Friday, April 15, 2011

Teaching tapestry at Georgian College

On the second weekend in April I taught a crash course in tapestry weaving. Is it possible to learn so much in what has taken me years of practice and experience? Hardly. We could have easily used a week of intense tapestry weaving and practice to hone the skills of these very eager and capable weavers. All of the participants in this weekend workshop are registered in the Ontario Handweavers and Spinners Certificate program and the Tapestry Unit is the fourth in the many units there are to complete an OHS certification. We covered many technical considerations, such as hatching, slits, colour blending, finishing tapestries, warps, hanging tapestries, cartoons, creating your own designs, yarns and touched upon the history of tapestry as well as tapestry artists . The unit is written clearly so that the registrant is able to undertake the course without an instructor present. It is a 'distance' and I am available to those who are registered as a mentor and to guide them through the unit.

It was exciting to teach people who were really eager to learn about tapestry. I'm looking forward to seeing all their creations.


Since then I've been contininuing my ongoing classes through the TDSB where I teach not only tapestry weaving, but fabric and rug weaving as well.


Recently I learned that I was included in a listing of the top 50 tapestry blogs to check out. Here is the link to check out: http://www.liberalartsdegree.com/sewn-together-by-a-thread-top-50-tapestry-blogs/