Bead Leno Workshop

Yesterday was the first meeting in 2009 of the New Hampshire Weavers Guild.

Patricia Morton taught an excellent morning workshop on Bead Leno. I attended the workshop mainly because a weaving buddy of mine has been weaving bead leno lately, and Dust Bunnies Under My Loom has some recent posts about it too. Try as I might, I could not picture how it worked without seeing it in action.

The workshop was great! Patricia started at the beginning, explained the basics and then built on the basics to cover ways various weavers have used bead leno. I felt like I really understood it by the end of the workshop (which is no small feat with me!!)


Plus she had many samples and finished objects by several talented weavers for us to look at and pass around the class. She also thoroughly reviewed the literature and provided a great bibliography.

Bead Leno and Basketweave

As if that weren't enough, she had two looms set up, one with 4 shafts and one with 8, where we could try weaving bead leno. It's a really weird feeling to weave it - because as the yarns twist around the weft it feels really strange to try to pack it in with the beater.

Beads between reed and heddles (top view)

Shed with beads down and floating selvedges


Constricted shed with beads in action

I left the class totally fired up to weave a summer project with bead leno. I even managed to buy yarn at the yarn table that I hope will work well for what I have in mind. (Note that I'm not promising to weave it this summer.....although it will be nice if I do!)

8H Bead Leno with Blocks so bead leno and half basketweave can weave independently

There were lots of books and even some weaving equipment for sale on the yarn table.

I didn't photograph the library, but I love libraries, and the guild library is no exception!!

We meet at the beautiful Kimball-Jenkins Estate in Concord, NH. I was surprised at my first guild meeting a few years ago to see close to 100 people in attendance. I was picturing something much smaller! Fun stuff!!