago. Studying with Norman Kennedy and Kate Smith at the Marshfield School of Weaving helped Justin deepen his understanding of and fascination with the tools and techniques of 18th- and 19th-century weaving. What began as a winter occupation between summers working in museums led to beginning a business as a traditional handweaver, becoming a regular teacher in School’s unique curriculum, and most recently taking on the role as its Director. In Justin’s weaving practice, discovery and ingenuity are as vital looking to the past as to the future. Visit the show notes page to see a photo of Justin's Jacquard loom. This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com. You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you’ll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Yarn Barn of Kansas You’re ready to start a new project but don’t have the right yarn. Or you have the yarn but not the right tool. Yarn Barn of Kansas can help! They stock a wide range of materials and equipment for knitting, weaving, spinning, and crochet. They ship all over the country, usually within a day or two of receiving the order. Plan your project this week, start working on it next week! See yarnbarn-ks.com to get started. Links The Burroughs Garret Marshfield School of Weaving

Kaffe Fassett doesn’t play favorites in his work—he doesn’t have a favorite medium, and he definitely doesn’t have a favorite color. What he has is a powerful delight in combining the simple elements of color, line, and image, and a passion for helping other people share in that joy. For someone whose career is inextricably linked to stitching, his needlework techniques are surprisingly simple. “I’m never interested in technical acrobatics,” he says. “I think that color is what is fabulous, and you know, a beautiful image that has beautiful colors doesn’t need to go any further.” Some of his best-known work layers brightly colored cotton fabrics of his own design into patchwork quilts, which he takes to beautiful locations to photograph. Yet one of the textiles he’s excited about is a vintage patchwork quilt top worked in diamonds and squares, with striking contrasts placed next to soothing harmonies. Visit the show notes page at pieceworkmagazine.com to see a photo of the quilt. Kaffe’s work has expanded into so many formats in part because of a series of remarkable collaborations, both with companies (including Rowan, FreeSpirit Fabrics, and Peruvian Connection) and other artists. When sharing ideas or teaching, particularly with partner Brandon Mably, the enjoyment of seeing the spark of creative understanding in someone else is part of the joy. “That's what I would say to people: you know, the first thing is, get friends who are sympathetic to your dream. Try to find somebody who’s going to encourage you rather than discourage you.” As the first living textile artist to have a show at the Victoria & Albert Museum, Kaffe’s artwork is valued and renowned the world over—yet through books, patterns, and his own “paint box” of fabrics and materials, his work is accessible to every crafter. This episode is brought to you by Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com. You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you'll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links Kaffe Fassett Studio List of Kaffe Fassett books Find a listing of Kaffe’s events Kaffe’s designs and collaborations in yarn, needlepoint, and quilting fabrics are available on his website.

Between the sheep in the field and the lovely yarn in your hands lies the complex network of the wool industry. Fiber must be scoured, spun, and maybe dyed, and it all starts with shearing. Attending a Fibershed symposium in 2012, Stephany Wilkes was surprised to learn that one of the barriers to local fiber production was a lack of trained shearers. A knitter and software developer, she had no hands-on livestock experience when she signed up for a shearing class through an extension center and found herself up to her elbows in wool. Despite the grueling labor and intensely specialized learning process, she relished the work and the way it pushed her squarely into the world of American fiber production. Ten years into her career as a sheep shearer and wool classer, Stephany has supported small flocks, a small mill, and her fibershed. Her 2018 book, Raw Material: Working Wool in the West, is a riveting chronicle of her immersion in the world of sheep and wool. As a shearing instructor and catalyst for transformation in the fiber community, she has made it her business to improve the conditions and the market for quality wool. This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com. You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you’ll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links Stephany Wilkes website Raw Material book Fibershed Mendocino Wool & Fiber mill Lani’s Lana Stephany’s article “Lani’s Lana: Sheep, Landscape, and Western Wool” appeared in Spin Off Winter 2023. Wild Oat Hollow Happy Goat cashmere and contract grazing project Kaos Sheep Outfit Shave 'em to Save 'em

