Weaving an Alpaca Shawl
Last weekend we had our first weaving class of the year. We had 6 people join us for a weekend of weaving, food, fun and alpacas.
Our Weaving on the Triangle Loom classes offer the chance to design and create your own alpaca shawl during a weekend at the farm. We start in the store on Friday evenings at 6pm to discuss design options related to size of the shawl, weight of the yarn (DK, worsted, aran or bulky), edges (fringe or crocheted), and patterns (solid, hand dyed, plaid). Once a plan is in place, everyone chooses their color(s) and we head up to the Fiber Art Studio to get started.
The first evening is dedicated to getting our shawls started and learning the weaving technique. We use the continuous strand, or continuous loop, weaving method to create the shawls, which allows us to create both the warp and weft at the same time. This is an easy to learn method that requires no previous weaving or fiber experience. We generally weave until 9 pm, giving everyone a chance to become comfortable with weaving. Last Friday, we had to stop early, though, due to a power outage right before the class started. Luckily our Fiber Studio is designed with a lot of windows which let in enough light for us to weave until right before sunset.
On Saturday and Sunday, we weave from 8am to 5pm, with breaks for lunch, snacks and just walking out to say hi to the alpacas. Sunday afternoon, we work on finishing up the weaving and getting the fringe put on around the shawls before taking them off the loom. We always end with a quick modeling of the shawl and photograph. We use those as inspiration for future classes and to put up an album on our facebook page. Weather permitting, and alpacas cooperating, we try to get pictures of the finished shawls with the alpacas in the background. You can see pictures of the most recent weaving weekend here, and previous weekends and other fiber art classes in our facebook albums.
We have two more weaving classes scheduled for this year if you would like to join us. There are still two spaces in our September class, and plenty of room in our October class. We also have multiple felting classes coming up in July and August, and a knit loom class in August. You can keep up with information about upcoming classes our “Classes” page above.
