In life it is our teachers who mould us and help us see new ways of seeing the world. I have been so blessed to have had so many amazing teachers. One of the most memorable workshops I have ever had the privilege of assisting was one given by Jack Lenor Larsen called ‘The Consummate Cloth’. It was way back in 1985 (I think) and ‘The Consummate Cloth’ was offered at the Banff School of Fine Arts. I had been a student there and then a teaching assistant and eventually a teacher, how lucky can a girl be!

The workshop was really all about sett. How do you create the cloth that you are dreaming about? The answer came down to sett. How many ends per inch with the yarn that we were given. The journey started with a wrap on a ruler but it became clear early on that, that was not where the journey ended. Until the students had samples to compare, by cutting off and re sleying at a different ends per inch … the answer was not known. If you don’t have anything to compare to, you just have what you started with.

Episode 4 is all about exploring your options. We have all made scarves that could stand in the corner all by themselves. We feel defeated because we don’t know what went wrong.

Every yarn has many possibilities, not right, not wrong, just different.
When we learn to explore sett then we see the possibilities the yarn holds. Join me in a little exploration about sett. It may change your life just as it did mine!