Weaving involves a lot of calculations. So many, that it often seems like there are more calculations than there is actual weaving. Even after you calculate, it’s still one big experiment that could turn out fantastic, or crash and burn. One such type of weaving experiment is collapse weave.
Collapse weave is essentially weaving with fibers with different levels and/or directions of twist. Once the woven piece meets water, the yarns with more twist shrink, causing the other yarns to pucker.
This past weekend I attended the Conference of Northern California Handweavers with my primary focus being to take Peggy Osterkamp’s class on collapse weave. It was a great session to learn all the calculations and tips and tricks. It was amazing to flip through all of Peggy’s samples* (like the one above) and see so many beautiful projects using this technique. It has opened my brain to so many ideas…
And of course resulted in a rather abundant yarn harvest! I can not wait to test out this technique and see what comes of the ideas floating in my head.
*Peggy Osterkamp is my weaving hero. The guru that I seek when I’m stumped or have a question, or when I have an idea that I want to talk through. Someday soon I hope to dedicate a proper blog post about her work and why I seek her influence in mine. In the meantime, have a look at her gallery here.
