An Introduction to Weaving for Beginners | Podcast Episode #87

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Do you have scraps of yarn everywhere you look?

You are not alone my friend! I found my guest on a quest to use up the little bits of yarn lying around my studio. You know those little quarter skeins you try to stuff away when you don’t have the heart to throw them out? Since I don’t have enough for a full knit or crochet project, this led me to think outside the box and look to other fiber arts as a solution. Today we’re going to explore the world of weaving together!

Special Guest

I’m joined by Kate from MarquisWeaves, a talented maker and Etsy shop owner in the weaving space. She generously shares the very basics – just what a beginner needs to know to dabble or give weaving a try.

Episode Transcript

Brittany:
Hello there and thank you so much for joining me in episode 87 of the BHooked podcast. I’m thrilled that you’re here. I’m sure you’ve already read the title to this episode. And yes, we are going to talk about weaving today.

Now please hear me out before you go switching to another podcast episode. I think you will enjoy this one. And here’s the reason. Have a look around right now, especially if you’re at your home. How many bits of yarn, maybe little pieces of skeins, do you see just by looking around? Now, I’m here in my studio, and I don’t know about you, but I can see far more than I care to admit.

Well, that’s the thing. As a knitter and as a crocheter, we go through partial skeins, and then what do we do with them? It’s still good yarn. We don’t want to throw it away. But sometimes there just isn’t a project or there isn’t enough yarn to complete a project with that little scrap.

So for me, I got my wheels turning and I started thinking, okay, well… What are some other ways that I could potentially use this yarn? Maybe it’s not knitting, and maybe it’s not crocheting something. Maybe it’s some other kind of craft.

Well, I was doing a little bit of Instagram stalking and stumbled upon a page that really inspired me. Now, my guest today is Kate from Marquee Weaves, and she has some beautiful wall hangings that she weaves. So I got to thinking… I wonder if this would be a good way to start using up some of my scraps. And I know if I’m in this boat, somebody is right here with me, and I’m thinking that somebody is you.

So in today’s show, I want to introduce you to a really wonderful maker in the space of weaving. Her name is Kate, and she so generously shares all sorts of beginner tips for us. And you’ll hear that on today’s show.

Now because we are talking about weaving, you will notice that Kate gives us tons of resources, different places where we can actually get the fibers, and a lot of us are in the position that we probably don’t need them. We have tons of yarn. But if you do, and perhaps you don’t want to stick to an animal fiber, she does give a lot of animal fiber recommendations, but I know a lot of us have some allergies, and in that case, I’ve been doing a little browsing on Red Heart’s website.

As you know, Red Heart has been sponsoring this podcast for several episodes and will throughout the rest of this year. So big thanks to them, of course, but they do have some really great products. So I was looking through some of their yarns, thinking about a wall hanging that I would like to make for my studio, maybe even one for the living room.

And I got to thinking how I could pair some of their more unique yarns in a wall hanging. Well, I came up with three yarns that I think would look beautiful together, and I want you to check them out if you think this is something that you’ll try in the future.

So Red Heart Irresistible is a really chunky, it’s actually a number seven jumbo. It’s sort of like a new yarn category. Well, that Irresistible yarn is in this jumbo category, and it has a great texture to it as well as some great colors. I think it would look wonderful, wonderful in a wall hanging for a weaving project.

Well, then I got to thinking, okay, so that’s a pretty smooth yarn. I want something a little bit messier looking. And I thought about Hygge. We used Hygge a couple of weeks ago in a crochet along, and I’ve got this blanket that honestly, my husband and I tend to fight over a little bit as it’s starting to get colder because it’s such a warm and soft blanket.

Well, Hygge has sort of like these little fuzzies, we’ll say, that come out of it. And it’s really, really soft. And it just has, it’s full of great texture. So pairing Irresistible with Hygge.

And then I thought, okay, we need some great color as well. I mean, color is sort of my thing. Long color transitions. That’s what I love. That’s what I’m drawn to. So Colorscape.

So check out those three yarns if you’re looking to use Red Heart yarn. Maybe if you want to get something new for a wall hanging that you’ll make as a result of learning what you will right here on today’s show.

So just to give you a rundown of how this episode plays out, we do talk a little bit about her story, her business, and how it came about because I was just really interested in how she started out, what drew her to weaving, what made her decide to turn it into a business, and what does that look like for her.

So that’s the first 10 minutes or so of the episode. And right after that, we talk nothing but beginner weaving. All right. Are you ready? Let’s hear from Kate. Kate, welcome to the show. I’m so excited to have you here.

