I’ve been remiss in not posting about our visit to the Hartford Artisans Weaving Center last month. We were introduced to the center by Lucy Morris’s touching article in Handwoven Magazine, and wanted to learn a bit more about their unique program to make weaving accessible to the elderly and visually impaired.
The center’s staff were incredibly welcoming, and we loved getting a tour of the facility with their director Ann Kollegger and geeking out about weaving structures with their designer Tara Patrina. Their studio space was really impressive, with numerous looms in operation as their artisans were hard at work creating impressive lengths of fabric.
Although most of their work is done on big floor looms, it was great to see that they also had a space in their shop filled with dozens of potholders woven by Gene Morris from the charts on our site.
We were happy to have the chance to help to support the Center’s programs by buying a sample of Gene’s work, which now hangs proudly in our kitchen.
Although Gene’s potholders are only sold in-person, you can support the weaving center by ordering one of their larger items, including scarves, towels, table runners and rugs.
Oh how great… I wasn’t aware of this and live right outside of Hartford. Thank you for passing this experience on.
🙂
I greatly appreciate all the work that the two of you have put into the Piglet Potholder website. Last fall, I re-discovered potholder weaving, PRO looms and the Friendly Loom Wizard. Finding your website in January took my potholder weaving to a much higher creative level, one that I never imagined possible. It should not have taken me so long to send along my thanks!
It was very heartwarming to read the initial story about Gene Morris and his expressively active love of potholder weaving. I took care of my father during the years of his dementia; having discovered a crafty art in his last two years of life – in his case, encaustic art – was a very important expressive outlet for my Dad during this time. So, I truly understand the place that potholder weaving holds in Gene’s heart.
I also greatly enjoyed reading about your follow-up visit to the Hartford Artisan’s Weaving Center and seeing the photos of Gene’s potholders on sale!
Three of Gene’s potholders are highlighted in your photos. I would appreciate it if you could identify the three individual Piglet charts that Gene used in creating the
(forward-facing) blue potholder in the top photo,
the purple zigzag potholder that Piglet is holding
and the orange potholder that Matthew is studying.
Thank you!
Hello Skye, and thank you for your kind words!
The blue lozenge design is “Twill Pavé.”
The purple design is a modified version of “Tabby-Framed Twill Steps” that has only one round of tabby boxes around the edge and gives more space to the twill steps in the middle.
The orange design is “Chartres Labyrinth Revisited.”
Have fun!
— Matthew