Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
[Music] yes [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] good morning good afternoon good evening wherever you are in the world it’s Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman with Relationship Matters TV. I hope everyone is having a beautiful morning, afternoon, or evening.

Okay, you know I’m still on my soapbox. So now what do we have? Not only are we still suffering from COVID and whatever variant, I’ve run out of names for the variants. But people, where you may ask, because this virus is going to keep mutating. What is a virus? You know, I tell people it’s a living organism. It wants to survive, and in order for it to survive, it has to eat. So now it’s going to eat and then it’s going to mutate so it can keep living as long as we are not protecting ourselves.

Alright, that’s it. I’m not going to stay on my soapbox for a long time this evening because we got a lot to talk about. Because I’m going to learn, no not me, we are going to learn so much about crafting. I have a young lady on and she’s going to tell us all about weaving. So have you ever thought about weaving? Have you ever thought about some of the things that you are wearing and how they get made?

Well, this evening here in Chicago, we have Chris Acton. Let me tell you a little bit about Chris. Chris randomly took a weaving class in 2005 as a way to counteract her boredom with corporate America. So when she took this class, it was love at first sight, and little did she know that she was going to leave corporate America, leave that job, move to Indiana, and become a full-time weaver.

Now over the years, she has participated in art fairs all over the country and created hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of yards of hand-woven fabric. She makes unique bags and home good items, and these days you can find her carving a new path with weaving classes and resources, and she encourages everyone to try weaving. So we’re going to try weaving. So I got a little surprise for her. I’m going to do it right now.

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Chris Acton
Hi, Chris!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Hi! I loved that! That was amazing, Dr. Jan! Thank you so much. By the way, you are hired to always do my intros from now on forever. That was fantastic! Thank you so much!

Chris Acton
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! It’s so lovely to have you here this hot, humid day. Actually, I guess it’s hot all over the United States, but we’re here in the Midwest. And even though sometimes I used to think about moving either east, west, or south, I think I’m going to stay right here.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
I’m with you! So Chris, you are a master weaver.

Chris Acton
Okay, technically I’m not a master weaver. That is a certain destination, but I’ve been weaving for a very long time, so yes, I know a lot about the craft.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, so let me ask you this question. What were you doing in the corporate world that you just decided you had to get out?

Chris Acton
Right, okay. Well, I first of all, I’ll back up and say that I was always into music as a kid—music and a little bit of art in high school. But I always played the flute, I played the piano, and so when I was going off to college, I thought, “Well, I’m going to major in music.” However, when push came to shove, I decided, “Well, I’m going to do a double major just to cover my bases so I can feed myself.” So my second degree was in interior design.

When I graduated from college, I got into the corporate world and I did interior design, but kind of on the corporate side. So I worked for Discover, was my last corporate job, like the credit card. I worked for them in their in-house design department. Now it turns out that it sounds much more glamorous than it is. It was really a customer service job. And to be fair, I’m pretty good at customer service. However, being a creative person at the very core of it, it was just not feeding my soul.

So I have my parents, both retired teachers, and so education’s always been a big deal. And when you get stuck in life, go take a class, go learn a new skill, go do something to kind of mix things up. So that’s when I found a weaving class, randomly enough, in Westmont, Illinois. And I loved it! I had tried lots of crafts before this. I grew up with very crafty people. My grandma was a homemaking teacher, my Aunt Laura on the other side of the family owned a craft store, so I always had grown up making things with my hands.

For Christmas, you make gifts. Some of that was already ingrained in me. So when I tried weaving, I was like, “Oh, I’ve arrived! This is the thing for me!” It just fits, it checked all the boxes for me, and was just the right fit.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Wow! So now in order to become a weaver, did you have to take a lot of classes, or was this something that, you know, like you said, it fed your soul? Were you already gifted at it, or did you have to take classes?

Chris Acton
Oh, it took a lot of classes! Yes, I took a lot of classes. I like to say that it was really about three years of classes before I was comfortable to do the process on my own. Because what you find out about weaving is that there’s a lot of steps. None of the steps are hard, but there’s a lot of steps, and there’s a lot of like at each step you can make different decisions. So it’s just kind of a big beefy process.

So it just took a while to be comfortable, like just setting up the loom just to start with, you know, your yarn and figure out how you want to set the loom for your project. That was one whole skill set in and of itself, let alone how to weave it, how to finish—all the different parts to it. So even after three years of classes, it still took me a long time to kind of find my own voice.

So what did I want to make? What did I want my fabric to look like? Kind of what reflected my interest? Weaving is a huge big world. There’s everything from tapestry, which is, you know, you’re creating an image. I always think of tapestry as like in medieval times when you have the knight on the unicorn fighting whatever, like in fabric. That’s what tapestry is. You have everything from that to making belts or straps to making rugs. I mean, there’s just so many different facets to weaving. So I tried a lot of things before I kind of settled on what corner of the world I wanted to occupy.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, and now is weaving an expensive craft?

