First class of the 2016 weaving course

Every year Kennet Valley Guild runs a course in weaving. It includes six days of teaching. This year we have nine students doing Beiderwand and Lampas and five doing double weave. My heart has been giving out about the first course. And yes it is difficult to take in. Some of the class had done a bit of weaving before coming today and were all saying that it all fell into place when weaving started so I feel more cheerful. And their samples are all looking like mine. I have done a raft of samples on both eight and twelve shaft looms. I have access to two table looms with twelve shafts so everyone will get a chance to weave on one of them. But this, of course, means I have to warp both looms up very soon. I reckon that they will be needed by the third class. The idea is for the students to do all the samples and then spend the last half of the course creating and weaving a project of their own. I have already heard enthusiastic discussions about the use of said projects. Tea towels, table mats, runners and wall hangings are all under discussion!

In the house we have been having a very exciting time and have ended the day rather poorer. Yesterday I received a brochure on courses at Dillington House in Somerset. And they have a summer school. Now Dorothy is working on improving her painting and I casually pointed out that the Summer School included a week's painting course. Before I quite knew what I had agreed to,  I was signed up to music courses and she was signed up to the painting course. I went off to the weaving class and, when I returned, the West Dean brochure had arrived detailing their Summer School. So guess what? Dorothy is doing another painting course and I am doing Lino cuts. After all that I settled to the diary and discovered that I needed to be very careful about flights home from Convergence so spent ages looking up plane times, train times, driving times to decide what to do. It is doable but I will go round to a travel agent in the next village, Mortimer, early next week and get them to cross check everything.

And as I said, we are a lot poorer but it should be fun.