Kate: 6:32
Thank you for having me. It is my pleasure. I have to give you a little backstory here before we get started. I stumbled upon your page on Instagram. Honestly, I think you may have come up in just one of the fiber hashtags, and I saw one of your pieces and just absolutely fell in love with it. So I dug into your profile and I’m looking through and I was just amazed at how I just love your style. I love the pieces to the point where I took a screenshot and I sent it to my sister and I was like, I love need this. It’s beautiful. Unfortunately for me, that piece had already sold, but I’ve been sort of internet stalking you ever since, telling my husband that we will have one of your pieces in our house at some point. So long story, I’m delighted to have you here today.

Brittany: 6:48
Well, thank you so much. It’s always fun to hear when people have found me on Instagram, and it’s still a surprise when I hear people say that. But yes, that’s amazing. Thank you so much.

Kate: 7:28
So you’re quite different than the typical guests that I would have here on the show, but you’re still a fiber artist at the core. You still love fiber, but your art form is just slightly different than us knitters and crocheters. And I think the world that you’re in is different—a really good pivot point or maybe even a hobby for us knitters and crocheters.

It’s always good to have a break from our typical routine of the same motions. Maybe we have some hand or wrist fatigue from doing those things. And I think what you do would be perfect for us. So tell us a little bit about what you do.

Brittany: 8:49
Yeah, so you’re totally right. I think it’s a great alternative to just knitting and crocheting, especially if you have a whole bunch of half skeins or little bits of leftover here and there. All of that can be used in weaving.

So I use a simple frame loom. There are tons of different looms out there, depending on how in depth you want to get. But a tapestry loom or a frame loom is probably the easiest way to get started. And you can, like I said, you can really use anything. There’s no requirements for how much of one color you use or what type of yarn you use.

So that’s the really nice thing about weaving is you can just pull from your entire stash and not have to go out and buy a whole bunch of new yarn. That’s probably, that was one of the harder things getting into weaving for me was because I don’t knit or crochet. So I had no yarn. So I had to go out and buy yarn.

And I still have some of that yarn actually that I started with because I don’t use a ton of the same color for each single project. So you can really use small amounts and they’ll go really far.

Brittany: 9:28
Well, you definitely have my interest there. I’ve been doing a little bit of cleaning around my studio, and I have an entire box. It’s like a medium-sized box that’s full of just little bits and pieces of skeins that I have used and didn’t use all of it. And honestly, I’m to the point where I don’t know what to do with it. I don’t want to get rid of it, but at the same time, I really don’t want to… like wind it all up.

And so I really just don’t know what to do. This sounds like it could be a great solution for that. And I know that knitters and crocheters, we have like little bits of yarn probably coming out our ears.

Kate: 10:09
Yes, totally. Weaving is perfect for that. Obviously, it depends on the project that you’re wanting to do. I mainly, I actually, I only weave wall hangings, but you can make pretty much anything from pillows to purses to scarves and rugs and jewelry.

If you really get into the jewelry world that uses very small amounts. So even if you only have inch, two inch, three inch scraps, you can use all of that. So yeah, it’s definitely weaving is the perfect project if you have a you can’t make a pair of mittens or a full scarf with.

Brittany: 10:18
Well, that is definitely me and a lot of my audience too. So if you didn’t knit or crochet before, what got you into weaving?

Kate: 10:18
I have always had, I’m a very tactile person and I’ve always loved yarn. I’ve tried knitting and crocheting in the past and I could never get past making like half of a scarf. So it just never really took with me.

And I’m a photographer as well. So that has been my creative medium for the past 10, 15 years. But I guess this is a good time to kind of tell how I got into weaving.

I had my son just over two years ago and I had him in July, which is like right before my busy season. So I ended up taking my busy season of photography off just so I could stay home with him and absorb all of his newness and cuteness.

He was born with a couple of health problems, one of which required two surgeries to correct, so the first six months was filled with a lot of doctor’s appointments and everything like that. So I ended up walking away from photography for the most part.

It was really—it was a hard decision, but I wanted to be home more with him and not be behind a computer screen and not be gone in the evenings for photo shoots and on the weekends.

So I bought a frame loom four years ago, and it just kind of sat in my closet. Between getting married and moving and having a kid, I just never found time to pull it out and learn.

But I was sitting there with my son and thinking, oh, well, you know what? Weaving has become really prominent the last decade, couple of years since I bought the loom. Maybe I can learn and make a few here and there and make enough just to help start helping with his medical bills.

Because I didn’t have an option. I had to go back to work in some capacity. So I was like, well, I’ll just try weaving and see how it goes. So I pulled out my frame loom. I watched a couple of online tutorials.

And within a couple of weeks, I had friends and family being like, hey, that looks really cool. Can I have one? And so the ball got rolling really fast. And it’s kind of been a whirlwind that was just over a year and a half ago.

And it’s just—it’s been really fun learning and doing business while I learn.

