Pennsic was fantastic! My classes went well, and of course I took classes every day. Two are particular favorites. My favorite class was Viking Civil Engineering. We learned about period measuring methods, and then laid out a scale model of Trelleborg - a ring fort in Denmark. We laid out the circular wall, the roads that cross in the middle, and one of the buildings. Everyone took turns measuring, and in the end, it was exactly right.
It made me want build a real model of the whole fort.
My other favorite class was learning to set up and weave on a warp weighted loom. Now that's a loom I could learn to love!
The first day we set up the warp:
The second day we threaded the heddles and wove some cloth:
We only wove a simple tabby, but it felt like such a wonderful accomplishment. I had expected setting up a warp weighted loom would be more difficult than a rigid heddle loom. It was easier. Well, maybe not easier, just different. And very easy to understand. We made some mistakes along the way, before we understood how to add the warp threads into the tablet weaving (see the wider spaced threads?) but it worked, and we learned from the mistakes. My next piece I will weave with my handspun thread.
Recently, I've started to explore some
Pueblo socks. These look like nalbinding, but are different from other stitches. Some people think they are Coptic stitch, but they are different. So, I've started making samples to see if I can reproduce them. Today I bought some cotton thread to start the samples. On my next post I'll show you what I make, and then you can draw your own conclusions.
