weaving INSIDE STORY
THE
WINTER AWAY
STORY AND PHOTOS BY SARA JEWELL Loom and yarn. Warp and weft. Heddle and shuttle. Reed and shed. Claire and Dawn. The two instructors of this day-long weaving workshop were friendly and enthusiastic as six women gathered inside the Barrachois Community Centre near Tatamagouche to be introduced to the pleasure, possibly the addiction, of weaving.
Above: A table loom holds a completed warp, pulled tight and ready for the weft to be woven in. Below: Weaving workshop instructors Claire Drinnan and Dawn Miller with Sisterhood Fibres wool shop owner Faith Drinnan.
Outside the Barrachois Community Centre, workshop participants show off their weavings.
The terms were strange, and until we were actually working with the yarn, they made little sense. But by early afternoon, when Claire beamed and declared, “You are weaving!” We didn’t really need to know the terms of the process and the equipment; we were simply following the back-and-forth rhythm of our simple designs, letting the yarn and fabric guide our hands and our imaginations. Faith Drinnan, owner of Sisterhood Fibres of Sand Point Road in Brule, offered this workshop as part of her summertime “Woolstock” Fibre Festival and as she welcomed us, she warned, “This is addictive. And lots of fun.”
The North Shore
ah! Winter 2018 - 20
