Over the last few months I’ve been adding information about Saori weaving products to my site. I’m very happy to now be a Saori dealer for Australian customers.  You can find out about Saori here. I have some looms in stock and lots of accessories and pre-wound warps, see more here,  with more special ones on order.

Saori emphasises weaving, creativity and connections to others. It is based on weaving as an expression of our uniqueness and doesn’t seek to achieve uniform, industry looking cloth – although the looms can certainly do such textiles. Here is a lovely fresh example of a weave with a fluted edge from Saori no Mori (Saori HQ in Osaka)This edging is done using differential warp tension. But much easier than it sounds.

The newest stock addition under the books link is Shitate no hon. I hadn’t seen this before I ordered it and didn’t realise how great it was. It has 54 creative clothing patterns with zero waste. Although written in Japanese, it is easy to understand with the diagrams and references. It also lets you know how much fabric needs to be woven and how wide for every garment. These sizes work in nicely with the pre-wound warps too. For all inquiries please email me here.

The studio workshop aspect of my Saori studio is taking a bit longer to get going but it has started with a complete revamp of my studio now underway. We’ve stripped back everything and we are insulating and gyprocking, hoping for a new floor, cupboards, skylights and benches. Then I will house several Saori looms along with my 12 shaft Toika loom. I’m trying to get it all finished over the next month.

At the moment my lounge room is my only working area for my smaller looms and it’s kind of nice like that. I seemed to weave far more when I had young children and a large loom in the lounge room where I could always grab short stretches of time in amongst life. Being outside in my studio wasn’t quite the same. I had to make an appointment to get out there! I hope the Saori looms will bring it back to life with others sharing my ‘creating’ space.