Learn weaving basics or hone your skills with this invaluable guidebook Originally published in 1984 (under the name Learning to Weave with Debbie Redding), Learning to Weave is now on the verge of its 40th Anniversary in print. This unparalleled study guide teaches readers to weave on four shaft looms, whether they are learning from scratch or honing their skills. Written with a mentoring voice, each lesson includes friendly, straightforward advice and is accompanied by illustrations and photographs. Budding floor and table loom weavers need only to approach this subject with a sense of adventure and willingness to learn such basics as step-by-step warping, basic weaving techniques, project planning, reading and designing drafts, the basics of all the most common weave structures, and many more handy hints. Beginners will find this guidebook an invaluable teacher, while more seasoned weavers will find food for thought in the chapters on weave structures and drafting.

This book features the original sample collection and handwritten drafts of the talented, early 20th century weaver, Bertha Gray Hayes of Providence, Rhode Island. She designed and wove miniature overshot patterns for four-harness looms that are creative and unique. The book contains color reproductions of 72 original sample cards and 20 recently discovered patterns, many shown with a picture of the woven sample, and each with computer-generated drawdowns and drafting patterns. Her designs are unique in their asymmetry and personal in her use of name drafting to create the designs. Bertha Hayes attended the first nine National Conferences of American Handweavers (1938-1946). She learned to weave by herself through the Shuttle-Craft home course and was a charter member of the Shuttle-Craft Guild, and authored articles on weaving.

This vintage book contains an extensive collection of patterns for hand-weaving, including designs from the John Landes Drawings in the Pennsylvania Museum, with drafts and notes by Mary Meigs Atwater. This catalogue of patterns will be of considerable utility to those with a keen interest in hand-weaving, and would make for a worthy addition to collections of related literature. Mary Meigs Atwater was an extremely important figure in the revitalisation of hand-weaving in the early twentieth century, and is often described as the ‘Dean of American Hand-Weaving'. Many antiquarian books such as this are increasingly rare and expensive, and it is with this in mind that we are republishing this vintage book now in an affordable, modern edition complete with a new prefatory biography of the author.