Brittany: 12:41
Yeah, I think one of the most prominent things that I noticed in looking at your Instagram page is seeing that you have a very consistent style and almost like the brand. Whenever I see a photo of a wall hanging that I know is a weaving project, I can immediately identify if it’s yours.

And that’s because you have a similar photography style and you—you just have your style figured out. How on earth were you able to just figure that out and hold on to that? I know I struggle with that a lot personally.

Kate: 13:19
Yes. So when I sat down to learn weaving, the nice thing about weaving is it can be very basic and very simple. Working on a frame loom. You can get into floor looms and it becomes much more involved. But for frame loom weaving, there’s just a few basic techniques. And then once you learn those, it’s just a matter of playing with them and finding your style.

I’m a very type A person, so I really wanted to develop a style that was organic and not focused on having level rows and geometric patterns and counting strings and getting really caught up in all of those details that the perfectionist in me would just be constantly focused on. So I really wanted to find an organic style that I could just go. There were no rules. I didn’t have to use a certain amount of yarn. I could just build some waves and just go with the flow and not work off of a pattern just to allow myself some creative freedom and not be so caught up on the technical aspects of everything.

And so I just I learned the basics and I just kind of in my head, I go, OK, so this is kind of the direction that I want to go. And I’m a business person. So most of my creative decisions are also driven by my business decisions.

So for a business, you really in order to have a successful brand you want to be consistent so your customers know what they’re getting. And for me I needed to have a solid enough style that when I could do custom orders without people seeing my work beforehand or their piece beforehand if that makes sense.

Brittany: 16:28
Yeah, totally. Because a lot of my business is run off of made-to-order pieces. So I needed to have a consistent enough look to where when people order a piece as made-to-order, they need to know what they’re getting, even without seeing exactly what they’re getting.

Kate: 16:41
So I just wanted to make sure that my style was consistent enough that when people say hey I would love one of these for my wall, you know these are the colors of my room, I can go yeah okay so these colors would look great together, you know here’s the size that would work for that space. You pay up front and then I’ll make it and send it to you and I’ll make sure you’re in love with it. But they don’t actually see the piece before they buy the piece.

But because my style is—I have a signature style—they know kind of the feel of what they’ll be getting. So I think that’s been a really important aspect to my brand specifically, because I don’t have a ton of ready-to-ship pieces. It was really important to me early on to kind of figure out my style and then make sure it’s consistent.

Brittany: 16:28
Yeah, that is brilliant. I have to say, did you… Did you know that’s why you were finding your style or did you learn that that was maybe the best way to go? Does that make sense?

Kate: 16:41
Yeah. I kind of knew before getting into weaving that I really liked the organic shapes of things. Geometric weavings are amazing and they’re beautiful, but it’s not, I wouldn’t put one in my house just because that’s not really my style. I’m a much more farmhouse kind of bohemian vibe. So organic pieces worked really well with my style. So I just kind of gravitated towards that.

So when I… Like I said, I’m a very business-minded person with my photography business. So that was really helpful kind of making the transition because I really just needed to learn the creative side of things versus also having to learn business from scratch. So that was kind of an easy transition for me, turning another creative venture into an actual business.

Brittany: 17:35
Yeah. I think a lot of us makers can definitely pull from that inspiration—that if you are making ready-to-made orders, then developing a style and having a consistency in that is really a smart way to go. Because like you said, your customers know what to expect from you and you can work with them outside of that. So cool tip. That is really, really interesting. Thank you.

So this became a business for you. It sounds like early on. What did that process look like? Did it just develop from friends and family saying, hey, I want one of these? Or did you say, man, I’ve really got something here. I love this and I love business. So let’s marry the two.

Kate: 18:21
It was a little of both. So I started weaving in February, right before my son’s first surgery. And for me, it was kind of an outlet to take my mind off of the surgery. His surgery was the first one—it was almost a 10 hour wait. So I was just weaving the whole time. And it was a really good creative outlet for me.

And after that, I just kind of discovered like this is, this is a healthy and really enjoyable outlet. And because he was, he was about eight months old, so he was still a baby and he wasn’t too mobile at that point, so it was an easy thing for me to do when he was taking a nap or just playing next to me.

So like I mentioned, I just started sharing on my personal Instagram page and I had friends and family message and just be like hey that’s really cool, you know how much are you charging? I was like I don’t know, I wasn’t even really anticipating selling these so fast, but if you guys are liking them I guess, you know, I’ll just go for it.

So within about a month, I had enough people from various platforms, Facebook, Instagram, my personal life. I decided, you know what, I wasn’t planning on starting an online account so quickly, but I need a way to organize all of these orders that are coming in. And I need to streamline it because I had notebooks full of orders and it was just becoming a bit of a chaotic disorganized mess.

So I opened an Etsy account. Etsy is a great platform for those who are just starting out and don’t really want to take on building a website and everything. So I opened up a shop and I started putting custom orders on there.

