Overview: students will learn how to plan and prepare a warp, how to set up the loom and weave a sampler. This is a course for those who want to be independent after just one course and able to plan and weave beautiful self-colored and multi-colored objects.

Program: calculating and preparing the warp, dressing the loom, drafting and weaving samples.

First sampler: Designing a three-color woolen warp; weaving samples with vertical and horizontal bands and regular and irregular tartan patterns, using weft yarns with different textures, weights and colors. Designing and calculating a neck opening for a simple garment, making a scale model if necessary. Fringes and other finishing techniques; how to make weaving records and file samples. Designing simple hand-woven objects.

Optional second sampler (with a self-colored cotton warp): hand-manipulating techniques; leno and Brook bouquets, laid-in weave, weft floats, clasped wefts, and the Sardinian pibiones technique (a looped short-pile weave).

NB. I have occasionally been asked by owners of two-shaft floor looms to teach them how to use them. This course is perfectly suitable for them as well, with a minimum preliminary instruction on how to dress the loom and its advantages over a rigid-heddle loom.