Watch the Video!

Weave Through Winter will take place again February 1-28, 2025.

The Cost will be $225 for a month of paper weaving. Treat yourself!

Would you like to jump start your creativity? Do you crave the inspiration you get from the act of making? Love beautiful papers? Have a desire to connect with others who share these same goals?

Several years ago, I was yearning to create on a regular basis, so I created my own 100 x 100 Paper Weaving Project. This was a challenge to myself, a call to action. I found myself getting sidetracked with bookkeeping, marketing, writing grant proposals… you name it! This project helped me dedicate a small chunk of my day to being in the studio and creating.

I created 100 weavings in 100 days, and I learned so much! I began to see paper in new ways, I learned to make without judging myself (heck, I didn’t have time to judge – I was too busy creating)! I spent an average of one hour on each weaving – and to be honest, some days it was more about the process than the end result. And I soon found myself inventing new ways of weaving.

Join me as we weave our way through winter during the month of February.

Fun Features!

• Daily structural and thematic prompts to inspire your weavings (these will be optional, and I’ll bet you’ll come up with your own ideas too).
• Weekly Zoom meetings, held on Fridays (these will be recorded).
• Weekly project-based lessons to provide additional structures to put your weavings on, such as books, vessels, cards, and wall hangings.

Weave Through Winter

February 1 – 29, 2024 

A Month of Paper Weaving

A Daily Practice/Challenge/Adventure/Meditation! 

In the Weave Through Winter online classroom, we’ll be creating a weaving each day as we explore a variety of papers and weaving techniques.

• Daily Practice: Commit to one hour of creativity a day (more or less)
• Challenge: Share your weavings and win! Each day that you share a weaving in the online discussion, you’ll be entered into a weekly raffle for a paper prize! The more you share, the more chances to win, not to mention the satisfaction you’ll feel after making and sharing with other participants.
• Adventure: Stimulate your mind by finding, mixing and matching papers, and practicing various ways to weave with paper. I find weavings to be like puzzles. You cut the papers apart and then weave them back together.
• Meditation: Begin to find satisfaction in the ordinary while creating something extraordinary, as you explore material and technique.

We will focus on:

• Exploring weaving techniques (and inventing some too)!
• Enjoying and pondering the process.
• Sharing your progress daily without judgment (discover the joy of sharing your work within our group).
• Seeing paper and weaving in new ways.

Accountability, Guidance, Community 

Create at your own pace, whenever it’s convenient, but my hope is that you will set aside at least 60 minutes a day for paper weaving. When we find the source of connection and commitment, it becomes easier to devote our time and efforts to our goals. If you prefer to cram and spend several hours at a time on the weekly lesson, that’s okay too. I’m here to guide you and cheer you on, and there aren’t any grades in this course!

Course Outline

You will find a pre-recorded video posted in the classroom each Thursday that introduces a main lesson about a weaving technique, followed by variations to explore throughout the week. Work at your own pace in your own space. There are no live teaching sessions in this course but we interact daily in the discussions (note that you will want to spend a bit of additional time looking and commenting on the other participants work).

• Week 1 (February 1): How to weave strips
• Week 2 (February 8): Adding curves + cutting windows
• Week 3 (February 15): Shaped Weavings
• Week 4 (February 22): Thinking outside of the weaving

We will also meet on Zoom each Friday from 10am – noon mountain time for social weaving sessions, tips & tricks and demos. These will be recorded for those who can’t make them live.

What You Get

• Weekly video tutorials + daily notes & inspiration
• Resources + suppliers
• A private community for sharing your work and a forum for asking questions and getting feedback
• A place to connect with a paper-loving community
• The satisfaction of creating on a daily basis and a boost in confidence
• Inspiration from Helen and other participants

How it works:

• A week before class begins, you will receive information about joining the Weave Through Winter online classroom.
• Each Thursday, beginning on February 1st, a new lesson will be available in the online classroom with a video tutorial showing a new weaving technique plus variations to keep you busy exploring and experimenting all week!
• As a student you will have access to all lessons, support materials and videos indefinitely.

Materials:

Materials: Once you register, I will send you a thorough supply list, including sources for affordable papers and ideas for unusual papers you might already have, along with suggestions for glues and a few other supplies.

Tools: You probably have most of these tools: a pencil, ruler, scissors, cutting mat, craft knife, eraser, glue brush. There are a few optional tools that I’ll tell you about when you register.

Learn More!

If you are interested in taking part in Weave Through Winter, but are not financially able to at this time, there are two scholarships available (sponsored by Washi Arts and Helen Hiebert Studio). This year, I will also grant a couple of partial scholarships. Please indicate on your application if you are able to pay 50% (IF you don’t get selected for the full scholarship, I will move you to the partial scholarship pool). The deadline to apply is Monday, January 22nd, 2024. Scholarship recipients will be selected and notified by January 26th. Click here to apply.

Beyond the class: The skills you acquire will have multiple applications for future projects: book covers, cards, window and wall pieces, and more. Take what you learn beyond the class as you add paper weaving techniques to your repertoire.

View the weavings I made during my 100 x 100 paper weaving project in 2013.

About Helen: My initial interest began on a trip to Japan over 30 years ago when I was inspired by light filtering through traditional shoji screens. I soon began developing workshops combining book arts, papercraft and lighting techniques. I’m the author of five books about paper crafts and papermaking, and I have a membership program called The Paper Year, featuring a how-to paper project for every month. I am a Colorado artist who constructs installations, sculptures, films, artists’ books and works in paper. I teach, lecture and exhibit my work internationally and have an extensive network of paper colleagues around the world. My interest in how things are made (from paper) keep me up-to-date on current paper trends, which I write about in my weekly blog, The Sunday Paper. I hold papermaking master classes and an annual paper retreat in my Red Cliff, Colorado studio each September.