June 2021 Newsletter

Summer Tote Bag

Designed by Amy McKnight

One of the things that I love most about rigid heddle looms is their versatility—adapt the heddle, and they can work like other looms. Add a second heddle, and you’re working with a 3-shaft loom. Use the heddle differently, and you can weave the warp-faced bands associated with the Inkle loom. Switch to a variable dent reed, and you’re creating fabric with multiple setts.

For this tote bag, we’ll use the Variable Dent Reed and the Cricket Loom to create amazingly textured cloth. We will also use a section from the reed by itself to create warp-faced bands for the bag handles.

Amy McKnight is a fiber artist living in Lexington, NC. She enjoys creating all manner of textiles from clothing to wall hangings. Amy is at her best teaching people how to create and has taught thousands of people the basics of sewing, weaving, and fiber art through in-person classes, social media posts, and videos. You can find her on Instagram.com: @amydmcknight

Find the pattern here!

The Story of the Schacht Sheep

Learn about the Schacht Sheep and how our logo came to be! Our most recent version of the Schacht Sheep was painted by Christine Pistone. We printed this beautiful painting on our Schacht Sheep Greeting Cards.

(originally printed in our 50th anniversary catalog)

In 1971, Barry and his friend Burt Gold were touring Ireland by car when Barry spotted this group of sheep on a hillside just outside of Dublin. He leaned out of the car window and snapped this photo in the morning mist. We started using the sheep as our logo shortly after he returned to Colorado.

Even though the photo was in color, we first used a black-and-white image because we could not afford color printing. In the early years, the logo appeared on decals and metal plaques that were applied to our products. In the late 1980s, we started woodburning the logo into our products—a marking that’s stuck.

Read the full article here!

Doubleweave Tool Holder made in our Two Heddle Doubleweave Course

Two Heddle Doubleweave Course Launch

Join us starting June 17th, when Jane Patrick reveals the mysteries of doubleweave! This is the second class of our Two Heddle series.

Your rigid heddle loom can do more than you ever imagined when you add another heddle. It’s even capable of doubleweave, where you weave two layers of cloth at the same time. Use doubleweave to create open-sided pockets, one-sided pockets, and tubes. Jane uses all of these techniques in her Doubleweave Tool Holder. Learn a fascinating weave structure while you make a handy accessory for your weaving area. Jane takes you through warping two heddles, then weaving three types of doubleweave, then finishing the tool holder. You’ll also get a bonus lesson on how to sample.

Sign up for the course here!

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