Barbara Miller (12)

Frances Goodrich was born shortly before the Civil War and died in 1944 at the age of 88. She was educated in art at Yale, but only received a certificate of attendance, because Yale did not give degrees to women. For a time, she was a water color artist, but also became a volunteer for the Presbyterian Home Mission Board. It was in this capacity that she came first to Asheville, N. Carolina and then to Riceville, N. Carolina to assist in establishing schools. Poverty was extreme in this area and Frances could see that the women needed social connection in addition to more income for the family. She established a weekly mother's meeting and at one of these meetings, a woman gave her a gift of a handwoven coverlet in brown and white, called “Double Row Knot”. From the beginning, Frances could see that this might be a way for women to earn money through a cottage industry in weaving and at the same time give them some joy and meaning to their difficult and isolated lives. This book is the story of the journey that Frances Goodrich took in establishing Allanstand Cottage Industries.

Over many years, Frances gathered together many of the local weaving patterns written on mostly worn strips of paper in a format that Frances learned to decipher. She then made drawdowns of the designs using graph paper that she made and colored in with water color paints. She also copied the drafts into her Brown Book . Her works are in the archives of the Southern Highland Craft Guild.

This book contains many pages of photos of the actual pages in the Brown Book and information about the weaver, the name of the draft and comparisons to other similar drafts. Sometimes the weaver was only known by her husband's first name preceding the surname. There is also a section for dye recipes that have been transcribed from the handwritten pages in the Brown Book and photos of some samples that Frances stored.

The last 2/3 of the book are computer generated drafts and draw downs. These are in alphabetical order according the the name of the draft. All but six of the drafts are overshot, but they could also be used as profile drafts for other weave structures.

My biggest complaint about this book is that the computer generated draft information is small and difficult for older eyes to read. I think that a large magnifier would be helpful so that you can transcribe the draft into weaving software or write down the numbers of the shaft and the treadling sequence.

This book makes accessible an important part of our weaving history. Some drafts may have originated in this country, but many were brought by immigrants from their homes abroad. New names were given to the drafts that reflected the way a pattern looked, or perhaps an historical event in the U.S. All are cherished parts of our handloom legacy.… (más)