What do you get when a crafter who loves colorful hand-dyed yarns (and hates stalking shop updates) crosses paths with a fresh, new yarn producer? Like many of her knitter friends in 2013, Lisa Chamoff was enchanted by the artful and expressive work of the independent dyers whose skeins were cropping up around the yarn world. Shoppers found new favorites by word of mouth, hearing about a new colorway or restock here and there. At the same time, talented dyers with fledgling businesses relied on that word of mouth to sell a few skeins at a time. Lisa saw an opportunity for a new kind of website: a marketplace where shoppers and dyers could come together to share new work. Indie Untangled opened for discovery. After a few months of the online marketplace, Lisa realized that the hand-dyed-yarn fans who visit her site wanted more than just two days at the annual New York Sheep and Wool Festival (“Rhinebeck”). Gathering on the Friday before the larger festival, a group of crafters were interested in extending the weekend’s shopping and social opportunities. There was also an opportunity for smaller and newer yarn companies, who didn’t have booths at the larger show, to introduce themselves to an audience eager for the next new thing. Beginning with just a few booths, the Indie Untangled event is now an anchor of the New York Sheep and Wool Festival weekend, drawing a few dozen vendors and offering timed shopping opportunities. Although most of Indie Untangled’s offerings connect shoppers and dyers directly, Lisa also collaborates with dyers and yarn producers for Indie Untangled-exclusive projects, beginning with the Knitting Our National Parks Collection. The latest project is the yearlong subscription Heritage Wool Collective, which pairs dyers with unique yarns from small farms and mills, beginning in 2024. This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com. You’ll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you’ll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links Heritage Wool Collective Subscription Indie Untangled Rhinebeck Indie Untangled Event Indie Untangled Marketplace Knitting Our National Parks Series

[Sponsored Content] If you’ve been weaving, knitting, or playing with fiber for long—or if you’ve passed some fiber animals in a field—you probably think you know what an alpaca looks like: a fluffy creature with a long neck and spade-shaped ears. But you may not know that there’s a different kind of alpaca, one whose coat grows in long, silky ringlets instead of an allover fluffy halo. Suri alpacas make up a small fraction of the alpacas, both worldwide and in the United States, but their special fiber is worth checking out. The number of Suri alpacas isn’t specifically known, but they’re estimated to make up as little as 5–10% of the population, with the remainder being Huacaya alpacas. But although Huacayas dominate in numbers, Suris are gaining recognition, in part thanks to a group of farmers who formed an association to promote the breed. The Suri Network strives to “protect, preserve, and promote the Suri alpaca” by educating fiber artists and farmers about this special fiber. What makes Suri alpacas different is the exceptionally long, lustrous, silky locks of fiber that they produce. Growing as much as 7" per year on a young animal, Suri fiber is far longer than almost any other animal-based fiber. When spun into yarn, it is strong and feels even softer than its micron count would suggest. The smooth fiber is a treat to work with on its own, and it also brings strength and softness to fiber blends. In recognition of the unique properties of the fiber, Suri Network has taken the unusual step of developing a trademark program, an indication to consumers that the producers have met the breed standards in a number of areas, including animal husbandry and suiting the fiber to its best purpose. In this episode, Suri Network members and Suri producers Liz Vahlkamp of Salt River Alpacas and Laurel Shouvlin of Bluebird Hills Farm describe what makes Suri alpacas special, what fiber artists can expect from working with Suri fiber, and how the Suri breed is taking its place in the world of yarn and fiber. This episode is brought to you by: Suri Network The Suri Network was established in 1997 to assist its members to protect, preserve, and promote the Suri alpaca. Since its beginnings, the Suri Network has been at the forefront of the alpaca industry promoting both the Suri alpaca and the use of its wondrous fleece. Links Suri Network Suri Simply Stunning Sip and Share about a variety of Suri subjects Suri Network Video series about spinning, knitting, felting, and weaving with Suri fiber

