Bea Grob, CW Representative to Switzerland

Jan 1999, Vol:59 pg 9

I guess fibers are in my genes. I did sew, knit, crochet and other things as a teenager. My desire, at one time was to become a handicraft teacher. I did not know about handweaving. When I had to do the household school, which was required for girls in those days (about 25 years ago), I did see my first loom. I saw a lady weaving too, but I didn't dare to ask about it. It just was in my head until I got married and saw somebody offering classes in weaving.

Well, it was not quite what I was looking for. They wove on rigid heddle looms. I wanted to weave on a loom. But the teacher explained to me that I could do it on my own, with the only available book in German at that time from Laia Lundell.

So I did buy a loom and start, at least I tried. I thought it might be a good idea to try with some yarn that was a special offer. What I did not realize at that time, it was not a good choice. It was some slubby linen yarn in orange. I never managed to put that warp on the loom correct. Since then I have successfully woven a lot of different things. It started as a hobby and became more and more a profession.

Today I mainly weave fabric in silk and cotton chenille. Sometimes with the help of people who want to practice weaving. The sewing is done now either by my husband or a seamstress using my patterns. Most of this activity is done in the living room, which is the biggest room in the house. Some things like the hand dyed warp for the men's vest are done in the cellar which we restored as a working room. My chenille jackets and pullover I do mostly in tabby with inlaid, kind of like tapestry. From the scraps we produce also hats, which sell pretty well on craft markets.

For the vests and shawls I play with shadow weave, summer & winter or network. I have a 10 - shaft Glimakra counter - marche, a no name 6 - shaft counter - marche and 8 - shaft Schacht dobby loom, which I like very much. But of course I'm dreaming of an AVL 24 shaft loom.

Since about 10 years, I teach classes in several textile techniques. I teach weaving, spinning, twining and multimixed media. The newest job in the past 3 years, I am the co-editor and layouter of the Swiss magazine Textil Forum Textile which is bilingual (German and French) magazine. My life is centered about weaving.

I joined Complex Weavers after Convergence in Portland. I enjoy it very much. It gives me a lot of feedback. As we are only a few people in Switzerland, about 6.5 million, there are not as many weavers. So I enjoy the worldwide exchange in ideas. At the moment I belong to the Planar and Symmetry Study Group and since Atlanta also to the Early Weaving Study Group. There are some more groups which are interesting, but my day has only 24 hours!

Since Atlanta, I am the proud winner of a vest. I would like to thank everybody for the fabric and the "seamstress" who did such a wonderful job. Thank you all!

If you would like to see more of Bea's work, visit her website at http://www.beedesign.ch or email her at postmaster@beedesign.ch