And within a few months I would say probably by July, I started feeling comfortable enough with my style that I could put up made-to-order listings where people could see, okay, so, you know, you did a rainbow and that’s what it looks like. So I know that I’m not going to get that exact piece, but the piece that I order will look similar to that.

So by July, I started listing made-to-order pieces and all of a sudden orders started coming in. I eventually started a separate Instagram account so all of my personal followers didn’t have to be bombarded with weaving things all the time, and I set up a little—exactly.

And yeah, so it was kind of just a natural progression. And it took a few months to get rolling. Etsy is a beast when it comes to learning how to navigate all of their just the platform in general. So that was a bit of a learning curve that I had to work with.

And there are tons of tools out there that teach you how to run a successful Etsy shop. And getting going can be a little difficult, but if you use other social media platforms like Pinterest and Instagram, you can get the ball rolling.

Brittany: 21:52
Yeah, we can all definitely relate to that. We did an episode, like an entire episode, just on Etsy tips for makers a couple weeks back, and it was a big hit. I know that is definitely a hot topic for people here, especially in this community.

So that’s cool that you were able to start that almost right away and make it work for you as a business. I think you’re a great person to be able to chat with to help sort of introduce us to this world of weaving. I’m sure a lot of us here have heard it or seen it, but if you’re anything like me, you’ve never done it before.

So I know you mentioned a few projects at the beginning, like different types of projects. I know for me, wall hanging seemed very obvious because that’s what I see a lot of, but I think there’s a big potential to do so many other things with weaving.

So with your experience, what are some of some good projects maybe for beginners to try?

Kate: 22:51
So wall hangings is probably the easiest way to get into weaving because there’s no sewing involved. But with your audience, there may be people who are more familiar with sewing.

If you are, pillows are the next thing that I would play into. I’ve never made one myself. But I know a lot of other beginner weavers have ventured into that territory. And it’s just a matter of sewing it onto some backing and making a pillowcase of sorts.

But you can also do like a purse, the front of a purse or an entire purse and just put lining in the center of it. You can do jewelry. With floor looms or table looms you can make rugs and scarves and like baby carriers if you are familiar with baby wearing—all of those things you can weave.

So it just depends on how in depth you want to get into the weaving world.

Brittany: 23:54
I would imagine too that maybe some of the yarn that we have on hand, like for me, I like to knit and crochet in like a worsted weight, which is a medium weight. It’s pretty average, like a relatively thin yarn, probably in the world of weaving, but pretty comfortable for knitters and crocheters to work up a little faster.

So I’m thinking that maybe do I need to consider… the fiber types that I have and the yarn that I have available when choosing the project? Or can it really go in any direction? Yes and no.

Kate: 24:26
It can go both ways. So in the world of weaving, acrylic is not as popular just because it has a lot of stretch to it typically. And when you’re weaving, you want something that isn’t going to lose its shape once the tension is cut and it’s off the loom.

So you can certainly use acrylic yarn. It just may not hold up as well depending on the style of weaving that you’re doing. For me, I tend to prefer all natural fibers. I like the feel of them. I like the look of them. Acrylic oftentimes comes with chemicals and—We’re a very natural family, and because I’m working with yarn all day long, I’m very conscious about what’s on my yarn and what’s being absorbed into my body.

So I kind of steer away from acrylics, but if you’re just getting into it or you have acrylic yarn on hand, you can certainly use it, and you’ll find what works and what doesn’t work.

I like working with really bulky, chunky, textured yarns just so it has a variety of textures and 3D levels when you’re looking at it on the wall. So my base yarn is usually worsted or bigger, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t do one with just worsted.

So you might have to find some—there are, because weaving has become very popular in the last couple years, there are lots of Etsy shops and small shops that sell weavers packs and fiber bundles. I sell them in my shop. And it’s just a small amount of different types of yarn.

So it’s a really good way to get one or two projects worth of yarn without having to buy 10 different skeins from a whole bunch of different shops. So weaving, weaving packs, fiber packs, bundles, whatever you want to call them, are really great to gather a lot of different types of yarn without having to buy a ton of yarn.

Brittany: 26:37
Yeah, and without knowing what yarn to pair.

Kate: 26:41
Yes. Yeah. It’s hard to kind of figure out what you like. Some people… So I don’t know if you guys are familiar with roving. It’s unspun yarn. So it’s really thick and it’s really fluffy. It’s what all of the giant arm knitted blankets are made out of these days, or at least most of them. I… I love working with roving. It’s one of the key components to my pieces. Some people don’t like working with it. It’s too finicky or it’s too bulky. So fiber packs are a great way to figure out what you love and what you don’t love.

