Weaving Wonder

   Inge Dam is known for her meticulously crafted and artistically hand dyed woven yardages with card woven embellishment inserts,  from which she creates luxurious  garments . She has garnered many awards for her weaving and has taught extensively, in particular throughout the United States, including for many Convergence conferences, organized by the Handweavers Guild of America. She has recently authored a book on her techniques, Tablet-Woven Accents for Designer Fabrics Contemporary Uses for Ancient Techniques which you can purchase from her at any time. 

Through her studies of ancient textiles Inge became fascinated with the concept of weaving tablet woven borders jointly with a piece of fabric on the loom. This technique was used on many of the ancient garments she  studied. Students will be introduced to this type of weaving through a brief introduction to its history and hands on practice. They will set up a loom with a simple weave structure and learn how to make a tablet warp and how to arrange it beside the fabric warp so the border and the fabric can be woven together using only one shuttle, rather than attached separately. The students will also be taught how to avoid tension problems between the border warp and the fabric warp and how to accommodate for the differences in the take up of the two weaves. A simple tablet weaving technique will be employed and the students will learn how to add embellishments to the tablet woven border, such as tassels, twining, beads at the edges and on the surface, braiding overlay, wrapped warp ends, loops, Ghiordes knots, and brocading.

Level of expertise : participants should know how to weave plain weave and 4-shaft straight twill.

Location:              Burr House, 530 Carville Road, Richmond Hill

Date:                     August 10-13 2015

Time:                     10am – 4pm

Maximum:          12

RSVP                     by June 1 2015

Cost:                      $350 plus $2 material fee

 [] Send Cheque for $350 to Line Dufour,

25 Beckett Ave, Holland Landing L9N 1E6. tapestryline@sympatico.ca

For her exhibition "Woven Drawings" at the David Kaye Gallery in January 2014, Nieves wanted to bring the universe of drawing, printing, and painting into weaving by using paper in the weft.

It took a lot of experimentation to develop a technique that she thought was suitable aesthetically and technically, which she will share with you during this workshop.  

During this workshop participants will weave narrow samples (approximately 6 inches wide) using paper that has been drawn and painted on, in the weft. By the end of the workshop each participant should have at least one sample finished and mounted, ready for framing. Two or more samples will be assembled to explore creating larger pieces out of narrow modules.

The workshop is divided into two parts. The first part will be dedicated to learning the techniques required to prepare the paper and weave a few samples. Once the techniques are learned, participants will have time to explore the possibilities of what they can do with the techniques acquired with a new set of paper sketches and samples. 

Location: Burr House, 530 Carville Road, Richmond Hill 

Date:                August 17 - 21 2015

Time: 10am – 4pm

Maximum: 12

RSVP by June 1 2015

Cost: $350 plus material fees

[] Send Cheque for $350 to Line Dufour, 25 Beckett Ave, Holland Landing L9N 1E6. linedufour.tapestry@gmail.com. 

Historical and Fashion Jacquard Weaving in Florence, Italy June 2015

This year I will be taking 6 students to take a one week workshop at the Fondazione Arte Della Seta Lisio in Florence Italy. We are not taking any more participants but if you think you'd like to join me next year, contact me for more info. 

I would also like to invite a tapestry weaver to do a workshop for Toronto Weaving School: Kathe Todd Hooker. If anyone is interested please let me know. The workshop would be for one week, perhaps the last week of August. The price would depend on the number of students: $350 - $500. plus materials. Please let me know if you are interested. http://americantapestryalliance.org/artist-pages/kathe-todd-hooker/

One of Kind Show March 25-March 30 2015

Michele Kortinen, one of the weaving students in the class, will be at the Etsy Booth selling her woven wares.

http://www.oneofakindshow.com/toronto/index.php