Chris Acton
You know, when you’re starting out, you have to expend a lot of money. You know what? Here’s how I would answer that. A loom is not inexpensive. A loom is going to be an investment. However, if you can find a class, typically a beginning class doesn’t require you to buy a loom because a loom, even like a small table loom, can be, you know, four or five hundred dollars. So a beginning class isn’t going to ask you to actually purchase a loom.

Now once you get into it, what you find out is that you can’t kill them. The looms will last you a nice long time unless they’re like sitting someplace with a lot of moisture; the wood can warp. But there’s, you know, it’s not like a computer. You don’t have to upgrade it. I mean, really, once you have a loom, you have a loom.

So what you find is that there are parts of the process that you invest in, but then you’re set. That’s just kind of up to you as to if you want to buy different kinds of shuttles. Like this is a shuttle here, and there’s different kinds of them depending on how you want to work or what you’re weaving.

So that doesn’t matter what accessories you want to purchase. And then yarn, of course, and yarn can vary a lot. What you’ll notice in the shelves even behind me is that I have big cones and tubes of yarn versus if you’re a knitter or crocheter, you might have like a ball of yarn or a skein of yarn. Weavers need a lot, so we’ll have like a one-pound cone or a tube. So we just need a lot of volume with our yarn because it just takes a lot of yarn to do a weaving project.

So yeah, so hopefully that answers your question. I would say if someone’s thinking about trying it, absolutely find a place that offers a beginning weaving class, give it a go, and then you can decide if you want to really commit and buy a loom after that.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So is there such a thing as a certified weaver? I mean, are there levels or, you know what I’m saying?

Chris Acton
I do know. Right, there is actually a kind of a certification that you can go through, and to achieve that status, you have to prove yourself proficient in a huge variety of different types of weaving, different techniques, using different fibers. I mean, there’s all these different things that you have to kind of check the boxes off of.

And I’ve looked at it but haven’t pursued it so far. I think in the weaving world, you would get a certificate if you felt like you needed it for you, like you really wanted to say that you had a master weaving certificate. You don’t need one, though. I mean, there’s plenty of amazing weavers that don’t have that, those kind of credentials behind their name.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
I was looking up weaving, and weaving is a very ancient craft.

Chris Acton
Yes, you know, and I was looking at some of the old, old weaving—what do you call them? Looms?

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, sure!

Chris Acton
Yeah, old weaving looms. And now I remember, I think when I found out you were a weaver, there is a particular place in Italy that’s supposed to be famous for, I guess, the patterns or the tapestries?

Chris Acton
Yeah, probably tapestry.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, yeah!

Chris Acton
With weaving, if you’re into history at all, weaving is the craft for you because, like you said, it’s—I like to think of weaving and pottery as the big two that have been around forever. I mean, it’s even if you think of, even if people weren’t weaving fabric, they wove mats, they wove, you know, things to cover themselves for shelter. I mean, weaving as a technique, that’s weaving and pottery, those are the two that have really been around forever and ever and ever, which is really, I mean, I think for me that’s part of the draw of being a weaver and being part of this craft is that there’s such an amazing kind of just the history, the legacy of being a weaver and passing that on and helping to, you know, spread the word about how amazing it is still to this day.

Even though we have very few weavers around, we’re kind of a lost art. But when you think about in your daily life, you know, you’re wearing clothes that are woven, you’re sleeping on sheets that are woven, you’re using a towel that’s woven, your seatbelt is woven. Every day, every person interacts with something that’s woven, guaranteed. So it’s really, when you think about kind of that impact on our daily life, just to be a little tiny part of that is really, I always take very seriously as my honor.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, so now does weaving take a lot of patience?

Chris Acton
Yes! I like to say you have to be just a little bit crazy. Just a little! You have to be a little bit. Here is why: for me to set up a project, just to set up the loom may take me eight to twelve hours depending on the project. That’s before I even start weaving!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, yeah, exactly! That face, Dr. Jan, that’s what usually people have when people respond. They’re like, “Come again? How long does it take you?” So you don’t do you don’t become a weaver because you want things to be done quickly. You become a weaver because you like the challenge of being able to make a decision and make all these little choices along the way a lot as you do this whole project and you’re creating fabric. I think that’s just magical. You’re actually, you know, making fabric!

So it is, yeah, you have to be very patient. That is, yeah, for sure. But I find it totally worth it. Some weavers really kind of, they don’t love the—it’s called dressing the loom when you’re setting up a loom—and they don’t love that part. They’re like, “I just wish that was over.” And I kind of enjoy that part. What happens for me is I really get, it’s kind of meditative because imagine if I am setting up a project and I have 300 yard yarns that I need to thread into the loom. Well, that’s going to take me a little bit.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Wait, wait, wait, wait! You said 300?