Brittany: 27:16
Okay. Yeah, that makes complete sense. I… I’ve, I’ve, I can tell, I can, I can see the roving in your projects and I personally love that too. So I think that would be a direction that I would be interested in exploring, but to that point, I wouldn’t really know what to pair with it. So it seems like a good first step for a beginner would be to maybe try to get a hold of a fiber pack just so they can experience what it looks like to have a set that goes together, that works together, that — all the things. So we don’t have to try to figure out, okay, I’m into this brand new thing. I already have to learn what I’m doing. I don’t need to take on something like this too.

Now, when you get those fiber packs, are there patterns that go with this or is it sort of just off to the races and you just play around and just… figure it out on your own?

Kate: 28:14
So it depends on where you get them. The fiber packs that I sell don’t come with instructions. I don’t work off of any kind of a pattern. Like I said, my style is very organic. So I just kind of go with the flow.

But usually you’ll find instructions are sold with looms more often than fiber packs. I think most shops assume if you’re buying fiber, you probably already have a loom and you’ve taken a class or found an online source or something like that. But there are tons of online places that you can, online blogs that you can search for patterns or just you know DIY steps from one to ten on how to create a wall hanging.

Brittany: 29:01
Okay so that makes sense, cool. So let’s talk about looms for a little bit. You’ve mentioned a couple different kinds. What type of loom is good for a beginner to invest in?

Kate: 29:13
So I would say the easiest to get into is a frame loom. So you can actually—they’re really easy to make yourself if you are the hardcore DIYer and don’t want to buy anything pre-made. You can use a picture frame and put nails to it or spots into the top and bottom.

A lot of people will just go buy a canvas at any local craft store, take the canvas off, and use a wood frame that is inside the canvas.

Brittany: 29:43
Mm-hmm.

Kate: 29:43
There are several different online sources for looms. My favorite is Lost Pond. They’re on Etsy. He’s on the East Coast, and he has really affordable prices, and I really like his work.

Lindsay with Hello Hydrangea, she has some DIY plans that you can buy, and she has a really unique loom that’s really cool. It’s very adjustable. And you can actually adjust the tension throughout your project, which is really helpful, especially for beginners, because tension is a very important part of what you do—keeping your sides straight and making sure your project holds up well once it’s cut off the loom.

She sells the plans to a really unique and cool loom. And then the last, if you’re in Canada, there’s Roving Textiles. She’s up in Canada. She also has a really adjustable loom. I have one of hers and it’s definitely one of my favorites.

And then if you’re overseas, Funem Studio is in Belgium. And they also have a great reputation and have a really solid loom. So those are some different places that you can start.

I’m pretty sure Hobby Lobby sells looms. I think you can get one at Michael’s too. So you can, if you’re just wanting to dip your toes in and not spend a lot of money, you can probably find one at a local craft store.

Brittany: 31:10
Okay. Do you have an estimate of how much something like that costs? I mean, are we looking at… like hundreds of dollars or maybe just like 20? No.

Kate: 31:20
So at a local craft store, you can probably use a coupon for, you know, 50% off and pick it up for like maybe 20, $25, probably in that range. If you go from a small maker, they’re going to range from like maybe around $30 up to 300 for a giant, you know, six by six foot loom.

So it just depends on what size, but I would say you don’t need to spend more than 75 bucks to get a quality loom.

Brittany: 31:55
Okay. Have you ever heard of Knitting Board?

Kate: 32:00
I have not.

Brittany: 32:01
Okay. So this company, they make loom knitting boards and they have one loom. It’s actually their, well, it was their largest loom. I’m not sure if they’ve since come out with a bigger one, but their largest loom expands and they market it as also able to weave on it.

So I was curious if maybe you had experience with that. It’s basically a wooden frame and it has a bunch of little pegs on it. And from those pegs, you would normally knit with it. Like you’re using a little pick almost or a hook. Okay. And you’re flipping the yarn over the peg and that’s, in a sense, knitting. But… Yeah, because of the way it’s set up with the wooden frame and the pegs that go all the way around the entire thing, ideally you’re supposed to be able to weave on it too.

And so if there are listeners in the audience who have a knitting board loom, specifically this one, I’ll link to it in the show notes too, by the way. You should be able to use that, I would think. Do the pegs have to be a certain length?

Kate: 33:04
No, just enough to hold the yarn on. So warping is going to be your vertical string, and you basically just tie a knot, and I start in the upper left-hand corner, and you just go down around a peg, and then up around the top peg, and then down around the bottom peg, and just go back and forth until you have whatever width you want.

So if the frame is wide enough and has enough center space, for the size weave that you want to do I don’t see why you couldn’t use that, absolutely.

Brittany: 33:40
Oh cool yeah that’s definitely something I’ll have to try out. This one it makes a pretty large square I would say you could probably do something as large as a pillow with it so yeah I’ll have to give that a try.

So are there any other tools that you need to do a weaving project, even if it’s so simple?

