Author name: ozweaver

The Wednesday Group held a 3-day tapestry retreat with Susan Martin Maffei and Archie Brennan at the end of April.  It was a wonderful workshop, an escape into the Catskills just outside Woodstock, NY, where we lived together at the secluded house of one of our members, sharing meals , working hard each day and sleeping ‘slumber party style’ each night.  We brought food to share, tapestries to critique, and lots of materials for weaving. Our hostess took great care of us with her fabulous cooking and generous hospitality.

Betty Vera, who lives nearby, came to visit for lunch on the first day. She is half way down the table on the right side of photo.  Susan and Archie are at the far end.

We spent the three days reviewing tapestry techniques, mostly how to create smooth angles and revisiting the ‘stealing’ technique.  By the end we were all creating smooth curves with stealing.  I hope to write more on this shortly!  As a finale to the workshop, at our last dinner together we each brought a coin with our name taped to it and tossed it on to the generously full table of food. Now we will each create a small tapestry depicting whatever was within a short radius of our coin.  We spent the end of the workshop creating and practicing ideas for these small tapestries which might someday hang together as “Helen’s Buffet” or “Helen’s Feast” in honor of our hostess!

The highlight of the retreat was being able to buy the first copies of the long awaited DVD on tapestry techniques!  It is an 8-disc set that comes with a booklet.  Gary Benson and  Wed. Grouper Sarah Doyle have worked hard to complete this project. The DVD is in production now and should be available to everyone soon!