Chris Acton
Oh, easy! So those things, spools or whatever you have behind you, so you say if you were doing a project, you have to use 300 of those? Is that what you’re doing?

Chris Acton
No, no, no, no! I don’t—that’s okay, I’ll explain. So what you might do is let’s say you’re doing a project and you’re going to use these two colors. Now you want to have, let’s say you’re doing a blanket and the blanket is going to be 20 inches wide. Well, with these two yarns, then I want to put them so they go through the kind of the—it’s called the warp. So I have the warp yarns going this direction. Well, if I want 20 inches and I’m going to set it at, let’s say, 20 yards in one inch, that’s going to be 400 yards.

And what you do is you would measure these—it’s called a warping board—so you measure all of them the same length, but then you cut them. So I might use just this one cone; however, I’m going to have, let’s say, half—I’ll say I’ve got 200 yarns or warp yarns for the project from there. So no, you wouldn’t need like 300 cones of yarn. It doesn’t quite work like that. However, you might have 300 ends for the project.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh, okay, I got you now! Because I thought, “What? So like how does that work?”

Chris Acton
Yeah! From Maxine Walker, she wants to know how do you keep your yarn organized and do you always need a pattern to make some items?

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh, I love this question, Maxine!

Chris Acton
Okay, there’s a lot of ways you can organize your yarn. I tend to organize a couple different ways. First of all, I have a certain kind of cotton that I like to use for almost all of my warp, so that’s kind of the structure of the project. So I keep all of those together because I want that one style of fiber all in my colors all together.

After that, I tend to do it by color, which you can kind of see. I mean, it’s kind of mixed up now, but I’ve got my neutrals here. I’ve got, let’s see, well this is maybe—it may not be a great example right now, but on a good day, I have them kind of organized by color so that when I’m doing a project, I can pull the colors that I want together.

You know what? I’ll give an example of one of my pieces which might help explain it. Hold that thought!

So one of the things I like to make is handbags. So this is a little messenger bag. Put that in the right spot. There we go! So like I mentioned, I like to use cotton for the warp yarn. So these are the warp yarns going this direction. Imagine if I’m sitting at the loom and I’m weaving it like this. This is the orientation.

So I have all these cotton yarns going this way, but in the shuttle going the other direction, I’m putting in whatever colors I like. And for this case, I knew that I wanted to use browns and blues. So then I went through my shelves and I found whatever kind of browns and blues I liked for the color as well as for the texture.

So that’s kind of how I organize it. And then I know her other question was, pardon me, do I always use a pattern or do I need a pattern?

Chris Acton
Yes and no! That’s actually a very good question. When I started out, I had a specific pattern for each project, whether I was going to do a plain weave, which if you’ve ever made a potholder, you have done some plain weave. It’s just over, under, over, under. It’s the simplest form. Or if I was going to do something a little more complicated, if I wanted to do a twill or any other kind of fancy pattern.

Now I have come far enough in my career that I can kind of visualize it without having like a written pattern. But I always go into the project knowing what I want to do because you have to plan for that. Certain patterns mean that I need to put my yarns closer together or farther apart. And I don’t say all that to make it sound really complicated; however, there are a lot of elements that go into it.

So yes, I always decide on a pattern when I go into a project, but I don’t always need to have it written down these days because I’ve done it often enough that I can kind of do it on the fly for a lot of things.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So do people order, let’s say they come to you and they say, “Okay, like that messenger bag,” and you’ll say, “I would like a messenger bag,” and they tell you these are the colors that I want. And say in your mind you’re thinking, “What? Those colors don’t go together! It’s not going to look nice!” So do you try to form a relationship with your clients in order to see, in order to get them to see maybe, you know, like what would look best?

Chris Acton
I know what you’re saying. I know basically I offer two choices. You can either buy a bag that’s already done, it’s already finished, so you can purchase. The bags I show on the website are all done and ready to go in the mail right now. Or you could do a custom project.

Custom projects are fun, but that’s where that conversation you were just talking about comes into play. Because if someone comes to me and says, “Okay, Chris, I want a bag, but I want it in, you know, these seven colors or whatever,” I tend to—I never say they’re wrong. I never, I don’t ever do that. But I try to help kind of guide them to say, “Okay, of those seven colors, which was the most important? Which ones, you know, can we kind of prioritize them differently?”

I’m kind of of the firm belief that there aren’t really any bad colors, although I really don’t enjoy some light pink. I’ll just be honest. That’s the one color that I just—it’s not my favorite. However, I’m happy to incorporate it into a project.

And the beauty of weaving is that it’s all about relationships. Oh, look at us tie it into the name of the show, Dr. Jan, right there! Weaving is really all about relationships because you always have two sets of yarns. You always have the yarns, the warp yarns that are in the loom and are under tension, and then you always have the other yarns that are in the shuttle. This is a boat shuttle right here, and those are called the weft yarns.

