Design beautiful handwoven projects
With in-depth classes, live instructors, and a welcoming weaving community.
Start creating your own wonderful designs
Don't limit yourself to weaving recipe projects
Other schools teach you how to weave. At the Handweaving Academy, you’ll learn how to design.
Our in-depth courses will help you:
- Design your own projects
- Do amazing things with color
- Modify or create new drafts
- Plan and weave sound cloth
You’ll get everything you need to develop your dream projects.
Amazing weaving. By you.
Imagine making beautiful handwovens that you designed yourself.
Projects that make your heart sing, that reflect your tastes and style, and that turn heads wherever you go.
You choose the colors, design the drafts, and plan your project. You weave with pleasure as you turn your ideas into beautiful handwoven pieces.
Here's a project one of our members designed, starting from an inspirational photo.
She's delighted.
Ocean Shawl, by Joy Pate
What will you create?
Design made easy
Designing your own projects can feel daunting.
Color, structure, yarn choices, sett choices – it can feel overwhelming, especially when you’re just starting out.
But learning design doesn’t have to be hard.
In fact, it can be
SO.
MUCH.
FUN!
But how do you learn design?
That's where we come in!
Design made easy
Designing your own projects can feel daunting.
Color, structure, yarn choices, sett choices – it can feel overwhelming, especially when you’re just starting out.
But learning design doesn’t have to be hard.
In fact, it can be
SO.
MUCH.
FUN!
But how do you learn design?
That’s where we come in!
We make learning design easy
Get everything you need to succeed
Our clearly written lessons make learning easy by breaking complex ideas into simple, easy-to-understand concepts.
Interactive design exercises make it fun to apply what you’ve learned and to enjoy the fruits of your new skills.
Powerful design tools help you design faster and take the guesswork out of weaving math.
Expert instructors and a friendly weaving community support you, encourage you, and provide answers when you need them.
“Lots of ‘Aha!’ moments”
As a long-time fiber lover and relatively new weaver, this site is just what I didn’t know I needed.
The lessons are clear and filled with lots of aha! moments, including things I didn’t know and things that I thought I already understood. I can’t wait to spend time here.
– Jacey Boggs Faulkner
What you'll get
No hidden content, nothing extra to pay.
With one membership, you get access to everything.
Here’s what you'll find inside:
- Dozens of in-depth courses available 24/7
- New classes and weave-alongs every 6 weeks
- Live lectures and Q&A sessions with Tien & Janet
- Cutting-edge design tools to make creating easy
- A vibrant weaving community and helpful forums
Here are some of the topics you can explore:
- Color and visual design - your projects will SPARKLE!
- Weave structures and drafting - make your own designs
- Project planning and weaving - master technical skills
- Yarn and physical design - design sound cloth
Only $199/year
Who's teaching?
I’m Janet Dawson. My expertise is designing good, functional cloth.
Over the last two decades, I’ve taught thousands of students about the physical and structural aspects of designing cloth, as well as techniques for actually weaving it. I’ve got a deep understanding of weave structures and a knack for explaining them.
I live for the moment when a student’s eyes light up with understanding.
I’m Tien Chiu. My wheelhouse is color and visual design.
I’ve studied color for the last decade, weaving and dyeing thousands of swatches to develop deep color expertise.
You may have seen my articles in Handwoven, Shuttle, Spindle, & Dyepot, and Complex Weavers Journal. Or perhaps you’ve taken some of my online classes.
I love helping other weavers by demystifying color.
Between us, we’ve taught a zillion students how to design and create their own handwoven projects.
“I have nothing but the highest praise!”
Janet, you are a master weaver, bringing so much knowledge and experience and a unique way of teaching that really gets information through. Tien, you are the genius of color magic, bringing everything to life.
I have followed your courses for the last several years and have learned so much from you both. Thank you so much!
– Susan K.
What our members say about us
I would recommend the Handweaving Academy classes to any weaver, even those with only basic weaving knowledge, who would like to learn how to use color and weaving structures, to get the most out of their woven projects.
