Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Visiting Super Weaver or was it Super Man???



I had a special visitor this summer. For three weeks I had the pleasure of spending just about every waking hour with my sweet nephew Emil. He came across from Scandinavia on an Iceland Air flight all by himself - it was magnificent.
What happens when having visitors coming from away one often tries really hard to cover all the most exciting opportunities and sights one can possibly think off sharing with the visitor - oh, and I was in luck.





For this young, smart, sporty and very smiley young man got all excited when I showed him my studio and asked him, if he wanted to try out a loom.
And so he learned how to behave with a loom in the house + of course all the fibre which comes with them.
A young student of mine had set up a loom months earlier and since her warp was so long and I had not had the chance to sit down and weave it off Emil got to tie it to the front apron again and then the fun could begin.









And it was fun! His thrill was great when he saw how to work the twill pattern which was on the loom, alternating between twill and tabby, trying out colours, lots of them. And he managed to weave a tablerunner for his mom, a pillow cover for his brother and I think one more piece on the cotton warp which he had tied on and tightened.












How to keep track of where he was was also an experience, and there were pieces of paper talking about sequence and place of stopping.












Now Emil was not tired or done with weaving after his cotton experience and so we discussed other weaving options for him and.... he decided to weave himself a poncho.
The grand thing about that is, that there are only 6 ends per inch and since his width was not to wide either, he quickly got his 6 meters of warp wound on the warping mill. First though he spent some time looking at colours, I brought the brightest and funnest colours out and ..... he went with very earthy hues, because, "Moster, these are really good colours for going to camp with the scouts in the summer, I will be the only one really warm and toasty at the camp fire at night" and he had the biggest smile of pleasure on his face.

He wove and wove, we listened to audio tapes - Oliver Twist was one of them - as we were both weaving along. He on his poncho and I had a shawl warp on another loom. We also listened to music, and when we needed it, a good break, walk with the dog or a snack was much in order.

In the end the 6 meter warp showed its last tail and Emil could unroll and start to untie the knots at the front apron - cutting it was no good, since his design required that he have fringes on the lower edge of the back.
Then he learned how to twist fringes, he got the piece fulled a little bit and ..... I sewed up the seams for him.


Voila, here he is, a little stunned at his great warped and woven adventure!






And also completely proud and delighted.
Maybe when he comes over next time we can do another project - by then of course he will be more than 11 years old, perhaps his colour sense has changed, perhaps not, perhaps he has had some other exciting thoughts on what he would also like to create. I shall be patient and wait and see.







It is just very delightful to get to share ones passion for fibre and the process of creation with a young person and the joy and strength a young person finds in him or herself when discovering that ..... he/she is fully capable of amazing things - in this case weaving - creating a piece of cloth which can be used for whatever they decide, well, that is in my eyes a thing to be very, very thankful for.