So because of that, colors really act differently versus if you were going to knit a baby blanket because you don’t have the same—they don’t interact with each other quite the same way in weaving. I like to say that it’s like pointillism. Do you know that? It’s a—in the art world, they talk about paintings using pointillism when they use little dots. Do you know what I’m talking about?

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
No, I have okay!

Chris Acton
Well, the idea of pointillism is that say you have just the basic colors: you’ve got red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, right? And that’s all you have to work with. And you’re not going to blend any colors. So on a canvas then, if you wanted to make kind of a yellowish green, you would put some yellow dots and right next to it, you put a few green dots. And when you step back, your eye will blend them and make it a yellowish green.

That’s kind of the magic of it is that when you put those solid colors together and you step back, your eye is going to be like, “Hey, that red next to that blue, that’s purple!” And we think exactly the same way. So I know that when I’m doing a project, there’s always this fun kind of—I can plan for only so many things. I still to this day get surprised by how things, how the colors kind of interact with each other depending on how your eye interprets the colors.

So yeah, when someone comes and they say, “Hey, I want all these colors,” I’m like, “Okay, well let’s talk about what you know of those, which one is your favorite, which was your least favorite?” And then I tend to treat them—I don’t want to say unbalanced, but I will actually, I’ll be happy to say, “Okay, well if red is your favorite, I’m going to have most of the project be red, and then we’ll have some accents of these other colors to go with.”

So that was probably a very long answer, but yes, that’s kind of how I handle it as far as custom projects. Now, I love doing custom projects because for me, working with a client who has their own ideas about what they’re after, I love that challenge. I know not everyone loves working with the custom projects because there is a lot of pressure because you’re thinking, “Okay, I want to translate what’s in their head and make it look like what they’re envisioning.”

Right? I find that being a weaver, though, gives me kind of a secret power because no one knows anything about weaving. So when they come to me and they say, “I would like this,” I’m like, “Great!” And they leave it to me to interpret, which then makes doing custom projects okay.

Well, Maxine had another question. Okay, do you use a sewing machine when finishing an item?

Chris Acton
Oh, Maxine, see? Okay, so here’s my answer: yes, the answer is yes, there is definitely sewing involved. However, I do not do the sewing. Here’s what I learned long ago. First of all, I grew up knowing how to sew. Like I made my prom dress in high school, like basic stuff. However, I don’t know—wait a minute! I don’t think that to be like a throwaway, like of course I remember! I didn’t mean that!

However, when I started to try to weave hand-woven, especially my hand-woven stuff, oh, talk about a cranky girl! I was like, “No, no, this is not for me! I don’t enjoy any part of this!” Because I tend to like fabric that is chunkier, like it’s not real fine. So as you can imagine, the second I take some scissors to it, it can start to unravel.

So I found quickly that I did not enjoy any part of sewing my hand-woven stuff. So for as long as I’ve had technically a business, I have paid someone else to do the sewing. My trick is to find someone who really enjoys it and they like the challenge because I always think, “Oh, I’m so sorry I’m asking you to do this,” because it can be really tough, especially like with that bag that I showed you. You know, you’ve got many, many layers to sew through, and it is not for the faint-hearted. It is a tricky thing.

So sewing my work is a whole other art form for sure, but I was like, it is worth it for me to pay someone else who loves this because they’re going to really enjoy it, and I will be much happier if I don’t do it.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So another question came in here: what has been your prize-winning creation?

Chris Acton
Oh, a prize-winning creation? Interesting! Okay, I’ll answer it a couple different ways. When I did art fairs, for many, many years I did markets and art fairs, my most popular item was a wallet. Here, I’ve got one! I’ll show you here. So this is a cute little, goes with everything kind of cute little wallet. This was the most popular item that I sold because, you know, it’s tiny, it fits in a stocking, graduation, you know, whatever. It kind of went with everything.

So this was the most popular item that I sold. I’m trying to think of prize-winning, though. That’s an interesting way to say it. I will say this: once upon a time, I think I had started to weave, but I did—there was, there used to be a magazine called, I think it was Fiber Arts was the name. It doesn’t exist anymore, but they had a contest, and I submitted this little, like a—it was a postcard. It was a fiber postcard was the challenge, and I made this little fiber postcard, and I think I’d used some felt. I actually did some hand stitching for it, but on it for me, I put—it just said, had a little sun, it says, “You are my only sunshine.” That was my little phrase on it.

And I was featured in the magazine, so I don’t know if that counts as a prize-winning, but yeah, that’s a very interesting question. Prize-winning? Yes, I don’t—yeah, yeah, yeah!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, so I’m going to go on a quick little commercial, and when we come back, I would love for you—I see your loom there, and I would love for you to demonstrate what you do. But I did learn something about the warp.

