Designer Spotlight Blog Post – Madelyn van der Hoogt
Welcome back to our Designer Spotlight Series! Today’s spotlight is from the incredible Madelyn Van der Hoogt. Madelyn has always had the heart of a teacher, and her love of weaving and teaching has taken her on a journey filled with transformations! Since her early days in California, Madelyn has always given back to the weaving community, and we are excited to share a piece of her story with you. Without further ado, here is Madelyn Van der Hoogt.
Please note that all photos are used with Madelyn's permission, and all photos belong entirely to her.
Colorful Transformation
In my Los Angeles home growing up, everything was beige: beige walls, beige wall-to-wall carpets, beige floor-to-ceiling drapes. No one I knew did any kind of craft. I entered college in Berkeley, California, in the early 1960s, and after a few years my life was transformed. In my Berkeley apartment, textiles were all over the place, and the floors were covered with oriental rugs bought at flea markets and auctions.
Teaching and Weaving
I became an English teacher, and after I had been teaching in Oakland for eight years, I was granted a year’s sabbatical to create a course for the many Spanish speaking students who were moving into Oakland. In preparation for this, my husband and I traveled through Mexico, and in the main plaza in Oaxaca, I saw a woman weaving on a backstrap loom and my life was transformed once again. We followed a rainbow of huipiles (women’s blouses) all over southern Mexico and Guatemala. I found teachers in the towns of Panajachel and Nebaj and spent most of that year weaving.
Felicia, Madelyn's First Weaving Teacher
Weaving with Chiggers
Back to the Land
When we returned to the US, I taught for the requisite year after the sabbatical, and then we joined the “back to the land” movement and left the Bay Area to farm in central Missouri. It turned out raising everything you eat wasn’t so easy, so I became an English teacher in Fayette, Missouri. (I did try to continue backstrap weaving there but was defeated by the proliferation of chiggers.)
One Loom per Project
One day, a woman from the Columbia Weavers’ Guild, Alice Mae Alexander, brought a station wagon filled with Dorothy table looms to show students in my high school how to weave. Once again, my life was transformed. I took classes from her at The Weaver’s Store in Columbia, Missouri (thinking then that every town had a “weaver’s store”) and I was hooked.
I had collected coverlets in addition to oriental rugs. At about the same time Cost Plus in San Francisco sold coverlet-patterned doubleweave throws for somewhere around $50, I started weaving coverlets “for sale”. I wove the first ones in overshot and then turned to doubleweave, which meant acquiring a Glimåkra drawloom (and a lot of learning). Even before I acquired the Glimåkra, I had been collecting looms. I’d weave a project on a loom and need a new loom to weave a new idea. One loom per project, I’d explain. Like getting another pair of knitting needles.
Weaving Coverlets
Doubleweave Coverlets
Madelyn and Sadye at School
THE Weaver's School!
The looms became a problem until we bought the farm next door. I moved them all there and opened the Weavers’ School in 1984 and then moved the school to Whidbey Island in 1993.
I have been the editor of Prairie Wool Companion (thank you to all my English teachers), then Weaver’s, then Handwoven. The tasks of editing and teaching always require more learning. You can’t teach something (or explain it) unless you understand it. I love exploring weave structures and then teaching them. Only weavers know how much there is to weaving, how deep and wide a field it is. A lifetime is not enough to learn it all, and that may be what I love about it most. Or second most. What I love most is all the other weavers I’ve come to know and love.
What is your favorite weave structure?
Deflected Double Weave
What is your favorite Lunatic Fringe Yarns product?
Deflected Doubleweave scarves
What Are You Up to Now?
I’m trying to write a book (more comprehensive than the Complete Book of Drafting but it’s a work in progress!)
Last Question...Cake or Pie?
Chocolate Cake!
Thanks Madelyn!
Thank you for sharing your experiences with us! We can't wait to see your new book.
You can also see what Madelyn and the Weaver's School are up to on the Weaver's School website.
I’ve had the delightful privilege of attending Madelyn’s classes on Whidbey Island. She has left her mark on many of us who can’t think of her without smiling. She is an amazing teacher and supporter of the art of weaving. I will always be grateful.
I left Columbia MO, in 1979, after graduating from the Mizzou Journalism School. Had I wandered into that Weaver’s Store or stuck around a few more years, my transformation might have happened sooner. Always love hearing this story, Madelyn, and so glad we eventually met.
Thanks, Michele, for sharing.