The scale of Sarah Neubert’s work varies from miniature to monumental, from small pieces such as earrings to room-sized installations. She dreams of creating entire woven environments that are sensory and tactile, like cocoons or sanctuaries of fiber. Working on a large scale allows her to explore new techniques and push the boundaries of her art. However, she also appreciates the sense of accomplishment that comes from creating small, wearable pieces. Her classes at the upcoming Weave Together with Handwoven event in February 2024 will let students work on a small tapestry loom to explore some of her favorite subjects. When Sarah teaches tapestry weaving with nontraditional wefts, she often brings found and foraged materials and invites students to bring their own elements to incorporate. Although these may be nontraditional (and even sometimes non-yarn), the weaving skills to incorporate and stabilize them strengthen the student’s grasp of weaving fundamentals. A class in textural weaving includes hand-manipulated techniques, traditional skills that she employs in very nontraditional ways. One of her recent projects, a Woven Upholstery Mending tutorial, started with a refusal to just dispose of the couch that her cats had clawed. Using her weaving skills in a different application, she repaired her couch with rope and sturdy tools. When she shared her project and results on social media, the interest and enthusiasm were overwhelming. Sarah found herself designing and filming a course on how to create your own woven mends on furniture. Instead of charging to view the class, Sarah has posted it on YouTube on a donation-based model in hopes of keeping other couches out of landfills. “I think having an energetic exchange is important in a lot of spaces, and I was really grateful for the people that donated,” she says. Weaving isn’t just a form of art for Sarah, it’s also therapeutic. At first accidentally and now deliberately, she has found relief from anxiety and an opportunity to process her emotions while working at the loom. She experiences this as a flow state, an opportunity to heal. Although her early experiences as a weaver were fraught with perfectionism, she now explores how to make a piece the best she can . . . and then make room for the next project. This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com. You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you'll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links Sarah Neubert’s website Woven Upholstery Mending online class [How to fix furniture with visible mending](How to fix furniture with visible mending) tutorial on YouTube Tapestry Cuff Bracelet, a pattern for a woven cuff, available on the Little Looms website “Woven Flow: Weaving as Meditation.” Sarah Neubert, Handwoven website “Fiber art is finally being taken seriously.” Julia Halperin, The New York Times Style Magazine (accessed online), September 11, 2023. Maya Angelou interview in the Paris Review, 1990.

The picture of a flock of primitive-breed sheep, the last of their kind, living on an island off the northeast coast of Scotland, has a certain romance to it. Plenty of knitters, spinners, fiber artists, and citizens of the modern world might idly dream of living on such an island and tending such a flock. With no background as a farmer and only a few years as a shepherd, Jane Cooper decided to bring that dream to life. Enchanted by the fiber of the Boreray sheep, and with her life transformed by a class on knitting with rare breeds, Jane decided to buy a small parcel of land and start a spinner’s flock by adopting a few wethers from another farmer. In a short time, however, she found herself with more land—and more sheep—than she planned for. And so began her adventure as the shepherd of the “lost flock,” a group of sheep whose ancestors had escaped the official registry. Since obtaining her first sheep in 2013, Jane not only developed her own breeding program but established several other breeding flocks in the Orkneys. She has explored the recent and ancient history of her sheep, from the Vikings who used dual-coated wool in their sails to the breed registries established in the 20th century (and traced how her own sheep came to be called “the lost flock.”) This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com. You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you'll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links Orkney Boreray website The Lost Flock book by Jane Cooper US edition and UK edition Blacker and Beyond Ravelry group Blacker Yarns and The Natural Fibre Company Woolsack British wool website

Felicia Lo spent most of her college years wearing a lot of black. The bright, happy color combinations that she loved as a child—lime green and hot pink, pink and yellow—didn’t fit other people’s idea of what colors went together, so she avoided wearing colors altogether. It took years to begin introducing color into her wardrobe again. As handdyeing began its groundswell in the early 2000s, Felicia began experimenting with dyeing fiber and then yarn. As it turned out, fiber artists across the world thought that her color sense was not only acceptable but irresistible. What began as a casual project in 2005 has grown into a company with a dozen staff members, hundreds of colorways, and a roster of yarn and fiber bases. Yet despite the company’s larger scale, each skein or braid of fiber is still prepared, colored, rinsed, and packaged by hand. Maintaining consistency in their very handmade product has meant transforming SweetGeorgia from her initial solo project into a team effort, with staff members collaborating on new colors and initiatives. Felicia published her book Dyeing to Spin & Knit in 2017, with techniques for fiber artists to choose colors, apply them effectively, and use their handdyed creations. That same year, she founded the School of SweetGeorgia to offer online classes and community, first in handdyeing and later in knitting, spinning, weaving, and other fiber arts. Although her fiber-arts practices stretch from spinning to crochet, tapestry, machine knitting, and weaving, Felicia always has a knitting project on the needles . . . and these days, it’s almost certainly not black. More of our conversation with Felicia, including what's on her needles and her suggestions on how to choose yarn colors for a knitting project how to choose the right yarn structure for a knitted project, is available in the library for subscribers to Farm & Fiber Knits. This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com. You’ll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you’ll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links SweetGeorgia School of SweetGeorgia Dyeing to Spin & Knit