Chris Acton
Oh, look at you!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, I know! The warp is what you thread in the loom, and the weft is what you use in the shuttle.

Chris Acton
Exactly! Alright for you, Dr. Jan!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, so we’ll be right back, and Chris is going to demonstrate for us the art of weaving.

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Chris Acton
Alrighty, we are back with Chris Acton, and she is at her loom. So I am going to take myself off so we can just—because I want to learn how to do this myself! I don’t know if I’m going to buy a loom, but alright!

Chris Acton
Okay, so I am currently sitting at my floor loom. Now when you think of a loom, you probably think of this style of loom—those big looms that they’re moving the beater bar back and forth and they’re doing all the things. But looms come in all kinds of sizes. You can also have a small table loom, which is great if you don’t have a lot of space. So just because you don’t have, you know, a six-foot square bit of carpet to dedicate to a loom doesn’t mean that you can’t have a loom.

So this is my big floor loom. Now this is considered a 36-inch wide loom, which refers to the weaving width. So I can make fabric that is up to a yard in width. Right now, this is also called a four-shaft loom. See, I have little frames right here. Let me see if I can lift one for you. Just like that! See this guy? I have four of them right there, and these are called shafts. In the olden days, they would be called harness. Some places still call them harnesses, but typically in the United States, you hear something described as a four-shaft loom.

Now these frames, then the more frames I have, the more complicated a pattern I can do because I have threaded my yarns through one of these. Each yarn goes through one of these. So when I—I have pedals down below, that’s what I’m pushing on down here, but they’re called treadles. So I push on a pedal, and the shaft lifts up, and this set of yarns lifts up with it.

Okay, so for instance, if I want to lift the next one, that’s a totally different set of yarns. So as you can see then, as you lift each shaft or combination of shafts, that’s what’s going to give you all kinds of options for your pattern.

Now I am working on a very fun project right here that’s called a double weave, which is aptly named because I’m actually weaving two layers of fabric at the same time. Let me show you. So my top layer looks like this. See, I’ve got big bands of orange, and I’ve got little bands of purple and more orange. So this is what the top looks like in my fabric here.

Now check this out! This is what the bottom looks like. I’ve got this kind of cranberry color with little stripes of orange here too. So in my project that I’m doing here, I’m actually weaving two layers at the same time, which is a little more complicated than the average weaving project, but it’s a lot of fun.

Let me kind of show you what that looks like, though. So we’ll get the top back on top. So let’s see, here we go!

Okay, so I’m going to take my shuttle. Like I mentioned, this is a boat shuttle. It comes like a canoe, right? There’s all kinds of different styles of shuttles depending on how you want to use them. This one has an actual bobbin that slides in and out. See that? But some styles of shuttles, then you would wind the yarn directly onto the shuttle. So it just depends on how you’re going to use it and what your pattern is going to look like.

So for my double weave project right here, I am—oh, I lifted this. This is shaft number two. Shaft number one is the one closest to you, right? I lifted this one, which separated my yarns. Now when you think back to like the potholder, right? You manually went over, under, over, under, right?

Well, the beauty of a loom like this is it separates them for you, so you just have to go in between all of the yarns. So I’ve lifted part of my warp yarns and set my shuttle through like this. And then, oh, this is a beater bar here, this moving part. This is the piece that pretty much everyone kind of recognizes when they see someone weaving. This kind of, when you pull it towards you and back, right?

So for this style of project, then I am actually going to lift more of them. See how I’ve got this? This is my bottom layer there. I’m going to come around, and I’m going to pull this forward. Now watch my shafts as they change here. There we go! Come back around the other way, and then we’re back to where we started.

Now here’s what’s so cool about double weave is that you see over here—let’s see, let me do this—I left this side open, so my two layers are completely separate. But this side over here is closed. It’s all connected. So in a perfect world, when this comes off the loom, I can then unfold the two layers, and I have a piece that is twice the width of what it would normally be.

So I think my project is probably, I don’t know, maybe 14 inches. So this piece when it comes off, I’m going to unfold it, and it’ll be 28 inches wide, which would be amazing. Now this project that I’m working on here, I put on lots and lots of yarn yardage, I should say, because it takes so long to dress a loom that you might as well put on, you know, a couple yards at least.

So you can’t see from here, but down below right here, I have a big rod that my finished fabric is going to wind on in the back. I have another rod beam, it’s called, where it’s all the yarn is wound on. So as I weave, then I will release the break, and I’ll move the whole thing towards me.

So I’ll wait for a few inches, and then I’ll move it all towards me. I weave for a few inches. That’s how you kind of make your way through all of the warp yarns, all the yardage that you had here. So that is kind of the basics. There are so many variations of projects that you can do, materials you can use, different kinds of shuttle patterns—all kinds of cool stuff.

