093: Teaching the World to Weave with Kelly Casanova

Author: Felicia Lo: Founder & Creative Director of SweetGeorgia Yarns
Published: Tue 22 Oct 2019
Episode Link: None

This week Felicia is joined by weaver, teacher, and designer: Kelly Casanova, from Melbourne Australia. Kelly runs an online weaving school called: Kelly Casanova Weaving Lessons and has been working tirelessly to create ongoing weaving instruction, initially with a rigid heddle loom and now with multi-shaft looms. Kelly has been a huge inspiration for Felicia because Kelly was creating online weaving tutorials when there weren't any available.

Join Felicia and Kelly as they chat about the involvement and control that weaving offers a fibre artist and how to encourage others to start weaving.

"...I felt like I was always looking for something really authentic, like I could do it from start to finish and have as much involvement in the process as I possibly could. And weaving was it for that because I could get the fibre, I could spin it, I could dye it, and then I could weave it, and then I could sew it..." - Kelly Casanova on her love of weaving

In this episode, we talk about:

2:09 Kelly chats about how she first got into the fibre arts
3:43 What was it about weaving that captured Kelly's interest so much?
5:19 What is Kelly's favourite fibre or yarn to work with?
6:20 Kelly discusses her upcoming course on studying Japanese techniques of dyeing and weaving
8:37 Felicia asks Kelly how she comes up with her course ideas for her online school
12:38 Kelly explains what students can learn at her online school
14:05 Kelly gives advice to first-time weavers and how to get started
16:49 Felicia and Kelly chat about how to encourage more weavers to create content for the Internet
18:31 What are the differences Kelly sees between weaving on a rigid heddle looms weaving on a floor loom?
21:30 Felicia chats with Kelly about her Etsy shop and her experience selling on that platform
23:06 Kelly's tips for production weavers
25:19 Kelly describes why she loves the online weaving community
27:19 How Kelly finds the time for self-care in a busy life
31:29 What Kelly has planned for her online school
33:36 Where can you find Kelly online
34:12 Felicia's Final Notes and Giveaway!