“I am driven by curiosity, and by the love of problem-solving. The common thread that runs through all of my work can be summed up in one word: investigation. I am constantly solving problems in order to get new results, breaking the rules to try out new approaches, and building tools that work better to deliver different but controllable outcomes. Always, the questions I try to answer are, ‘what happens if…?’ and ‘how can I…?’

In addition to weaving, Sally both renovates and builds looms. She will describe some of the many and varied loom interventions that she has conducted over the past 15 years and some of the weaving tools that she has built including a horizontal warping mill, several warping trapezes, and a fly shuttle. She will also discuss some of the changes that weavers can make to their looms to increase the weaving area, prevent treadles and shafts from “floating”, easy ways to add warp beams and back beams, how to increase the size of the shed on certain looms, and other topics.

As the inventor of weaving techniques and tools that hand weavers can use to weave three dimensional shapes directly on their hand looms using any material and weaving structure, Sally is the author of 3-D Hand Loom Weaving, Sculptural Tools and Techniques published by Schiffer Publishing in 2020. She is the recipient of the Complex Weavers’ Award for Excellence and has been published in the Complex Weavers Journal, Shuttle Spindle and Dyepot, the Online Guild of Weavers, Spinners & Dyers, Artscope, Handwoven, and many other publications.

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