As a matter of fact, let me show you a quick little sample of another. This is—are you familiar with the houndstooth check? Look at this! Look at that fun pattern, right? That’s something that you can do on a loom. It’s just a matter of setting it up, setting up the loom a certain way, and then the order that you toss your shuttle.

Or something like this guy—this is, I’ve just drawn a blank. Is that funny when you’re on TV and you’re like, “I don’t know!” I was going to say something here. But there’s a totally different kind of fabric here. Again, just done on this loom. There’s so many variations of what you can do with—just see the back. There we go! Just like that.

So weaving is a big old wide world, and the sky is the limit, really. But looms are, you know, they’re an amazing piece of equipment, and really, it’s, yeah, I think if you get a chance to try it, everyone should try weaving at the very least. It’s a lot, right, Dr. Jan?

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So when you’re dressing your loom, okay, so you have to take, like say that red or that orange, and then you take that one string at a time and go back and—oh, OMG!

Chris Acton
So when you asked if you had to be consistent, yes, you need a little bit of patience!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yes! And okay, and can you change the pattern as you’re weaving?

Chris Acton
Yes! Okay, to a degree. So let’s say basically what I’m doing for this project is just plain weave, so over, under, over, under, right? But I can change that by the order of shafts that I lift. So you can have two left at the same time, or I mean there’s all kinds of different combinations that you can do, then that you can change the pattern on the fly.

There are instances when sometimes a pattern requires that you set up the loom very specifically, though. So for instance, there is a style called rep weave. If you ever had like a set of placemats where it had the ridges in it and it’s real tightly packed, that’s rep weave. Now for that, I would have had to set up my loom so that my yarns or my warp yarns are really close together.

So you can’t do that on the fly. You can’t do that midstream. But a lot of things you totally can! You can also change the pedaling down below you. It’s called treadles, so you can change how the treadles affect the pattern too. So you do have lots of options when it comes to that, but it’s a lot!

Yeah, it’s so much fun, though! It is, I promise you! It always seems overwhelming, but it is a blast. There is something really, really mystical that happens when you sit down and start throwing a shuttle. It is really, it’s really incredible!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Wow! Have I convinced you?

Chris Acton
I used to crochet!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh, nice!

Chris Acton
Yeah, and it was very relaxing. I can’t say that—and one Christmas, boy, everybody got something crocheted! And I used to really like it. And I had said that I was—because I still—and that was like, well, I’m old.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Well, no, I’m not! You are not old! I’m a senior citizen! And when I was crocheting, I think that was like in the 70s or something, you know? And it was fun going and finding all different kinds of color threads and little things.

Now, okay, I know with crocheting, you know, you can stop and then you can put, like I would put maybe a porcelain butterfly or something like that in it. So if you are weaving, let’s say a mess, that messenger bag, and you’re weaving, and somebody wants some little piece of anything, a little piece of porcelain decorative thing, or how do you do that then?

Chris Acton
Do my bag had a button attached to it? Just a decorative button. It wasn’t—

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, yeah, yeah!

Chris Acton
So you would sew it on. Yeah, that’s basically the answer. The challenge is that I can’t just cut the yarns in the middle. You can’t—it’s not—because part of the way weaving works is that the warp yarns that go in this direction have to stay under tension. So you don’t want to do anything to mess that up. That’s really the moment that the warp yarns are a little wonky and out of ten, the tension’s wrong. It’s not fun.

So yeah, for me to incorporate other materials, in a lot of cases, I would just do it in the shuttle. I would actually, if I had something specific—

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
As a matter of fact, this leads me to a really good point. One of the things I like to do is work with recycled materials. So for instance, my favorite is old neckties.

Chris Acton
So here’s the—do we have time for a story?

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
We have time for a story!

Chris Acton
Yeah! Okay, okay! So here’s how the story goes. So I was part of a women’s creativity group, and we were going to do an exhibit, and the theme for the exhibit was a woman’s wardrobe. And you could interpret that however you want it. It didn’t matter. There was no real rules around it.

So as I kind of thought through this, I thought, “Well, I would like to do kind of a play with gender.” Now this was long before the kind of gender discussions we’re having today, but in my creative mind back then, I thought I would like to make something that’s very feminine and use something that’s traditionally masculine to make it.

So I took a whole bunch of old neckties, and I cut them into strips, and I wove it into the fabric, and then that fabric became a pencil skirt. So that was my piece for this project. And you know what? I’ve got a sample! Hold that thought!

I’ve got a little sample right here. This is all—these are all recycled neckties. And I love the challenge of using recycled materials in my work because for something like neckties like this, you know, a necktie isn’t typically solid. It’s got a whole little pattern to it and different colors. So I like the challenge of figuring out how to blend the colors together to go into the fabric.