I could have used this kind of instruction years ago. – Sonia Kamel
The teaching is clear and concise. It’s visual as well as verbal. I’ve never felt like a question was unwarranted or stupid, although I’ve probably asked a few of those! And you don’t have to buy a kit. You use what you’ve got, and you develop your own skills at your own pace and level. – Courtney Mitchell
The Academy is comprehensive. It’s not like going to a three-day workshop where you learn one kind of thing. For less than the price of a workshop, you get an entire year of all kinds of different learning experiences. It’s like ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’. – Joy Pate
What I like about the Academy is that it’s always available when I need it; there’s a wide range of expert knowledge in a helpful, friendly atmosphere. – Mary Wood
I want to weave things that my relatives will say, 50 years from now, “Oh! That was Grandma’s work.” With singers and musicians, you can always tell a person who has put a piece of their soul into their music. It comes out in the music.
The Academy teaches us how to put that piece of our soul into our weaving. To not be like everybody else. To stop following textbook formulas, and put ourselves into our weaving. – Joy Hogg
Only $199/yr
Got questions? We’ve got answers!
We focus on design. At the Academy, you’ll learn how to create projects that thrill you. We’re not about kits or imitating your instructor. You’ll design and weave cloth that suits your taste and style.
We connect areas of weaving knowledge. Other weaving schools offer bits and pieces. At the Academy, you’ll learn how to integrate what you’ve learned about weave structure, color, and project design. Then you can create the exciting project you envisioned.
We support our students. No “here’s a video, figure out the rest yourself”. You get direct access to instructors, with live lectures, Q&A sessions, and discussion forums where you can get help from your instructors or other weavers.
Finally, we offer tools and calculators to make designing a breeze.
Both! The lessons are prerecorded and you can access them any time, day or night. Learn whenever is convenient for you! They’re a combination of text, hands-on exercises, and video demonstrations.
We also have live sessions every month:
- The Live Lecture goes in-depth into the current course
- Live Q&A, Design Sessions with Tien, and Office Hours with Janet give you a chance to get your questions answered -live!
- Website and Tools Help – especially useful if you’re new!
- Two Peer Support meetups every month to connect with other weavers
All the events are recorded for those who can’t make it live. Webinars are captioned and transcribed.
Finally, we have 24/7 discussion forums for each class, where you can share your work, ask questions about class material, and get inspired by seeing what others have done.
Lots of them! Color, weave structure, and project design are our main categories. We also offer rigid heddle classes.
You can check our entire course catalog here.
Here are our live sessions:
- The Live Lecture goes in-depth into the current course
- Live Q&A, Design Sessions with Tien, and Office Hours with Janet give you a chance to get your questions answered -live!
- Website and Tools Help – especially useful if you’re new!
- Two Peer Support meetups every month to connect with other weavers
All the events are recorded for those who can’t make it live. Webinars are captioned and transcribed.
You can access the Handweaving Academy from any web browser. Computer, tablet, phone – if it runs a web browser, you can access the Academy with it.
For the online exercises, particularly those using the Draft Editor, we recommend either a computer/laptop with a mouse, or a tablet with a stylus – it will make designing a lot easier.
Our courses typically have examples and drafts for 4 or 8-shaft looms. However, we also include ways to extend the concepts to looms with more than eight shafts, so weavers with lots of shafts will find plenty here.
We’ve also got courses especially for rigid heddle weavers! Plus, many of our classes, particularly the color ones, apply equally well to rigid heddle and shaft looms.
No worries! All our live webinars are recorded, captioned, and transcribed. We also split up the webinars into “chapters” to make it easier to find the parts that interest you.
You have access to everything – courses, tools, live events, discussion forums – as long as you’re a member of the Academy.
We want you to be happy! If you aren’t satisfied with the Academy, you can get a full refund in the first 14 days of your membership. No questions asked – just drop us a line.
We’re happy to answer your questions! Just email us at hello@handweavingacademy.com.
Start designing projects that thrill you
$199/year
Classes are amazing and more in-depth than other courses I have done. I love the encouragement to think for ourselves, to plan and organise. I truly have discovered my love for colour and design!
– Dayamitra Blenman
