Alison Irwin Duncan, BC email (250) 746-6330

Alison Irwin has been part of the weaving community on Vancouver Island for more than thirty years. Her formal introduction to it was a night school class taught at the local high school. The students in those sessions wove on small Salish-style upright looms. Several of Alison’s projects have appeared in Handwoven magazine, so weavers beyond BC’s borders may also be familiar with her work.

Workshops

Not So Plain After: All Spend a day exploring the simplest of weave structures and discover why plain weave merits more time both on and off the loom. With Alison as your guide, you’ll meet colour-and-weave combinations, colour gamps, inkle bands, doubleweave pick-up, and Kumihimo braids. Play with fine threads, strips of paper, and narrow bands of wood veneer. Learn how to make your plain weave projects extraordinary by manipulating the usual up-down, over-under order of the warp and weft yarns. Plain weave? It’s not so plain after all!

• A Good Deal More On Four: an introduction to doubleweave pick-up, mock satin damask, and finnweave done on one warp),
• Inkle Bands 201: Bands With Hands: pebble weave threading with pick-up
• Wild Things! Kongo Gumi braids inspired by nature
• Reading, ‘Riting, ‘Rithmetic: learn how to do the necessary paperwork for a woven project