Kate: 33:59
Yeah. Most of your listeners, you guys probably already have needles. You might need to find a needle that has a bigger eye hole for your chunkier yarns. But you can really get away with using things that you find around your house.

So you’ll want something to beat all of the rows down with. So usually you’d want like some kind of a comb. You can get… an actual weaving comb, or you can use a fork, or you can use a hairbrush. It really depends on like how basic you want to stay or how in-depth you want to go into the medium.

A couple of great spots for all of the tools that you could ever need. All three are on Etsy. You can find them on Etsy. Gather Hand Woven. She has beautiful wood combs and needles and shuttles. Sonora Handmade, she works with acrylic, so hot pink combs and glitter combs. My favorite needle is from her, so she’s a great spot.

And then if you’re overseas, the Unusual Pair, she is over in Australia. She also has tools and circular looms if you want to get into the circle loom world.

Brittany: 35:14
Wow.

Kate: 35:15
So those are a few spots that you can find tools. But like I said, if you’re not sure that you really want to get into this or spend a ton of money, you can just grab a fork from the kitchen and use that until you know whether or not you want to invest in it some more.

Brittany: 35:29
Yeah. Well, it sounds really practical for a lot of us to try. We might have the small cost of a loom, which if we take your advice and we go to Hobby Lobby or Michael’s, which I would definitely do because of those coupons that they have, then we can figure out if we like it and want to keep going with it. Very cool.

So we know what tools that we need. We’ve got an idea about the fiber and really the benefit of having those packs. What about… resources to learn more? Like, can we just go to YouTube and watch a video or do you have any other recommendations for us?

Kate: 36:07
Yes. So for blogs, there’s three, there’s three blogs that I have, um, gone through. So I’m kind of familiar with the first is The Weaving Loom. Second is A Beautiful Mess. And the third is The Weaving Kind.

And they all have great, uh, beginner, uh, DIY tutorials, if you can work off of just pictures and explanations. If you want something that is more—and I think a couple of them have videos.

If you’re wanting to do an actual online class, I’m a very visual person. And I was a little worried when I was getting into this that I was going to have to try and find a local workshop because I typically learn best in person, actually seeing somebody doing it in front of me. So I was a little hesitant to pay for an online class.

But I found one. I mentioned her earlier, Lindsay with Hello Hydrangea. She has a heart for teaching yoga—other people how to weave and her classes are amazing. So I took her beginners to weaving class and she went over everything that you could possibly need to know about the basics and even a little bit more in depth.

You have access to all the videos for life and it’s just $30. So it’s a really affordable way to get into it and I tried watching some free YouTube tutorials and—and it was hard to find one that was clear enough, that really showed what their hands were doing.

And I liked having all of my videos in one spot. So for me, it was just easier to purchase the one from Lindsay. And she had really clear audio and her video was great. So that’s who I recommend, really, when it comes to beginner videos. beginner weavers.

Brittany: 38:03
Awesome. Yeah, we’ll definitely have to link to that in the show notes page. I know convenience is definitely something that people are willing to pay for. So a lot of us will go out there and venture onto YouTube and find things. But like you said, at the end of the day, sometimes it’s nice just to have it all in one place.

Kate: 38:21
Absolutely.

Brittany: 38:22
So I’m wondering now about the time investment. That’s sort of like the other investment that we put into our projects. And so knitters and crocheters, we’re really used to investing time. 40 hours or more into like one single project. I know it’s going to vary from project to project and depending on the size of yarn that you’re using, but would you say that you do invest a significant amount of time in a weaving project or could it potentially be more of a quick win or gratification project? That’s a hard one. I think it kind of depends.

Kate: 38:59
From what I’ve gathered in the weaving world, I am on the quicker side of weaving. People always seem to be impressed with how quickly I can get a piece done. It doesn’t necessarily feel like it to me, but I can finish a small piece within an hour and a half. So compared to like spending 40 hours on an entire sweater, yes, this would probably be considered a much quicker win in that sense.

And when you’re just learning, obviously it’s going to take you a little bit longer to kind of figure things out and you go a little bit slower. But you can probably finish a small to medium piece under five hours, I imagine. And that’s on the high end. Once you kind of get the hang of all the different techniques and you’re not constantly going back between the videos.

And like when I first started, I had my loom next to me and I had my online class and I was pushing play, watching it for 30 seconds, going to my loom, doing whatever I just learned, and then going back and pushing play. So the learning can take a little bit depending on how quick of a learner you are. But once you have that down, it can go pretty fast. And it also depends on what kind of fibers you’re using.

Brittany: 40:13
Makes sense. I think for me, I would probably love to start with a project with chunkier yarn just so that you can get that instant gratification. For starting something new, I feel like you almost need to have in order to have a good experience.

