The Long Way Round to the Guild Meeting

As I mentioned in my last post our trip from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City started out with a packed car on Thursday October 23. We drove two cars to the remote parking lot at McCarran Airport in LV as Bob was flying back on Sunday afternoon and needed a car to get home from the airport. We hopped on the interstate highway for the two and a half hour drive to Cedar City, UT. It’s not really half way, but since we’ve started building a house there we take a rest stop and check on the property at the same time. The stop at the property was disappointing as very little had been done since I had been up when we measured for the placement of the house as pictured here.

After stretching our legs and walking the dog we were on our way to Provo for our next stop. The Salt Lake City Guild (properly called the Mary M. Atwater Weavers’ Guild) was hosting the examination of the Certification of Excellence in Handweaving sponsored by Handweavers Guild of America, Inc. (HGA). Four ladies from around the country from HGA were staying at a guild member’s home in Provo (Judie's), and for the past week they had been reviewing weavers’ work for possible certification.

One of the examiners was the instructor of our lace workshop Suzie Liles
from the Eugene Textile Center. One of the other examiners was going to be the speaker at the guild meeting that evening in Provo, Madelyn van der Hoogt, who was a colleague of Suzie Liles at the Weavers School in Coupeville, Washington.


Madelyn van der Hoogt is the current editor of Handwoven magazine and has written and edited several weaving books, such as The Complete Book of Drafting for Handweavers, Shuttle Craft Books, published by Unicorn Books (1993).

The guild members from SLC were carpooling down to Provo for the meeting and a pitch-in dinner. Earlier in the week I had asked via email if I could tag along on the way back to SLC with them so my husband and dog wouldn’t have to wait around, since weaving lectures weren’t high on their list of things to do. Weavers, being the nice people that they are, helped me out with 3 offers of rides to my daughter’s house.

So the tough part turned out to be finding Judie’s home in Provo. I had her address and phone number, just in case, verbal directions and, of course, map quest maps all highlighted with bright orange. Those famous words, “It’s easy to get to, it’s right off the interstate. Just take the exit that goes to BYU -- University Parkway” are what got us into trouble. We ended up getting to the meeting but taking the long way around. We found that there are TWO exits that lead to BYU. The one from the North where everyone else was coming from was the University Parkway exit. However from the South there is another exit that leads to BYU and this one is University Avenue. Guess which one we took. Check out this map of Provo.

Asking directions at a 7-eleven gas pump is risky, but luckily the directions were good and after several extra winding miles I was able to arrive just when members from the north were starting to arrive.

Hubby Bob and dog Mac continued north to SLC but Bob witnessed a roll over accident right in front of him at an intersection in Provo before getting back on the interstate. Scary. Someone running a red light.

Back at the guild meeting and pitch-in dinner, the hostesses’ husband made Dutch oven chicken, enough to serve the 25-30 people attending. As you can imagine the meal was pretty good as pitch-ins usually are. The tables were cleared and the chairs rearranged for Madelyn’s talk on deflected double weaves. Besides computer photos she had lots of examples of fabrics before and after fulling using this technique.

If I understand the technique correctly, deflected double weave is the result of shrinkage of two different weaving structures. It can be even greater if the threads of the two different structures are from different types of yarn, like cotton and wool. The resulting cloth will produce ripples, or bumps, creating some interesting patterns depending on the warping pattern.

Madelyn van der Hoogt certainly was a knowledgeable speaker, but on a personal level she was funny with a good sense of humor and was just a petite lady. The kind of person you would like to get to know better if you had the chance.

Sources

For more complete information, drafts and pictures of before and after fulling deflected double weave check out the Jan/Feb 2001 issue of Handwoven pages 62-67 by Madelyn van der Hoogt.

Also the Jan/Feb 2007 issue of Handwoven which has several scarves woven in deflected doubleweave by several different weavers.