Intermountain Weavers' Conference - Part 1

The end of July the Intermountain Weavers’ conference (IWC) was held in Durango, Colorado. IWC is a regional conference of western states: Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. It meets every two years in the off year that the national conference, Convergence, meets.

The past 4 conferences have been held in Durango at Fort Lewis College on a plateau above the city. It’s a beautiful campus, usually cool temperatures with a terrific backdrop of mountains.


A land formation seen from the highway while driving through New Mexico.

 Driving there through Arizona and New Mexico is like driving through a western movie set, the vistas are vast and unbelievable. One year my roommate and I drove through a “brown” thunderstorm in Monument Valley.


A modernistic Navajo rug ready for sale at a Trading Post



My own Navajo "rug" 5"X 7" woven by Lorraine Mark

We enjoyed the stops at the Indian trading posts throughout the reservation, looking for yarn and weaving tools. Some of the posts had rugs for sale that were beautiful works of art.

AAA puts out a terrific map called “Indian Country” that covers the huge Indian Reservation at the Four Corners Region where Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado meet. Besides the roads and highways, Indian Trading Posts are indicated and the normal tourists attractions of parks, monuments, museums, etc. If you’re going to travel in the area, the map is well worth while obtaining.

A Peek at My Workroom...Caution: Under Construction

Monday I drove up to Cedar City and took along some more books and a couple of bar stools for the kitchen counter. It was a beautiful, sunny day, with noticeably less snow on the ground. The north sides of the mountains were still pretty, covered with a more complete layer of snow.

Susan W. asked when she was going to see a picture of my weaving room. It’s true that I’ll have looms in the room, but I’ll also do some sewing, and machine embroidery there so I think I’m going to call it my workroom, “Studio” sounds too professional for what I do, while “messing around room” is closer to reality I think I’ll go for stretching the truth with “workroom”. As you can see from the two views of my workroom it’s a work in progress.

I’m waiting for a Formica table to be built to put the plastic cubes on, which will go in the corner nitch beside the closet. Then the piles of things on the floor will find a more organized home. I thought the 18 ft by 12 ft room was pretty big, larger than the room I use now, but it sure filled up quickly with “stuff”.



Here is a picture of finished Durango Blues shawl on the mannequin that I fell in love with in Wisconsin last spring. The silver thread represents rivers meandering through Colorado. I did put it in the non-juried show at the Intermountain Weaving Conference last July. I felt a sense of accomplishment that I took the project from idea on paper to finished product, something that doesn’t occur too regularly.

More pictures of the inside of the house in the near future, and second Christmas in Salt Lake City.

The Lace Weaving Workshop - Part 1

While the trip to SLC was to celebrate our grandson Jack’s 5th birthday, I was really there to attend a three day workshop presented by the Mary M. Atwater Weavers’ Guild in Salt Lake City. I had joined the guild last year so that I could attend the Utah State Weavers’ Conference in April, mainly handled by the SLC guild. As part of the Conference, Daryl Lancaster, a well known weaver and clothing instructor was a featured lecturer and workshop instructor, pictured above.


Daryl had been an instructor at IWC (Intermountain Weavers’ Conference) in August, 2007, where Jan a member of the LV guild had been a participant of her workshop and highly recommended Daryl as an instructor. When I found that Daryl was going to be holding a workshop in this part of the country, I found that only way I could attend the state convention would be as a member of a Utah guild. Since my daughter lives in SLC that could solve the accommodation problem. So after find the SLC guild’s website I was able to join the guild without a problem. I found, once I received a membership roster, that the guild has members statewide, so it wasn’t unusual to a member living outside Salt Lake City.


The state conference was a great learning experience with Daryl Lancaster’s pre-conference workshop and the other shorter conference workshops. I enjoyed meeting new acquaintances with similar interests, and felt very welcomed by the group. It was such a good experience that I decided to renew my membership in the guild for this year. Even though I can’t attend many meetings, they offer opportunities for interesting workshops. If I plan ahead carefully I can participate in the workshops.

The SLC guild offered a terrific basketry workshop in Sept. that I was unable to attend. The irony was I was in SLC when the workshop took place, but Bob and I were babysitting Jack and Katie Jane white their parents were taking a long weekend in NYC. I did see some of baskets from the workshop and they were great, modernistic rather than traditional. Definitely one of a kind. Kristine the owner of the weaving/knitting store,Three Wishes, 7130 Redwood Rd. West Jordan, UT, 84084, showed me her baskets.


When the mailing came announcing the opportunity for a 3 day lace weaving workshop I really got excited. Here was a workshop I could participate in. In August I had had to cancel my spot in a freeform embroidery sewing class taught by a national instructor that I had signed up for in April! I had no one to blame but myself as it was the same weekend as Katie Jane’s birthday, something that didn’t dawn on me in April. Luckily I didn’t have to pay a penalty for canceling as there was a waiting list for the classes I had to miss. I was really disappointed though.


Then it occurred to me that the lace weaving workshop was going to be the same weekend as Jack’s birthday. I was going to be 3 for 3, three misses on three workshops with trips to SLC. However, hubby Bob did come through and the workshop was on with Grandpa Bobby as our bowling team leader.

WOW! Group - Part 1 - World Traveler Returns

Last Wednesday our WOW! Group was back to full strength with the return of Bill and Larry. They had just returned from a transatlantic cruise from Copenhagen to Ft. Lauderdale, with some stops in Ireland and New York City.

At their stop in Ireland they toured a flax spinning and weaving mill which Bill found fascinating. In passing he mentioned to the mill tour guide that he was also a weaver. After taking several pictures and being the last to leave the room, Bill was surprised when the tour guide gifted him with the hank of unbleached linen she had been showing during the tour. You can see it the above photo. It has a grayish color not unlike old barn wood.

Flax is a plant and the thread produced is made up of the fibers from the plant stem after the flesh has been beaten away and called linen. That is a simplified version of a longer process. The whole process is discussed in the Nov/Dec 2008 issue of Handwoven on page 64. The thread is actually quite thin and certainly fits the term fibrous.

Bill is one of our two guild representatives to IWC (Intermountain Weavers Conference). IWC is a regional association of western weaving guilds that holds a weekend conference every other year in the year that Convergence is not held. The conference consists of two and a half day workshops, over Friday, Saturday and Sunday mornings, with a style show, and juried and non-juried gallery shows of fiber related works. The past two conferences and the one in the summer of 2009 will be held in Durango, CO, on the Ft. Lewis College campus.

Each participating guild usually donates some “favor” to be distributed to the attending conference members and leaders. For the 2007 conference our guild wove about 200 book marks 1 ½” X 6”, made on 6 looms passed around our guild through out the year.

Starting last year our guild has been doing cardboard weavings making small purses for the 2009 conference, as Bill is working on in this photo at WOW. The small weavings could be used as coin purses or business card holders. The purses are closed with a loop going over a button. The variety of purses has been quite interesting. Bill is hoping to accumulate over 200 by June. He is over half way there now.