Judy Kavanagh
I make a number of different tools for spinners and weavers including spindles, heddles, shuttles, niddy noddies, nostepinnes and tiny looms.
I love to fix old spinning wheels and get them running again.
Where to buy my work
Articles about spinning, weaving, dyeing and other topics
Finger weaving is a technique used to create belts, sashes, straps, and other similar items through a non-loom braiding process. It is especially popular among the Québecois, Métis and North Read More …
Card weaving (also called tablet weaving) is a very ancient technique for weaving bands. It was used in Iron Age Europe as well as by the Vikings to weave headers Read More …
I’ve recently become fascinated with weaving narrow bands using a special band heddle. This technique uses supplementary warp threads to form the pattern by floating on top of or underneath Read More …
Last summer I taught myself to spin using a spindle and belt distaff. This method was used in Europe during the Middle Ages and can still be found in Eastern Read More …
This rug began as wool straight off the sheep – white Scottish Blackface from Alberta, white North Country Cheviot from Ontario, black Canadian wool from the Canadian Cooperative Wool Growers Read More …
Today I dyed with the woad I grew this summer. It had grown happily in a recycling bin, munched on by some cabbage butterfly caterpillars. To start I put a Read More …
Last year I planted seeds of woad, weld and dyer’s coreopsis but none of them germinated. I have no idea why. This year I decided to try again with last Read More …
Over the winter I did a couple of custom spinning orders. The first job was spinning the fur of a lovely Sheltie called Maggie. I had the honour of meeting Maggie Read More …
Summer is the time for natural dyeing. This is dyeing, not with commercial dyes, but with materials I can find around where I live such as flowers or lichen. It’s always Read More …
Today was shearing day at my friend Robin’s farm, Elderberry Farm. She has an assortment of sheep: Polwarth, Shetland, Jacob, Shropshire (and crosses) and two guard llamas Hamish and Joy. Read More …