In 2009, Mary Jeanne Packer founded Battenkill Fibers Carding & Spinning Mill to work with small farms, yarn companies, and even individual handspinners who wanted great yarn. The partnerships built around the mill are helping revitalize the regional wool economy and sustain shepherds and shops alike. We are far from the days when 13 water-powered mills lined the Battenkill River in Greenwich, New York, all processing American wool, but through collaborations across the textile industry, the prospects for high-quality yarn look bright. For a farm with a few dozen sheep, a local yarn store wanting to make a special line of yarn, or even a handspinner with a prize fleece from the wool festival and no means to wash it, creating roving or yarn comes from a partnership with a mill built on expertise and trust. How should the fiber be washed, spun, and plied? What will bring out the best in the wool? The mill transforms and adds value to a year’s fiber crop, the results of the feed, care, and shearing that farmers condult year-round. Mary Jeanne relishes the opportunity to support members of the yarn community and make connections among them, so that a niche yarn company can source a special kind fiber or shepherds can keep their farms going with an additional source of revenue. Seeing gaps in the regional textile industry and opportunities for sustainable growth, Mary Jeanne and yarn shop owner Gail Parrinello brought together a group of farmers, dyers, millers, designers, makers, distributors, and retailers in a network called the Hudson Valley Textile Project. One of the initiatives of the project is Clean Fleece New York, a medium-scale scouring facility that processes batches of fiber too large for a small mill but below the minimum for an industrial-scale scouring facility, which has just opened in fall of 2023. More of our conversation with Mary Jeanne, including how to choose the right yarn structure for a knitted project, what surprising yarns you might be overlooking, and how to find the most wonderful yarns at a fiber festival, is available in the library for subscribers to Farm & Fiber Knits. This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com. You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you'll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links Battenkill Fibers Hudson Valley Textile Project Clean Fleece New York Mountain Meadow Wool Shaniko Wool Company Green Mountain Spinnery Laxtons Wooltrace DK Foster Sheep Farm Bare Naked Wools/Knitspot The Woolly Thistle Brooklyn General Store Kingdom Fleece and Fiberworks

Many weavers find their inspiration by asking, “What if...” Since she first sat down at a loom, Deb Essen has pushed the limits of her weaving by asking, “Why can’t I?” Deb has followed that question since childhood, right through her career as a weaving teacher and author. Since she first neglected her table-clearing duties to watch a weaving demonstration at the age of 9, the craft of weaving has held her fascinated. And despite the disciplines of teaching, designing, and writing, that childlike spirit of exploration still gets free rein in her weaving studio. “I play with everything. I mean, that’s the beauty of weaving,” she says. “There’s something to play with all the time.” When Deb talks about her favorite classes, the word “play” comes up often, and her approach is as lighthearted as it is methodical. “There’s always an amazing surprise for everybody in the class,” she says of her class on color in weaving. “You kind of have to throw color theory for artists out the window” and sample different color combinations. (Deb will be teaching color in weaving at the first Weave Together with Handwoven event February 25–29, 2024.) Deb’s love of structure isn’t limited to complex multishaft looms, or even to pick-up patterns on rigid-heddle looms. When the new Zoom Loom debuted, Deb accepted the challenge to play with the small loom and see what she could create. “You know, never say no,” she says, and developed a line of toys and figures made solely of 4" woven squares. She explores the possibilities of texture, color, and pick-up on the little squares, too. We’re looking forward to Deb joining us in Loveland, Colorado, February 25–29, 2024, for Weave Together with Handwoven. Her classes include Color in Weaving and two classes on weaving with pin looms. For photos of Deb’s work, check out our show notes at handwovenmagazine.com. This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com. You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you'll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links dje handwovens, Deb’s website and line of weaving kits Color in Weaving video Easy Weaving with Supplemental Warps book