Reno Fiber Guild had a slow start to their regular guild program year because of a recent fire near Mt. Rose. However, we were rewarded with a nice October meeting in which Judy Hilbish was our guest speaker.
Judy is a weaver with over 50 years experience. Her focus for many years has been weaving rugs and assorted weft faced, summer and winter pieces on Heidi, her much adapted counter marche loom. Judy studied the shaft switching device devised by Peter Collingwood in his book, Rug Weaving Techniques: Beyond the Basics and set about to make one for her loom. She revised the instructions and decided to make a device for half blocks. This allowed her 180 blocks on her four shaft loom.
Judy explained that the technique she uses allows her to make curves (see the rug she is holding in the photo), but not circles. The half block system allows smaller steps when making a curved design. In the photo above, her cat approves the design and feel of a newly woven rug. Judy says he claws almost everything except her rugs - so he has great appreciation for them too!
In an arduous trip to view some petroglyphs near Virginia City, Judy, her husband and their guide got stuck in mud. Her rug (shown below) reflects the memories of that day with the tire tracks around the red motifs in her design.
If you would like to learn more about shaft switching, you can download the Peter Collingwood book in pdf format for free. On-Line Digital Archive of Documents on Weaving and Related Topics (The link takes you to books with authors last names starting with C. Look for Collingwood.)
Another excellent resource is a DVD done by Jason Collingwood. Rug Weaving: Block Weaves and Shaft Switching. You can find this at a variety of online weaving stores and sometimes on E-Bay.
You can buy Judy's wall hangings, table runners, etc at third Thursday sales at the Generator in Reno.