Greater Lansing Weavers Guild

The GLWG Weaving Study Group has been a Guild activity for years. The group membership has fluctuated from 12 members or more to 3 or 4. The group participants discuss their interests, someone suggests a topic and thru consensus, the group decides on their study topic for the next year. Over the years, this group has studied twills, crackle and borders among some possibilities.

This year, the suggestion for studying Freeform Design came from a couple of guild members. Over the past few years these members have been discussing putting motifs and/or borders on their weavings. Not having multiple harness looms they were looking for some other simpler techniques. A few years ago, they had participated in a workshop with Su Butler: "Easy Pickup" with the Ontario Guild, for 4 harness looms, but it didn't quite fill the bill as to what they were seeking. You can check out Su Butler's web site for her course description, etc: Su based a lot of her instruction on Erica de Ruiter's work: "Weaving on Three Shafts" and "Easy Pick-up Patterning On Two, Three & Four Shafts". Su Butler: http://www.subudesigns.com/currentworkshops.cfm.

These same guild members already own Nancy Searles book: The Technique of Freeform Design" as Searles provides instruction for 4 shaft looms, and this year it was suggested to try this out and work with it...and so they are. They have continued to work with it and thus their suggestion to the study group to join them in this endeavor.