How a Class is Born

Presented without comment.

Some months previous, I had committed to teach at a schola way down I-95--they were looking for embroidery classes, so I offered up my disquisition on the styles of embroidery and other embellishments you find on 14th-century purses (a class which was spawned by realizing that making a pouch with a single or nué motif on it was wrongity wrong wrong). The super-nice thing about this was that it didn't matter how fried I might or might not be by that point; the class was together, the handout complete, and I'd just have to run off some more copies of it on the big shiny fast color copiers at work.  

However. There were some empty spots in the schedule, we heard at 12th Night, so I, um, kinda, sorta, stuck my beak in.  

This wasn't quite as sucker-ish as I make it sound; I have wanted for some time to properly put together a tablet-woven edge class--I cobbled together a demo/class a few Pennsics ago (didn't even have my handout together), and even as half-assed as it was, it had a lot of attendance and people seemed to Want More.   And as we have seen, I produce far more reliably if I have a public (or equivalent) commitment I need to meet.  So, it's really a certain amount of gaming my own system.

My deliverables, as it were, are:

• 6 kits for students, each of which would include--
• Two pieces of fabric, to simulate the gown/pouch/whatevs
• Two or four (decide!) cards, cut out of old playing cards, with holes punched in, for the tablets
• Eight or sixteen (decide!) strands of DMC floss for the warp, cut to appropriate lengths (and bundled so as not to tangle)
• Floss and needle for the weft
• String, cord, or lace so the students can attach their warp to some reasonably immovable object*
• A handout (sufficient copies thereof) which contains:
• A brief overview of tablet-weaving
• Examples/pointers of extant tablet-woven edges
• A few words on the Herjolfsnes tablet-woven edges, which I just found out about, and which are apparently completely different, and now Imma have to try those somewhere, argh
• Detailed instructions so the students can pick up the handout four months later having forgotten the whole class, and have a decent shot at doing it themselves
• A bilbo bibliography
• Probably a stiff drink.

* Finding ways for a half-dozen people to warp up is going to be tricky, particularly since you never know what is going to be in a room at any given event.  I had originally been going to get this class together for this past Pennsic, and I spent a fair amount of skull sweat on the problem--we actually came up with the bright idea of a dog collar with multiple rings that one could buckle around the center pole of the tent, and each weaver could radiate out therefrom; but I think that idea reads better than it lives and it definitely won't be useful in a school or church or whatever it is.

So other than the "how are we setting up our looms" question, the kits will be pretty straightforward.  I have infinite scrap fabric, oh yes I do, and rather a lot of cotton floss, and a bunch of needles I never use, and there's a pack of cards I never use around here somewhere. Most of the woe will be trying to get the handout together; this is a non-trivial brain task, and work isn't leaving me a lot of brain right now.  But at least I know it all--I just have to get it onto pages and organized.