So I love working with kind of alternative materials in my fabric. This is kind of the same technique used for like a rag rug. Have you heard of—you know what a rag rug is?

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah! Same idea! You cut it into strips and you work it into the fabric that way.

Chris Acton
But if you’re dressing your loom, how are you going to dress your loom with strips of—

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Good questions!

Chris Acton
I have regular cotton going this direction, so the ties are only in the shuttle.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh, right!

Chris Acton
So I still have this way, but I just have the neckties running the other way in the weft, technically.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, what it’s called!

Chris Acton
Yeah, so you only use it one way because you’re exactly right. There’s no way the ties would be able to hold up a position. You couldn’t tie them. It’d be a hot mess!

So yes, so the recycled material then just goes—whatever your shuttle is, then you would use—let’s see, I’ve got—oh, that’s not—I got a shuttle! I’ll show you! You might use a shuttle like this. This is called a ski shuttle, which kind of looks like it looks like a ski, like a—

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah!

Chris Acton
Oh, there you go!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah! Perfect!

Chris Acton
Yeah! So what I would do is, like, wrap the bits of neckties around directly onto the shuttle, and that’s how you then get into the fabric.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So how long does it take for you, like that messenger bag? How long did it take for you to make it?

Chris Acton
You know what? That’s always an interesting question because I never make one at a time. I typically, for a messenger bag, what I’ll do is I will fill up the entire loom, so all 36 inches wide, and I will make, I don’t know, six yards.

Now I know that I can fit two messenger bags across, and if I have six yards, it takes about one yard of fabric for each messenger bag. So that gives me enough fabric for 12 bags. So what I do then is, like I said, because it takes so long to set up a loom and get to this point, you don’t want to make enough for one bag. You want to make enough for a whole bunch of bags.

So that for me to weave that bolt of fabric might take me 22 hours. I mean, you know, it’s—so then it’s kind of a matter of—that’s just to make the fabric. Then I hand it off to Dinah, my fabulous seamstress, who will cut it, line it, put in the magnet, put on the straps. She’ll do all the things. Then to actually take it from being a bolt of fabric all the way to a finished product.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh, this is so interesting! The whole different world!

Chris Acton
It really is!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So now let’s say I don’t want to buy a huge loom like that. Do they have like the little bitty, little baby?

Chris Acton
Yeah!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah!

Chris Acton
As a matter of fact, I can’t gracefully show you, but my table loom is a 15-inch. So imagine this version but shrunk down, so it’s, you know, this wide. And instead of having pedals down below, treadles to move, it has little levers you just pull from the top.

So yeah, they come in all different sizes. As a matter of fact, I started with this loom. I started with the big one, and I did my very first trunk show at a place down the road in Valparaiso, Indiana. I was talking to the owner of this—it’s a beautiful kind of gift shop—and I was talking to her about doing this trunk show, and she said, “Hey, is there any chance that you could do a demonstration?” Because we just don’t have weavers around. No one knows what that looks like.

So I was like, “Well, sure!” I’m thinking, “I can’t move this loom!” So, but I was part of the local—I am still part of the local—we have a weavers guild, ironically enough, in the area, which is full of amazing weavers and crazy decades of experience.

So I thought, “You know what? I bet I can borrow someone’s table loom from the weaver’s guild.” So I borrowed a loom from Margaret Jones, and it was like a Barbie doll! That sucker had to be like, I don’t know, eight inches, ten inches wide. It was the cutest thing you’ve ever seen in your life!

So I borrowed this loom, and I did a demonstration for the weekend that I was doing this trunk show, and it was really a turning point for me because I couldn’t believe the response. People were just—they were just fascinated! They were like, “What are you doing? How does this work? What is this called?”

So people were really engaged, and they loved seeing the process. So basically after that weekend, of course, I started with Margaret, and I said, “Is there any chance I can buy your loom?” And she’s like, “No!”

So I thought, “Okay, go get my own!” So I immediately went out and bought my own table loom, and when I do any event anywhere, I take my table loom with me so I can process because I have learned that for me, part of my mission isn’t just to weave interesting things. I really want to share kind of awareness of weaving and kind of share my passion for it.

So I always bring a loom to show what it looks like, and over the years, you know, there’s been hundreds of people that have stopped by, and I’ve been able to demonstrate what it looks like to weave something, which has been really amazing.

So whether they ever buy anything from me or not, that’s a totally different issue. I just want to make sure that they can see what the process looks like and then appreciate what goes into woven items, especially hand-woven items.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, alright! Now I know you teach a class, and I think—let me make sure I do—

Chris Acton
Lots of teaching! Yes, there’s lots of teaching!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, well, okay, so I think this is your class. We’ll start there.

