Elegant color made easy
Create your own beautiful gradients using any weave structure and any draft
Plus, a beautiful towel project for you to weave, and a BONUS digital issue of WEFT Magazine!
Don’t wait – registration ends July 25!
Create magic with gradients
Flowing colors, striking cloth
You’ve seen woven gradients before – projects that seem to shimmer from color to color.
You’ve probably thought, “I’d love to try that.”
But maybe it felt too complicated. Too technical. Or just too hard to start.
Color Gradients changes that.
We’ll show you step by step how to create those beautiful transitions – design, pacing, and construction methods you can use right away.
Depth, flow, and glow
create beautiful visual effects
Gradients do more than shift color. They create movement in your cloth, drawing the eye smoothly from one color to the next.
Gradients can also suggest depth and curves in flat fabric, or create the illusion of glow.
Learn to create cloth with movement, depth, and rhythm. Cloth that looks luminous.
Weave gradient towels
a fun project to apply what you've learned
The Sunrise Gradient Towels aren’t just beautiful. They’re the perfect way to put your new skills into practice.
In this project (published in WEFT Magazine!), you’ll design and weave your own gradient using the methods you’ve learned in class.
Want to create a smooth, subtle flow from light to dark? Or a dramatic transition from one bold hue to another? We’ll help you design whatever gradient you please.
Ask questions, hone your design skills, and learn by doing, alongside instructors and fellow weavers.
By the end, you’ll have a set of beautiful towels –
and the confidence that comes from solid experience.
(No time to weave the towels? No worries! You’ll get downloadable project instructions so you can come back to it later.)
Color Gradients
use flowing color to create glowing cloth
You’ll learn how to:
- Design smooth, beautiful gradients in three different styles
- Construct gradients using several different methods
- Create depth and dimension in your cloth
- Make your cloth glow using shifts in color
- Design and weave your own gradient projects
Free project included!
August 1 – September 26, 2025
Just $49
In Tien and Janet’s classes, a light bulb just came on in my head....
Now I can design work that I love!”
What you get
- 20+ written lessons with clear visuals and examples
- 4- and 8-shaft towel project for you to weave
- Powerful, easy-to-use design tools for creating your towels
- Instructor access throughout the course
- 8-week access to all materials
- BONUS: a free digital issue of WEFT!
How we'll support you, every step of the way…
- 60-minute Live Lecture diving deep into the material, recorded for those who can’t make the live session
- Two 60-minute Live Q&A sessions to get your questions answered (also recorded)
- Discussion forums in every lesson - ask questions as they come up!
- Daily instructor support inside the lesson forums
Just $49
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.”
Bonus: WEFT Magazine!
We’re thrilled to include a free digital copy of WEFT Magazine, a new publication created by the people who brought you PLY.
Issue #2 is a beautifully curated collection of deep-dive articles and projects exploring warps and warping.
Includes an article and a project from Handweaving Academy co-founder Janet Dawson!
Highlights include:
- 25 richly detailed articles that will inspire, challenge, and deepen your weaving
- Three creative projects for you to weave
- A joy to read - beautifully written, beautifully designed, and deeply thoughtful
We love this magazine. We think you will too.
About Your Instructor
Tien Chiu has spent the last ten years obsessing over color – dyeing thousands of yarn samples, weaving hundreds of swatches, and exploring how color flows through woven structure.
She’s taught thousands of weavers online and has a knack for making even complex topics feel approachable.
Tien’s work has been shown in museums and featured on the cover of Handwoven. But what excites her most is helping other weavers bring their own ideas to life.
Join us and weave something beautiful
Color Gradients runs from August 1 to September 26, 2025.
You can join from anywhere. Learn at your own pace.
And by the end, you’ll have the skills and confidence to design glowing, moving, deeply expressive cloth.
All for just $49
Frequently Asked Questions
We do! The Handweaving Academy is an online school dedicated to helping weavers design projects that reflect their personal style—and bring them joy at the loom.
Our members explore every aspect of weaving, including:
- color and visual design
- weave structure and drafting
- project planning.
Whether you’re looking to deepen your technical skills or gain more creative freedom, there’s something here for you.
A single membership gives you access to dozens of in-depth courses, plus live classes, webinars, and other content released every six weeks.
You don’t! The Draft Editor that you’ll use to create designs works in any browser, so the only thing you’ll need is a tablet or desktop/laptop computer. (We do recommend using a stylus for those using tablets, to make editing easier.)
The Draft Editor is easy to use. We’ll provide instructions and demos on how to use it, too.
No loom is required to to take the class. The optional towel project is designed for four or eight shaft looms, but you can design and weave gradients on rigid heddle looms as well!
Nope! The towel project is entirely optional. You’ll get plenty out of the class even if you don’t weave it.
You’ll get answers! You can post questions in each lesson’s built-in Q&A section, or ask them at the Live Q&A sessions that come with the class. If you have a question, we’ll make sure you get an accurate answer!
Both! You get the best of both worlds.
The lessons are entirely self-paced (and available at the start of the class), but you’ll get live webinars and Q&A sessions, as well as an in-class discussion forum where you can get answers to your questions. The live sessions are recorded, closed-captioned, and transcribed for those who cannot attend “live”.
You’ll have access to all materials and tools during the class (August 1 – September 26), and the project recipe and digital issue of WEFT Magazine are yours to keep.
If you join the Handweaving Academy, you’ll have access to all course materials and tools for as long as you’re a member – as well as dozens of other classes, powerful design tools, and lots of live events.
We want our students to be happy! If you’re not satisfied with the class, you can get a full refund within the first 14 days (through Friday, August 15). No questions, nothing to fill out, no strings attached. Just drop us a line.
And I think that the Handweaving Academy teaches us how to put that piece of our soul into our weaving. Not to just be like everybody else, using textbook formulas, but to put ourselves into our weaving.”