THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 24, 1995 TAG: 9509230103
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY JENNIFER C. O'DONNELL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 152 lines
HOLLY FOX IS passionate about fabric. So much so that she designs and creates her own.
Fox spends hours a week in the workroom of her Hickory log cabin home, weaving fabrics she uses to make cloths, shawls, blankets, dishcloths and drawstring purses that require no cutting or sewing.
She does all of it with the help of her loom.
``The loom is the first computer,'' Fox said. ``It holds the threads in place and raises, lowers and separates them according to the pattern or program you design. Weaving is actually very mathematical.''
It's a rhythmic solace that attracts others, too. Fox is part of a small but industrious clan of people who loom, represented locally by the Tidewater Weavers Guild.
Some weave simply for their own enjoyment. Others, like Fox, have turned their passion into a cottage industry, with items fetching high prices at craft shows and exclusive boutiques.
Those who choose to sell their work believe the quality of their items is often underestimated by consumers.
``We seem to be our own best customers because we're the only ones that really appreciate the amount of work that goes into our projects,'' Fox said. ``It's hard to compete with the cheap textiles that are pumped in from Indonesia.''
At first sight, a $12 dish towel might seem a bit pricey. Until you feel the merchandise. The quality is unmistakable.
``It's definitely not the type of dish towel you'd find at Wal-Mart,'' said Fox. ``The cotton becomes more and more absorbent each time you wash it.''
Considering the amount of time weavers spend on a project, what compensation they might receive is trivial. Even a small woven item can take hours to complete.
Before a weaver even sits down at the loom, she must ``warp'' it, which means she must thread hundreds of needle-like spikes called heddles.
``Half the work is in preparing the loom for your next project,'' said Linda Fraile, a Chesapeake weaver who admits she's one of the few that enjoys the tedious process.
``It's my quiet time,'' she said.
This time of year, Fox spends about 12 hours a week designing and weaving bread cloths and dish towels she'll sell at numerous craft fairs and fall festivals.
As she prepares to begin her latest project, a cream-colored bread cloth with a green and tan border, she leans over her loom, takes a breath and begins her work. By all accounts, she resembles a pianist in concert.
According to Fox, a successful weaver must have good hand-eye coordination and nimble fingers. Watch a weaver at work, and you'll soon realize the process requires much more than that.
While demonstrating her technique, Fox's hands manipulate the yarns with the help of a hand-sized needle known as a shuttle. While she throws the shuttle from side to side, her feet push against several floor pedals, known as treddles in the weaving world, which are attached to the loom's numerous vertical harnesses.
The treddles raise and lower the harnesses, which in turn raise and lower a set number of threads. In order to create a texture or design, weavers must ``walk the treddles'' to a choreographed map while shuttling back and forth with their hands. Hit the wrong treddle, and the fabric pattern or texture is ruined.
``You have to push hard to move the treddles and I use as many as ten at a time,'' Fox said.
Weavers treat their looms with the same respect reserved for faithful family pets. The devices range from small, table-top looms to larger models that sit four-feet high and three-feet wide.
Technology seems to have passed the loom by. They won't fold into small, compact versions of themselves, so weavers usually end up designating a room or a portion of their living space to house their loom and yarns.
And weavers tend to be as finicky about their yarns as they are attached to their looms. For a yarn to end up on Fox's loom it must be 100 percent cotton or wool, and dyed naturally with berries or other natural dyeing agents. Because she can't find many yarns locally that meet her criteria, Fox ends up looking to mail order companies for the supplies she needs.
The results are worth her efforts. All of her creations are one-of-a-kind, some of them designed specifically for a customer. One of her latest projects, a royal blue wool shawl with silvery white specs, now hangs in a boutique at the Wintergreen ski resort.
Other local weavers maintain complete control over the quality of the wool they work with by tending to its source - the sheep.
Fraile and her neighbor, Marty Bailey, are two such shepherds. The city restricts the women to just 15 sheep at a time in their suburban development. But that's enough fleece to keep the weavers busy between shearings.
After washing and spinning her fleece, Fraile weaves the yarn into winter coats, wool dresses, vests, sweaters and blankets. Her most recent project is a tartan shawl she plans on wearing to a friend's wedding in Scotland.
Because some fleece is better for blankets, other for clothes, the women carefully select certain breeds for their flock. In Bailey's case, the sheep of choice is the Oxford.
``Oxford fleece is more of a medium weight fleece. It's very wearable,'' said Bailey, who specializes in weaving wool garments. In her converted-garage workroom, Bailey proudly displays the Irish fisherman sweater she recently completed. The wool for the sweater came from the fleece of Bailey's prized sheep, Francis.
Bailey introduced herself to weaving in a roundabout way. When she and her husband moved to Chesapeake from New Hampshire more than ten years ago, the couple had two sheep in tow.
``They were really just pets,'' Bailey said. ``When it came time to have them sheared, I realized I had to do something with their wool. I couldn't just throw it away.''
After joining the Tidewater Weavers Guild, a network of local weavers, spinners and wool producers, Bailey was hooked.
Now she shares everything she knows about wool fibers and weaving with students and members of the guild. Bailey's workshop (she calls it, The Loom Room) is packed with hundreds of cones of yarn and some 20 looms. She loans some of the looms to trusted friends, others to her students.
Surprisingly, Bailey says folks who become interested in weaving don't come from any one demographic group.
``I have students of all ages,'' she said. Two of her most recent pupils were men, one 25 years old, the other 79.
To promote their craft, Fox, Bailey, Fraile and other Chesapeake weavers demonstrate weaving and spinning at area fairs and historic reenactments at the Francis Land House in Virginia Beach and other historic homes.
If weavers have one complaint about their craft, it has to be the isolation that comes with sitting at the looms for hours on end.
``It's not like knitting, where you can take your needles and yarn and go to a friend's house to talk and work,'' said Fox. ``In order to weave, we have to use our looms, and they're definitely not portable.''
No matter the drawbacks, weavers agree they're attracted to the craft because of their need to create and because of a desire to connect to a time when life wasn't so frantic.
``Most of us lead a simple life,'' said Bailey. ``I think people just want to get back to basics. Weaving is a link to a time when life wasn't necessarily easier, but less hectic.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Cover]
WOOF AND WARP
[Color Photo]
Staff photos, including the cover photograph, by STEVE EARLEY
Holly Fox spends hours a week in the workroom of her Hickory log
cabin home, weaving fabrics she uses to make her woven creations.
Staff photos by STEVE EARLEY
Like most weavers, Marty Bailey has dedicated a portion of her
living space to accommodate her hobby. She also raises her own sheep
for wool.
Linda Fraile spins thread, which she says is half the work of
weaving.
Holly Fox has turned her passion for weaving into a cottage
industry.
by CNB