The Experience:

It’s extremely rare to find traditional card-driven jacquard looms and a digital jacquard loom in the same studio. It’s even rarer to be able to learn about them in the beautiful countryside and cuisine of Gascony! This is a holiday weaving experience like no other. Your mind will be expanded in ways you never imagined and your weaving creativity unleashed! 

See what previous students have thought about our courses…

Jacquard weaving courses

Jacquard weaving is as different to shaft-loom weaving as shaft-loom weaving is to tapestry weaving. It is like playing a symphony in colour and design without the constraints of any shafts. My modern digital jacquard loom allows every single thread to be individually manipulated (all 1320 ends!) but my older jacquards (from the 1880s) have repeat structures designed into them through their harness construction.

The Structure:

We offer a two-week intensive course or a more relaxed three-week course in jacquard weaving. You will design your piece using Photoshop Elements™ or any similar type graphic software that you are familiar with. You will then assign weaves to your design then transfer your design to the modern loom or you can choose to create a mise-en-carte and cut and lace the binary cards that will run the old looms.

Either loom-type has its advantages. The old looms allow for deep learning of repeat structure through analysing the harnesses and weaving the same design at four different scales. You learn what works for the different scales, following in the footsteps of countless students of fabric design who have worked on these looms for the past 140 years!

The modern TC-1 loom allows you more design freedom but, perhaps, at the expense of such depth of learning. As with drafting on squared paper or computer drafting, there are advantages and disadvantages to both. It all depends on your perspective and what you want to experience! Whichever you choose, you will be able to experience weaving on the others.

This course is not for beginner weavers. Basic requirements: You need to have a good working knowledge of 4- and 8-shaft weave structures, reading drafts and physical weaving experience in order to get the most benefit from the course.  In addition, you will also need to know how to design on a graphic software, such as Affinity Photo™ (Mac), Photoshop™ or Photoshop Elements™. Please email me to discuss your ideas.

Further information and prices