A Visit with Eva Stossel

 

Above: My favorite piece among all the weaving I've seen by Eva Stossel, in networked double weave on 16 shafts, with warp and weft in 20/2 cotton. I really like the tesselation effect.

Which brings me to the point of this blog post: Eva Stossel (you can visit her blog at www.evasweaving.wordpress.com) is, in my humble opinion, one of the best weavers around the country these days. 

Take a look:

Another 16-shaft network-drafted double weave, again using tesselations. Even more interesting: If you walk far enough away from the photo on your screen, you'll see an overall pattern in this piece, sort of a vertical-ellipse shape, made by the squares themselves!

Here's a detail:

How did she DO that? I figure it's two colors in the warp and weft of the top layer (white and red) and two colors in the warp and weft of the bottom layer (purple and red), and her design is networked but not paralleled. And then she shifted equal-sized rectangles in both threading and treadling throughout the piece to achieve the tile-like effect.

And how about this?

Tied Lampas in 4 blocks, in a clean, refreshing design (and, by the way, using complementary colors of green and red and purple and yellow, which add to the aesthetic appeal).

And yet another:

Woven moiré in pearl cotton on 16 shafts

Eva is really generous in sharing her drafts -- both in her blog and as WIFs when asked (although at times, rightfully, she does keep some designs to herself). Her writing is clear and concise, making her blog a gift to the weaving community at large. 

I had no idea where she lived until I happened to mention how I admired her work to my friend Hedy Lyles, herself an excellent weaver from Willow Grove, PA. Both Hedy and Eva belong to the Philadelphia Guild of Handweavers.

One of Hedy's twill scarves, on display at Convergence 2024 in Wichita in July.

Come to find out, Eva and Hedy are friends! Over a weekend when I was visiting family in Philadelphia, Hedy and I took a road trip about an hour out of town to visit Eva. It was a pleasure to finally meet her. She seemed surprised when I told her her blog has fans nationwide!

Hedy, left, and Eva, right, talk weaving. Note one of Eva's designs at the bottom of the photo, woven to create an Ikat look.

I remember Hedy telling me that she weaves on a 16-shaft Macomber loom, which surprised me, as I expected her to rely on the convenience of a compu-dobby. It takes a lot of strength (and a lot of tromping) to weave on 18 treadles to lift the cast-iron shafts of a Macomber!

Eva's Macomber, with an end-feed-delivery shuttle poised on the shuttle race.

She samples religiously and keeps detailed records, which is exactly what all the great weavers do, in my view.

Eva told us that often she will use her 4-shaft Structo for sampling -- clearly not to see how a 16-shaft pattern works, but just to see how the warp and weft yarns weave together. I consider that a noble endeavor, one that never even occurred to me ;o)

Eva with her files

More samples, more notes

Really, I wanted to meet Eva because I so admire her work and her generosity -- and I wanted to learn something about how a master weaver works. Of course, you can't access a person's mind and discover the source of their creativity (don't I wish). What I did learn: Start with a good idea, sample it, sample more, make sure the yarns and colors work, dig deeper, keep weaving, keep learning. That's the essence of what it takes.

And, as is so often the case, I found how much I enjoy making friends with fellow weavers. Thank you, Hedy and Eva, for a delightful afternoon!

Not the most flattering photo of any of us (from left: me, Eva, and Hedy) but it documents a meeting of hearts and hands, you might say....

Thanks for reading!