In Kingsport, Tennessee, the Overmountain Weavers Guild hosted the final day of their intro to handweaving course. The course takes place each August, and in 2025 there were about 15 students, ranging in age from 12 to over 70.
“I know from sitting here, that what you most want to do is go to your loom,” said Marita Schwartz, as she welcomed students to class. “So, we’re gonna let you weave for a while.” Schwartz is a seasoned weaver, and one of the instructors.
The loom is the primary tool in weaving. It holds a set of vertical threads under tension. Using foot pedals, the weaver can separate those threads to create an open space called a shed. Then, the weaver uses a small device called a shuttle to pass another thread back and forth. This creates a pattern of interlocking sets of threads that eventually results in a piece of cloth.
I’ve been in the class all month. I started weaving two years ago, and wanted the chance to grow my skills in person.
Students in the Overmountain Weavers Guild’s 2025 intro to handweaving course. Each August, the guild hosts an in-depth, foundational class that’s focused on teaching beginner weavers the basics, and instructs intermediate weavers on expanding their skills and knowledge. Photo courtesy of Louise Nuttle and the Overmountain Weavers Guild.
Louise Nuttle is a former guild president. She joined the group as a fiber producer, and found a community of like minded weavers. She said the Overmountain Weavers Guild started over 50 years ago.
“It started in ‘72, essentially because a young, aspiring fiber artist was bound and determined to learn how to weave,” Nuttle said.
Handwoven table runner in progress on a floor loom, featuring an overshot pattern by reporter Toni Doman. (Photo by Toni Doman.)
That young, aspiring weaver was Claudia Lee, who connected with an older, established weaver in the Kingsport area named Persis Grayson. Lee and a few others decided they wanted to learn from Persis. “And Persis said, ‘Well, okay, we can meet at my house.’ And so, the guild started with like eight people sitting around in Persis Grayson’s living room,” Nuttle said.
Today, the guild is a place where fiber artists from around northeast Tennessee and southwest Virginia gather to share information on all things weaving. They host monthly meetings and workshops about different fiber arts. It’s become an important source of community for artists
in the region. The group has more than 80 members, but Nuttle said there’s a key limitation.
“To be fully active in the guild, you have to be available to come to Wednesday morning meetings,” she said.
Louise Nuttle, a fiber artist and previous president of the Overmountain Weavers Guild, dresses a floor loom in preparation for the August weaving class. Photo courtesy of Louise Nuttle.
Nuttle said that makes it tough for younger folks with full-time jobs to get involved. Most of the active members are retirement age.
“When I was working full-time, I was not able to come to the meetings. Now we have YouTube. But before YouTube…I learned from my grandmother,” she said.
Reporter Toni Doman works on a table runner at the Exchange Place in Kingsport, Tennessee during the Overmountain Weavers Guild’s 2025 introductory weaving course. Photo courtesy of the Overmountain Weavers Guild.
While living abroad in Canada in 2024, I stumbled upon an intro to weaving class that was hosted in-person. From there, I was hooked. When I got back home to southwest Virginia, I wanted to keep learning. I turned to YouTube, books, and online classes, but was yearning for an opportunity to learn offline and build community. That’s when I found the Overmountain Weavers Guild. The guild hosts their annual month-long class on the weekends to better accommodate people’s work schedules. You don’t have to be a member to take the class. The in-person format has inspired a new crop of weavers.
“When I started weaving, I expected to like it, but I’ve enjoyed it so much more. And every new thing I do, I just get so excited about,” said weaver Mark Archibald.
Mark Archibald weaving an overshot pattern on a large floor loom. Photo courtesy of Mark Archibald.
Archibald is from Marion, Virginia. He took the class last year, then joined the guild and returned this year as one of the instructors. He said learning from other people, in-person, has been invaluable.
“You learn so much more from others. You learn by doing things and making mistakes, but you’ve got to have others,” Archibald said. “And every time I’m around another weaver, I’m trying to look over their shoulder and see, how do you do that?”In addition to creating opportunities to learn in-person, other weavers are focused on making the craft more accessible to younger learners.
One of those people is Erin Miller. Miller is the Director of Weaving at Berea College in Kentucky. She said that while handweaving has a rich history here in Appalachia, interest in the craft has waxed and waned over time.
“Craft has had such interesting ebbs and flows, and especially weaving. Weaving can feel a little bit inaccessible because it requires large equipment,” Miller said.
