Marshfield School of Weaving

The Marshfield School of Weaving is a craft school located in Marshfield, Vermont. Instruction focuses on traditional weaving, spinning, dyeing, and other textile techniques from 17th–19th century Britain and North America.

History
After working as master weaver at Colonial Williamsburg, Norman Kennedy (b. 1933) founded the Marshfield School of Weaving in 1975. Virginia Stranahan, a friend of Kennedy's from his Gaelic folk singing tours, supported the renovation of a 19th-century barn for the school. Kennedy taught based on methods he had learned from handweavers in Aberdeen and the Outer Hebrides in his youth. Over the course of six weeks, students would spin a sheep's fleece into yarn, weave it into a blanket, and waulk it with Scottish songs. Kate Smith, who would later found Eaton Hill Textile Works as a master weaver, joined Kennedy as a teacher in 1982. The first iteration of the school closed in 1992.

In 2007, with experience in historic textile reproduction, Smith reopened the school as director. She has built a roster of guest instructors who teach annual and one-off workshops expanding on the historic core of the program.

As part of the de-accessioning of its collection in 2016, the American Textile History Museum donated several looms, spinning wheels, and other historic equipment to the Marshfield school for conservation and study.

Projects
Kate Smith has documented the school's process of setting up a 4-post barn loom in the manual Warping & Dressing the Early Hand Loom. The school also promotes an online "Early Hand North American Handloom Survey" to gather information about the "style, construction, and features" of the textile technology of this period.

The campus hosts a semiannual Textile History Forum for academic research, organized by Rabbit Goody of Thistle Hill Weavers.