Jacquard Fever, Again

Back from the house-hunting excursion for a day, I'm packing to drive to Chico, CA, tomorrow to take a 4-day class with Alice Schlein on using Adobe Photoshop to design for the jacquard loom.

Yeah, I've been bitten by the jacquard bug, and it's a serious case of what would be called shaft envy if it were a bigger, better floor loom I'm lusting after. However, since jacquard looms have essentially as many shafts as warp threads, it's probably more accurate to call it hook envy, or whatever the correct term is for the mechanism that lifts threads on a jacquard loom. Lots to learn!

I've got some ideas for product lines to create with a jacquard loom: one to bridge the transition from a 24-shaft dobby loom to the jacquard without too dramatic a change from the current lines of scarves and shawls, another that might turn out to be a very good bread-and-butter line of tapestries appropriate to the region we're moving to, and so on.

Our intended destination is the California Central Coast region, the area around Paso Robles and San Luis Obispo. It's one of the fastest growing wine regions in California right now. A couple of years ago, there were maybe 50 wineries; today the number is closer to 200. And every one of 'em has a gift shop where they sell wine-related goodies. Must be room in there for tapestries of grape vines, with an image of the winery's label or logo incorporated, right? Or jacquard woven wine-bottle carriers?

I'll try to post some pictures from the class - there will be lots of heads bent over laptops, and foreheads wrinkled in frustration as we struggle to learn what we need to know about Photoshop. Maybe an image or two of the new AVL jacquard loom, if permission is forthcoming. And after all, it's good advertising for AVL...