Scenes from Convergence 2016

I like to call it "Camp Convergence" -- a gathering of the clan of handweavers and fiber artists from North America and overseas. Some 600 (just an estimate) of us wove and dyed and felted and spun and shopped and connected and learned and then shopped again.

This year the conference was in Milwaukee (more on that at the end of this post, as the sad story of political trouble unfolds*). I taught classes for the first time ever and I can assure you that the pleasure was equal to the work involved! My three day workshop, "One Warp, Three Fabrics: Weaving with 60/2 Silk," focused on warping with fine silk and weaving with three very different wefts. The class aimed to give students a feel for the variety of fabrics they could achieve: a balanced fabric using a 60/2 silk weft, a collapse-weave fabric using a 30/1 wool overtwist, and an elegant thick-and-thin structure alternating silk ribbon with fine silk wefts.

Here are just a few photos from the workshop. I wish I could have photographed everyone and all the beautiful results -- but as you may know from taking workshops, it was a whirlwind!

Christine Williamson brought along her Baby Wolf.

Richard Fox wove this gorgeous palette.

Here's Roberta McKinney at her loom...

And here's only a portion of what she wove!

Jennie Hawkey teaches weaving.

She decided to add a point twill to her structure.

Here's Carol Collard on a unique table loom.

And here's what she was weaving.

 Diane Rabinowitz brought along a piece she wove -- one of her first, 

I believe -- and I asked her to pose with it.

This is the color fabric she wove using the silk ribbon. 

The warp yarns will shift and wave after washing -- a desired effect.

Serendipity often happens at workshops.

Christine Williamson brought along a shawl she purchased

(overseas, I think, but can't remember where) that used the same

technique we were working on with our silk ribbon wefts. After washing,

the fine warp yarns slide like rain over the thick wefts. 

Not orthodox, I know, but beautiful!

Here's the workshop, in a nutshell: Fabric woven with a 60/2 silk weft, top left;

fabric woven with 30/1 wool overtwist, then washed, top right; 

fabric woven with a variety of hand-dyed silk ribbons 

alternating with fine wefts, not yet washed, bottom.

Finally, our group, at the end of the workshop. On the far left you see Rachel Snack, who was our talented and able student assistant. Rachel is a graduate student in textiles at Philadelphia University and it's clear that she will be teaching at Convergence someday soon....

More to come in a second blog post, looking at my other two classes, "Sawdust, Leaves, and Bugs: Shibori with Natural Dyes," and "How to Make a Dorset Button."

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*A postscript on events in Milwaukee after the conference: While we were in Milwaukee, my husband and I thoroughly enjoyed the city after hours, following the river walk and drinking craft beer. Little did we know what a tragedy was soon to take place, as an unarmed black man was shot by a police officer just days after the conference. Civil unrest, the National Guard summoned, a curfew imposed.... The story is so familiar and so heartbreaking. Are we, as a nation, learning anything? Will we, as a people, ever move beyond our racial divisions? I hope and pray and sympathize for all of us as we struggle with our horrible legacy of racism and violence. Milwaukee, we are with you.