Meet Our Members
Tina
“I can weave, but I can’t design.” (Six weeks later, she could.)
Tina had been weaving for years. She could adjust a pattern’s width, swap out colors, produce technically flawless cloth.
But designing from scratch? That felt out of reach.
“I had little experience and even less confidence in designing my own projects,” she told us.
She wanted to create original work – pieces that felt like hers.
But every time she tried, she hit a wall. She didn’t know how to see what was possible in a threading. She didn’t know how to make a draft do what she wanted it to do.
So she kept following other people’s patterns. Safe. Competent. Unfulfilled.
Then Tina joined the Academy and took our Advancing Twills class.
The class didn’t just teach her twill theory. It taught her how to see structure – how to look at a threading and understand what it could become. How to manipulate tie-ups deliberately instead of guessing. How to trust her design instincts.
It taught her how to see structure – to create her own threadings and treadlings and tie-ups. She’d look at a threading and see rich possibilities, not complexity and confusion.
She learned how to trust her own design instincts without second-guessing every choice.
Within six weeks, Tina wasn’t guessing anymore.
She’d look at a threading and see what was possible – how changing the tie-up could shift the texture, how to change the treadling to stretch or squash a line.
She’d look at a photo and know exactly which yarns would capture the colors – and what draft would make those colors glow instead of muddying them.
She designed this tree bark wall hanging without a pattern. Without doubt. Because she finally understood the “why” behind the draft.
“You’ve completely transformed me as a weaver,” she said. “My head is always buzzing with ideas – and that’s due to the Academy.”
Charlene
"I'm not ready yet." (She did it anyway.)
Charlene is 82 years old.
She can’t lift more than 10 pounds. Two reverse shoulder replacements. No functioning rotator cuff muscles.
She lives in a remote area of Ecuador – moved there a year ago with her husband and their cat.
She’d owned a loom for years. But every time she thought about learning, she told herself the same thing:
“Maybe next year. When I’m better. When I’m ready.”
The cat slept in the loom.
Here’s what Charlene told us recently:
“I was barely above ground zero. Not even an amateur. Totally ignorant of actual weaving – structure, pattern, drafting.”
But she joined the Academy anyway. Before she felt ready. Before she understood tie-ups or threading or how to make a draft do what she wanted it to do.
And that’s when everything changed.
Within a few years:
Charlene went from zero knowledge to designing her own gradient projects.
She understands lift plans. She can design with color. She’s adapted her entire warping process to work around her physical limitations – “I walk the warp. I don’t wind it.”
She’s confident enough to move to another country and keep weaving.
Here’s what she says now:
“I know how to do things I never would have thought I’d know how to do. It’s a very safe space, and you don’t find that too often.”
Charlene joined at 82 with zero knowledge. Today, she designs gradients and understands lift plans – because she stopped waiting to be ready.
Stop waiting to be ready.
Cass
"I thought I'd always be mediocre." Now her work wins prizes.
Cass had been weaving for eight years.
She weaves on a rigid heddle loom – but the problem she faced is universal.
Color was the issue.
For almost a decade, Cass lived with this reality:
“When I wove, it was hit and miss. Sometimes the pieces were lovely. Sometimes they were horrible. And I couldn’t figure out why.”
Fifty-fifty. Flip a coin. Will this project turn out beautiful – or will you waste weeks of work on something you’re embarrassed to show anyone?
That was Cass’s reality.
She told us recently:
“I thought I was always gonna be a mediocre weaver.”
Then she took the Academy’s color classes.
And everything shifted.
“I’m much more deliberate now. I can see what’s going to work. I can produce something that is stunning because I have the skills now and the knowledge to be able to apply it.”
She created a scarf using color theory and techniques from the Academy.
She entered it at the Minnesota State Fair.
She won.
But winning – even first place – isn’t what she’s proudest of.
Here’s what Cass told us recently:
“I finally feel like I’ve found my creative niche. You’ve helped me see the weaver I truly am.
Thank you for nurturing my creativity, honoring the way I think, and helping me become the artist I didn’t know I was becoming.”
Read that again: “The artist I didn’t know I was becoming.”
That’s what happens when you stop guessing and start designing deliberately.
After years of 50/50 odds, Cass finally knows why her work succeeds. And more importantly – she knows who she is as a weaver.
Cass stopped guessing. You can too.