My first knitting experience was a train wreck, to be quite honest. I thought it would be a great idea to learn how to knit a blanket for my nephew, my sister was pregnant and I thought, oh, this would be great. I’m going to make her this handmade baby blanket. I’m going to learn how to knit because, well, you have two of them. So it seems like it would be easier to hold everything together. And I was wrong in so many ways.

But like you, I’m quite a bit of a perfectionist. So as I was learning, I was making mistakes, dropping stitches, trying to put them back on, but twisting them in the process. And you could see all of these imperfections. And I didn’t want to gift something that I didn’t feel was incredible. So I would knit a few rows, make a mistake, rip the whole thing back out. And then I would knit a few more rows, make a mistake, rip the whole thing out. I did this five or six times before I finally… gave up.

And because of that, I think in that bad experience of just knitting and knitting and knitting for hours on end and never having something at the end of it, really it deterred me from going back to it for several years. So now I always preach, if you try something new, make sure you try something that one, you know you can succeed at by setting yourself up. Yeah.

Kate: 42:08
Yeah. So the great thing about Lindsay’s online classes is by the end of the, if you follow along her class exactly, you end up with a wall hanging at the end of it. So that’s one of the cool things that I really liked about hers is she wasn’t just teaching one technique. It was here are videos from start to finish. So when you’re done, you actually have a wall hanging that you can be proud of and that you can put up on the wall.

And that’s funny listening to your story about knitting and crocheting because that was exactly my experience. I would—it would be—I’d be dropping stitches on the edge and I’d get halfway through and it would be a lumpy scarf and I was just like this is just not working for me, it’s taking too long, I can never actually finish a project fully.

And I just never got past that point of frustration. Oh, man. So weaving for me is, I guess, kind of a redemption in the fiber world that I can actually sit down and finish a project without just wanting to throw it against a wall.

Brittany: 43:12
Well, I can totally relate. Well, if you ever do want to dive back into the world of knitting and crochet, I’d be happy to teach you or offer some guidance there.

Kate: 43:21
Yeah.

Brittany: 43:23
You know, me and my listeners can relate that it’s a a very peaceful experience, I guess, or meditative kind of experience. And I’m sure weaving is too, though. I think that’s one of the great things about fiber arts. We’re all sort of connected in that way that we love to work with fiber, but we all have our different preferences. And I think that’s so neat. It makes a world that’s very interesting.

Kate: 43:47
Yeah, definitely be meditative. And a lot of people, I know a lot of people gravitate towards this because it can be—you can just kind of sit, turn some music on, and just kind of go. So that is definitely one of the nice things about weaving is it can be very meditative.

You don’t—depending on the style that you’re working within, if it’s not all about counting numbers and all of that stuff, you can just kind of tune some music in and just go to town and not have to worry too much and just kind of let your hands create without being in your head too much.

Brittany: 44:24
Yeah. Yeah. And it sounds, I heard you mention earlier that you took a project with you when your son was having surgery was, so it’s pretty portable then too. It—

Kate: 44:36
Is. Yeah. My small loom is maybe nine by 15 and the legs collapsed. So it’s really, um, it’s very portable and you can put some yarn into a tote bag. In fact, I, well, it is very portable. I always have a problem with packing too much yarn.

I like we, uh, we go camping every year and I took my projects to the beach and my husband was like, you really need that much yarn to go camping. And I’m like, well, I don’t know what I’m going to want. Like I might need some more of the pink yarn or I don’t know exactly what I’m going to be creating. But I like to have my options. So it can be as portable as you need it to be.

Brittany: 45:18
Very cool. Well, that is definitely something that I just assumed, I guess, that a weaving loom was going to be huge and you really just had to keep it to your house. So that’s good to know because I’m all about portability. I’ve got things here in my studio that I like to work with, but at the end of the day, one of the big reasons why I loved knitting and crochet over some other hobbies that I dabbled in was because I could take my stuff to the living room, sit on the couch with my husband, and be present with him and still keep my hands busy. So it sounds like I can do the same thing with weaving.

Kate: 45:52
Yes. I don’t have a studio. We live in a very small house, so my studio is actually my living room. So I weave 90% of my stuff on my couch. So I do have big looms that are stationary that are giant that live in the back of our house that don’t ever leave the house. But my small one just sits right next to me and gets packed away in the evening time and pulled back out in the morning.

So yeah, a lot of people, you can weave in the car, on a train, you take the subway or really wherever you’re going. You can, Lost Ponds, I mentioned them earlier. They have some little handheld looms that you can make small pieces on that are even more portable than what I use. So it really just depends. If you’re an on-the-go person, you can certainly find a smaller loom.

