I've been weaving on ad off for twenty two years or so and except for several moths of lessons at the beginning have been self taught. This is incredibly ironic because I am a big fan of formal education.
Go figure; it never seemed to bubble up to the top of the list of Important Things to take a weaving class. There are plenty of good books on weaving to learn from and I have read many and owned more, including the rug bible, appropriately enough titled "The Techniques of Rug Weaving." The son of the guy who wrote it teaches rug weaving classes every summer which sell out more or less as soon as the hosting institution announces them. This year I managed to sign up for the one in Harrisville in time. I have learned an incredible amount and have been having a very good time.
Harrisville is a very interesting place and is one of the best preserved early industrial villages in the U.S. (so they say). It is gorgeous and incredibly untouristy. In fact, they try very hard to just do their work and go about their business without attracting any attention as they are afraid essentially that any observation will change that which is observed. The guy who owns Harrisville Designs who is also the president of the board of the local historical society gave us a talk today at lunch time about how Harrisville managed to preserve its essential nature and keep from going bankrupt. It involved a large measure of vision and a medium measure of luck. I already told Terry it's a good thing we just bought a house in Exeter or I would be agitating for us to move to Harrisville; it's that charming.
I will post pictures when I get home and am not free-loading off a neighbor of the bed and breakfast who has not password protected his wifi. Thank you, Nathan.
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