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<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nIt was born of a study group, exploring the history of four mid-century American weaving periodicals. The editors of those periodicals, along with other notable weavers of the era, explored textures, patterns and techniques during a period of enormous change for weaving; when hand weavers reacted to the loosening of wartime shortages and the availability of new, colorful, textured, and man-made yarns, as well as the emergence of modernist decor in the rapidly expanding new suburbias. Each issue included a draft and a handwoven swatch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After discovering that our guild’s storage space had a number of these periodicals in excellent condition, the study group was formed. We each chose a swatch to reinterpret, learning about the weavers, the era, and the magazines, and presenting our findings – and our swatches – to each other at study group meetings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And thus, Inspiration from the 1950s: Handwoven Swatch Periodicals<\/em>. This book was a labor of love by many members of my weaving guild and it shows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Thank you to a fellow guild member at Olive & Otis<\/a> for the exquisite design. Our hard work is now a part of a hand-bound limited edition with detailed, modern interpretations of the vintage drafts along an our handwoven swatches sewn into small booklets. The book itself is hand-stitched with a coptic binding, and the whole thing comes in its own lovely portfolio case. <\/p>\n\n\n\n My piece, woven on a\u00a0table loom, includes silk yarn from one of my favorite small business, Gothfarm Yarn<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I hadn’t intended to weave a swatch for this project, and instead had teamed up with another weaver. She chose a draft and did the sampling and weaving while I did a deep dive into the editors and periodical she’d chosen her draft from – the Groffs of Robin and Russ Handweavers, and their magazine Drafts and Designs<\/em>. (I even did a mini presentation-within-a-presentation on the change of the unfortunate logo, though that didn’t make it into the book.) The whole run of the magazine is archived<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the end, I decides to weave a swatch and it just so happened to come from the same magazine. In fact, it was the first draft included in Drafts and Designs<\/em> (Volume 1, Number 1, September 1958) and had a Finnish origin. I couldn’t resist, and learned a lot about notable Finnish weavers, Helvi Pyysalo and Viivi Merisalo, about the Wetterhoff, as well as the kotiteollisuus<\/em> or Home Industry production efforts of the time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyway, I\u2019ll be here the rest of the day, lovingly petting this book. You can order this very limited edition on\u00a0the Weavers and Spinner’s Society of Austin<\/a> website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My weaving guild wrote a book. Actually, we researched, wove, cut, sewed, stitched, designed, printed, and hand assembled a gorgeous work of art. I’m one of the featured weavers in the book and contributed to the research. It was born of a study group, exploring the history of four mid-century American weaving periodicals. The editors … <\/p>\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n