Today I promised some stories and photo's about weaving - I hate to break a promise so here they are!
First of all we were introduced to the Brinkley looms and shown how to warp them up. As someone who was put off weaving at Art College by the shear complication of warping up a loom ( made even harder by not being able to find anyone else who knew how to do it and could show me!) these Brinkley looms were a revelation. We simply laid a broom across a gap between a table and chair, threaded the loom on to the handle and using our choice of beautiful naturally dyed yarns, spun the loom away from us, around the centre point, creating the warp as it spun. We warped up in pairs, which was great fun and allowed us to get to know each other better, as well as being helpful in spotting any problems/ remembering new techniques as we went along.
Soon, we were all weaving away like we had been doing it for years. Spread between two rooms, with roaring fires to keep us warm, we worked steadily, chatting quietly, stopping only to eat the delicious flapjacks and to admire the swans - which kept up a constant display of landing on the River Wye just outside the cottage door! Some of us wanted to try felting (I was one of these) and we did smaller pieces, others were happy to weave all day and attempted much bigger, more ambitious works.

What was truly amazing, was that with the same basic materials and tuition, not one piece of work looked anything like another - they were all totally beautiful and unique. We felt this compared well with our group - which came together from disparate backgrounds, united in an inspired way by our mutual friend to create harmonious result.

Here is a shot of my attempt - you can just see the clever way that the work wraps its way behind the loom as it gets longer. We broke for a lunch of homemade soup with bread and cheese, eaten at a wooden table outside (overlooking the river) before returning for an afternoon of more weaving or to start felting if that was your choice.

I will leave you for today with this shot of us removing a finished piece from the loom, another incredibly simple procedure (I am so impressed with this style of loom!) I will return tomorrow to show you some pictures of the felt making I tried in the afternoon - another craft I am now totally enamoured with :)