My name is Kaaren Krueg, and I am an occasional weaver. I also spend my days as Executive Assistant to the Vice President of Academic Services at a community college located in the San Francisco, CA, Bay Area. Until recently, I’ve done a couple of weaving projects a year: baby blankets, towels, scarves, etc. Discovering Weaving Today has stepped up my interest.
My weaving adventure started when I was 12 years old and went to Fullerton, CA, during Easter Vacation to visit my aunt and uncle, Curtis and Betty Bell (not the Betty Bell currently posted on the Weaving Today gallery, although I think they were probably acquaintances).
Aunt Betty had a recently purchased second-hand Herald loom, that I think I helped warp in rose path, threading errors and all, and I wove 3 placemats during the week I was there. I still have what’s left of them—fringes gone and the rug yarn warp beginning to ravel; My mother used them for years
Over the years I followed Aunt Betty and her loom from Fullerton to Stretch Island in Puget Sound and then to a couple of houses in Bremerton, WA. There was always something on the loom, and she would sit me down and tell me, “This is what we’re weaving. Here’s the pattern.” One day in 1994 my husband and I arrived at Aunt Betty’s house in Bremerton, and there was nothing on the loom. She told us that her arthritis had gotten so bad that she could no longer use the loom, and offered it to me. We spent our visit arranging for shipment and boxing up her “stash.” Today whenever I change the bobbin in my boat shuttle, the name “Betty Bell” smiles up at me from the bottom.