Chris Acton
That’s perfect!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, so a hand-woven experience is a weekly video that I release on YouTube. It’s also listed on the website, but they’re little snippets. Like the longest ones are maybe like eight minutes. They’re very short videos, but each one is meant to speak to the beginning weaver. Those are really my people! I love the ones that are just starting out, and they’re so excited, and they’re just bright-eyed bushy tails. They want to try all the things!

So my videos are geared towards someone who is just starting. So I talk about a lot of terms. I talk about like basic stuff like how to pick the right yarn for your warp, and there’s all kinds of things that I cover in this hand-woven experience video series.

So that is kind of my major place to have little—it’s all free little snippets that I share with students and people everywhere. The other place that I interact—there you go!

Chris Acton
Is Live with the Loom. Live at the Loom is a live video on Facebook every Thursday morning at 9:30 Central Time, and it’s just a half hour. It’s a quick little blitz, but during that time, I put on the camera, and I talk to the audience. I tell about what project I’m working on, and we compare notes about how things are going.

And it’s just like a coffee clutch, but I’m sitting at a loom talking about weaving. It’s just meant to be very casual. We do fun things like one of my favorite things to do at Live with the Loom is when I’m at the end of the project to actually take the pair of scissors and live cut the project off the loom, which is always a little intimidating!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yes, exactly!

Chris Acton
Yes, that’s exactly right! There’s always a moment I’m like, “Take a big breath, say a little prayer, and cut it off!” So, but that’s one of my favorite things to do on Live at the Loom just so people can see then how it unrolls from the loom, and they can see the entire project when it comes off.

So those are kind of my two big places that I interact with folks and talk to students and answer questions. I always encourage folks to, if you get stuck, if you have questions, just drop me a line. I really—I feel so strongly that my mission is to really get people excited about weaving and help them get into it.

So whatever kind of resources and education I can provide, I’m happy to do that.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
And if they want to actually look at your website and get all of that information, they can go to—

Chris Acton
Right, actoncreative.net!

Chris Acton
That works! That works right there! Actoncreative.net, that’s the hub for all the things. There I have a shop with some things for sale. I have blogs from every week. I always tie a blog into the hand-woven experience, so there’s little extras there. I’ve got information about custom stuff and about me. It’s just kind of chock full. I made sure that the website had all kinds of information for you to access.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
You know, and I told you this hour was going to go by really fast!

Chris Acton
It went by really fast!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
That is for you! You didn’t lie! That’s for sure! This is better! I mean, I gotta put all this stuff on here because—

Chris Acton
Oh no, I love it!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Like OMG! I have learned so much about weaving! I just didn’t know it, you know, that it just took so much! But I’m just so happy you—you know, you light up when you’re talking about weaving! I mean, you really like it!

So I want to thank you, Chris! Thank you! Thank you for being on my show! And you know, let’s do a shameless plug about PWN!

Chris Acton
Yeah, talk about it right quick!

Chris Acton
Absolutely! PWN is the Professional Women’s Network. It is an amazing group of strong, ambitious, fabulous women based out of the South Side of Chicago, but we do a lot of things virtually, so we extend far beyond that. We offer a whole variety of events every single month. Dr. Jan and I are partners in crime for PWN Speaks, which should be coming up the fourth Tuesday of the month.

But there’s all kinds of good stuff, and everyone is welcome to join us! You will not meet a more amazing group of people that are going places! These ladies are just amazing! So everyone’s welcome to join us! Come over, check us out, see if it’s a good fit for you!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yes! Amen! Yes!

Chris Acton
Well, thank you so much, Chris, for joining me! You see, I’m having issues with lighting over here before it’s like dark nights!

Chris Acton
Exactly right!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
But thank you so much, Chris! It’s really been a pleasure!

Chris Acton
Good!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
And so informative!

Chris Acton
Yes! Thank you so much for having me! It was really my pleasure!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
And I will see you Tuesday, August 23rd!

Chris Acton
23rd! Yep!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
At what time?

Chris Acton
7 PM!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
And ladies, you have to join us! Just go to PWN, Professional Women’s Network, and approve it, and you can see everything that PWN offers!

Chris Acton
I think we’re technically under PWN Central. I think that’s us, Peter!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah!

Chris Acton
Yeah! PWN Central! You want to join the right—

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Right, right, right! Exactly! Don’t join the wrong group!

Chris Acton
Yeah!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Alright, Chris, you have a beautiful rest of your evening!

Chris Acton
Thank you! Appreciate it!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Alright! Bye-bye!

Chris Acton
Bye-bye!

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Wow! This has been great! And it’s getting dark, and my lights kind of like, whoo! But anyway, I want to thank everyone for joining me and Chris this evening for Relationship Matters TV. And guess what? There are all kinds of relationships! Who knew that when you’re weaving, it’s a relationship with the yarn and the colors and the warp and the weft? I have learned stuff!

So anyway, I will see all of you next week! Have a beautiful, blessed rest of your evening! Bye!

[Music]