Miller is in her thirties and has been weaving for the past 16 years. One of her primary goals in education is to make the craft accessible to the generations coming up behind her.
Erin Miller, Director of Weaving at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky. (Photo courtesy of Erin Miller.)
“I’m on the board of the Handweavers Guild of America, which is primarily older hobby weavers. And that’s changing,” Miller said. “And part of the reason that I’m on the board is because I’m really interested in seeing that demographic change.”
And Miller is seeing that demographic change. Most of her students are college-aged and come from diverse backgrounds. While Miller is passionate about teaching the obvious skills related to weaving—like color theory and dressing a loom—she said there’s something else students get from her classes.
“What they’re actually getting is what I like to call hard skills, not soft skills anymore. So things like creative problem solving, communication, effective leadership,” Miller said. “That’s the real product, and the secondary product is a hand woven object.”
A closeup of mending in progress. (Photo courtesy of Erin Miller.)
Miller believes we’re in a period of revived interest in weaving here in Appalachia. She said it has to do with what’s going on at a societal level.
“It feels like a really kind of chaotic and tumultuous time, and we as human beings are trying as much as possible to find joy in our lives,” she said. “And there are a lot of people that find joy and meaning in physically making something. The output of energy, the physical output of energy, is something we seek when we are in chaotic and tumultuous times.”
A student at Berea College weaving on a floor loom. (Photo courtesy of Erin Miller.)
Deborah Prescott is a weaver and fiber artist based in Bristol, Virginia. She agreed with Miller that weaving seems to be a kind of antidote that people are seeking out in current times.
“It is interesting how when people are drawn to pick it up, they sense the connection to the past,” Prescott said. “And that gives a feeling of rootedness, which is something that we have so lost in our current way of life.”
Weaver and fiber artist Deborah Prescott stands in her herb garden outside her home in Bristol, Virginia. She holds a large pot filled with comfrey, a native plant, in preparation to dye her homespun yarns.
A basket full of Deborah’s homespun yarns, dyed using local plants. Photos by Toni Doman.
Prescott is also a spinner, and often makes her own thread for weaving projects. Inside her living room, she sat down at one of her three spinning wheels.
“You operate this wheel by treadling,” she said. “If you’ve ever seen an old treadle sewing machine it’s kind of the same idea.”
Deborah Prescott using one of her three spinning wheels inside of her home in Bristol, Virginia. (Photo by Toni Doman)
Prescott’s spinning wheel is made out of wood and has a big wheel about the size of a car tire in the center. On the floor are two foot pedals which operate a lever. To treadle, Prescott used her feet to press the pedals which spin the wheel.
Prescott took a piece of fluffy sheep’s wool that had been cleaned and combed. This processed wool is called roving. Prescott had dyed the roving with goldenrod, a native plant. As she treadled and the wheel spun, the light green roving twisted into a fine thread.
“Then the thread goes through this hole which is called an orifice and is taken up by the bobbin and looks a lot like a giant old spool,” she said.
Sitting at her spinning wheel, Prescott transforms fluffy sheep’s wool into fine thread. (Photo by Toni Doman)
Prescott grew up in the Chicago suburbs, but she’s lived in Bristol for over 30 years now. During that time, she’s seen more people in the region become interested in weaving.
“It really enhances the quality of your life if you can do it, if you can pursue it. It’s a way of grounding, a way of centering, they’re very contemplative crafts, they restore a sense of balance,” she said.
About a year ago, someone connected me with Prescott. And she happens to live just ten minutes from me. I started visiting her at her home, and since then, she’s become my mentor.
Mentor Deborah Prescott and apprentice Toni Doman. (Photo by Jerry Prescott)
“Deborah, what do you enjoy most about becoming my mentor in this craft journey working together?” I asked.
“To be able to share these things with you, to have somebody who is so on the same wavelength and enthusiastic and appreciative has been so validating and so encouraging. It has just really shown me how much each generation needs the other,” Prescott said. “The older generation feels so lost when they realize that all of this knowledge that they have accumulated is now thought to be irrelevant. So to find someone who appreciates…what you’ve learned, what you value and wants to carry that forward. That is a treasure.”
This article is part of the Living Traditions project, featuring an assortment of stories and podcasts about folklife in central Appalachia.
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The post Craft Mentors Bring New Makers Into The Fold In The Appalachian Weaving Community appeared first on The Daily Yonder.