Brittany: 46:43
Awesome. Okay. Well, man, this has been such an insightful conversation. I’m so glad that you were able to come on the show and share a little bit about the world of weaving with us. I know I definitely want to try making something. I do love the look of wall hangings. So I may just have to dabble and try and use up some of these little bits of yarn that I have and see where that goes. So I really appreciate your wisdom here today.

Where can people go to to learn more about you, what you have going on, see your beautiful pieces?

Kate: 47:18
So you can find me at Kate Marquis on Etsy and Instagram. And I will also have, I have my own website as well, katemarquis.com. So you can find everything you need from driftwood to hang your pieces on, to fiber packs, to the warp string.

Future plans for business? Oh, I have… I have so many big hopes and dreams. We’ll see how many actually come to pass as I’m a mom with a growing family. We currently only have one child, but there are more in the future and it will be a near future. So we are in the process of converting our detached garage into a studio. So I’m very excited about that.

Brittany: 48:01
Oh, wow.

Kate: 48:02
It’ll be great to get all of everything business related out of our garage, out of our living space, and into a studio and kind of have a separate, uh, separate life again. Right now my son has grown up with yarn all around him since he was born, so it’s going to be a little bit of a shock for him not to have yarn to play with in every single room.

But that’s kind of the next big step for what’s going on here is just expanding into the garage into a studio and having space to spread out a little bit and hopefully I’ll be able to host classes there for anyone who’s local. I’m near Portland, Oregon. So if you’re in the Pacific Northwest, you can come by and say hi.

But yeah, I plan on expanding into more home decor things. So right now, most of my business is woven wall hangings. But I love interior design. So I also make wooden bead garlands and some cool little palm hangers, pom-pom hangers. But I plan on expanding into just more home decor.

So I have a… a special line of essential oil stuff coming into the shop. I have some crystals coming into the shop. Pillows are on my to-do list of things that I would love to get into. So just kind of anything that is related to home decor will hopefully be a part of my shop in the near future. But always and forever, it will be mostly fiber.

Weaving has been… just a total godsend for me. And I’ve really loved exploring. So for the most part, it will just be continuing to expand my knowledge on that and style. And I have a big six-foot loom that I currently… don’t have space to set up in my house but I will once we convert our garage into a studio. So I can’t wait to get my hands on a six-foot-wide project because that’s just going to be amazing.

Brittany: 50:10
Oh yeah, it sounds like you have a lot of exciting things in the pipeline. So definitely best of luck in all of that. I know that you’ll achieve it if you set out for it then you’re only limited by your imagination and your creativity. So I, I’m here rooting in your corner. I would definitely love to hear about some of these changes, and I’m sure my audience would too.

I just appreciate you so much today for sharing all of your knowledge, and I think all of us are equipped to try our first project and maybe develop a new love for weaving. Yeah,

Kate: 50:44
Well, thank you so much for reaching out and having me. It’s been a joy kind of going over everything that I know, and I still feel like a new person in the weaving world. I mean, I started less than two years ago. So it’s definitely fun to just chat about all of the fiber-related goodness.

And yeah, if there are any questions in the future, I love sharing what I know. So come find me on Instagram. That’s probably the best place to chat personally. And we can go to town.

Brittany: 51:17
Yeah. Well, that sounds really refreshing, too, to hear that you don’t have to be in a particular industry or niche for a long time before you can call something your business or potentially even more than that. So congrats on all the success, thank you so much.

And there you have it. Thank you so much, Kate, for sharing the world of weaving with us today. I’m really grateful. I know I just can’t wait to get started on a weaving project and I’m sure there’s somebody in the audience who feels the same way as I do. So thank you, Kate.

Thank you, my listener, for having an open mind about this sort of episode. I know we really just like to stick to knitting and crochet and techniques and maybe some things that are business related, but every now and then we just need to share in the love of fiber and open our eyes to something new.

Now Kate mentioned a ton of different resources for you to get started if you want to make your first weaving project and please don’t feel like you have to go back and listen to the episode—I mean, unless you want to—but I did take all of those notes for you so all you have to do is head over to behookedcrochet.com/session087 and I’ve listed all of the resources right there on that page so you can just click and go to them if you want to check out some of those looms and some of those fibers.

Also, I would like you to check out redheart.com and have a look at some of the yarns and how they can pair together for the wall hanging that you might be thinking about creating. So again, those three that I’m going to try to pair are Irresistible, Hooga, and Colorscape. I really can’t wait to see how those three textures come together.

But Red Heart has tons and tons of different yarns, as you are very well aware of. And you can make some really unique pairings in that.

And the last thing I want to say here is just thank you. Thank you so much for showing up week after week. I appreciate you more than you can even realize. And it’s just a joy to know that I have somebody to come to and to share my thoughts, my advice, my share some amazing guests with you. It just really makes me happy. And that’s the bottom line.

I thank you for that. All right, my friend, I will see you next week. Same time, same place. I’ll see you there. Bye-bye.