c u r i o u s w e a v e r » Handweaving

Bring Back Doughnuts for Weavers

curiousweaver — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 04:52:19 +0000

	Amanda and I had a actual weekend of weave and this is one of the the beautiful presents she brought with her. A ceramic doughnut shaped warp weight from Japan.When I hold this in my hand I’m sent into another dimension – I think of other people and other times where textile production had it’s own specialised tools also created by gifted craftspeople. Attention to detail, function and beauty. A time or place where where beauty isn’t considered irrelvant, unnecessary, inconvenient, costly, pointless..such as shown in my usual weight which had a previous life as a film canister.Having said this, the humble film canister performs well and I can adjust the number of lead weights inside to suit the situation. But it sure lacks any visual beauty. Now that film canisters can’t be bought, where to now for our odd warp weights.
The Japanese ceramic weight on the back of the loom

Amanda believes this indicates the weight. There must be specific weights for different weave/yarns. This one was a bit too heavy for the 2/20 silk ends I was using.	This initially looked like wear on it, but it could be cleaned off. It may be purposely there to provide a grip of sorts. Or it may reveal to someone what it’s original function was.

Pics to Picks – Print to Loom

curiousweaver — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 07:16:16 +0000




Well here is the images of my bamboo experimentation with more to come. I’ve started with the sampling on the warp and will probably go with the fine bamboo weft which has a silky handle and soft ribbing effect. I don’t seem to be able to weave white successfully. I know it’s needed and we can’t do without it on the web and in our blank journal books but it’s an unfulfilling colour for me – it has an uncomfortable yearning about it. So into the dyebath all these will go. I’m looking into stencilling with dye or stencil resist if there is such a thing.

Bamboo Textile Patterns for Print

curiousweaver — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 07:11:06 +0000

Stylised bamboo images are well known in textiles and wallpaper.

I found these and liked the incorporation of the bamboo ’seams’ and leaves together. My image for pics to picks didn’t have the leaves but they offer another dimension to the patterning.

I also experimented with a peg plan possibility. But my experiments didn’t go too smoothly but I will try again. I need to get the scale and proportions correct for the small pixel size of the peg plan.

The pegplan experiment

Enjoying Images

curiousweaver — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 07:04:01 +0000

Although I’ve decided to go with the bamboo image for my Pic to Picks weave challenge I’m still fiddling with all the other images that Meg gave me. The more I look, the more I see.Notice the blue image in the corner of this image. It was very interesting because it was on a curve and I was able to draw several various versions of this.

I’m not sure how these will be used in my work but they are filling up my journal pages nicely.

Bamboo meets Ribbed Weave

curiousweaver — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 03:06:56 +0000

	Progessing with the Pics to Picks challenge I’ve managed to wind a long 9 metre warp onto my loom ready to test out some ideas and yarns in the weft. I know the warp is long (at least for me) and I promised myself that I wouldn’t put on long warps anymore because I get a bit bored sometimes… but here I go again. I must admit that it is totally fun now winding and beaming warps with my new AVL warping wheel, so maybe it’s all an excuse to use my new tools.Using the bamboo image I’ve isolated the actual bamboo from the photo and used this as a basis for a ribbed weave with 3/1 and 1/3 twill stripes in 2/20 silk. Meg’s explaination about the use of bamboo in Japan and China in connection to food has challenged me to look again at the project. Either I create a piece that can be used in conjuction with food such as a table runner…or should I just eat nice food (or health food such as chocolate) as I’m weaving it. I was going to weave collapse style scarves but I could easily include a non-collapse table textile on the same warp, perhaps allaying any boredom with the long warp if it creeps in. Look at the ’seams’ on the bamboo photo. These are more interesting than the bamboo itself for weave design. So I’m trying to include lots of these in an intermittent way. This possibility is only achievable with lots of shafts. I have 4 shafts devoted to the basic ribbed weave structure. The other 20 shafts offer another 5 arrangements of bamboo ’seams’. By changing the tie up again I can also combine arrangement to create more ’seams’. The ’seams’ are simply an exchange of the 1/3 twill with the 3/1 twill in small areas. Here is a design showing the front and back view of the structure, followed by photos of the warping process. See all my Pic to Picks entries so far.

Saori Children

curiousweaver — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 03:11:51 +0000

	Easter was so full of fun and activity. Not only did my daughter come home but also my sister in law with her three children. Any children on site get dragged into the studio for activities around here. Painting easter eggs, building with duplo, drawing pictures and, of course, weaving. Darby started weaving a flower garden on the Saori loom with her 3 year old, super inquisitive brother supervising. It is a few years since she first wove on this loom and I was amazed and very encouraged by her ability to work the pedals and shutlle so efficiently and f a s t!. She was also able to change the shuttle bobbins and pick up the shed she was weaving on after a change of colour quite intuitively. We had some silk flowers to insert in the warp to make the garden. I’m off to study Saori weave in Osaka later in the year….just can’t wait.
Darby and Lewis ‘working’ the Saori loom

Darby weaving flowers into the weave

Lighting up the shadows

curiousweaver — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 06:57:12 +0000

	Shadow weave is on the loom at the moment and just cut down. It was nice getting into a rhythm with the two shuttles and teaching your hands to do place them quickly. Slowly at first, then working up a speed of sorts. This is a weave I’ve done before and really like it. It has an African kente cloth feel because it is sectioned with large cells of different designs. I’ve used 20/2 handdyed silk at 24 epi and the drape is lovely even though it is technically a plain weave.
	When I’m weaving at the loom for periods of time I’m finding that I need better light….getting to that age I guess. I purchased a Daylight lamp from Scissorman (Ott-Lite 13W task light) not thinking that it would be of any use at all on the loom because it was a table lamp but my husband attached it with the slots underneath made perfectly for a loom lighting situation. Here you can see the slots.
	See here how Dave attached a screw to the castle of my Toika loom – Cosmos.
	I can just place the secured screw into the slot at the bottom of the table lamp. Initially I wasn’t confident about it’s ability to stay up there but it worked.
	Here is the light attached to the loom and shut or off.
	When I open the light up it is on and gives great daylight showing true to life colours and helps with the details in weaving for those of us who need it! No excuse to get weaving now. In another post I mentioned the weaver Laverne in reference to Bolivian/Sth American back strap weaving. She now has a group in Weavolution and you must check out her blog. The pick up designs are amazing and very inspiring. You don’t need a fancy loom to create breathtaking beauty you just need to grow the skills in yourself.

Bamboo and Chairs?

curiousweaver — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 05:55:38 +0000

The bamboo photo is the most ‘ordinary’ one to my thinking and presents the greatest challenge for exploring ideas for textiles. Trying to relax into enjoying.. perhaps impossibilities, unreasonable weaves and perspectives.Encouraged by Amanda, to develop weave structure based on the photos I’ve now started looking beyond the inital and superficial stripes implied in the photo. What other ideas could be drawn from behind the bamboo curtaining.

Building a digital mind map below with freemind pointed to more explorations.

I also wanted to try using a technique from Edward de Bono to create new pathways of thinking. This technique involves having a selection of any words – nouns or verbs – and selecting one to start thinking entirely differently and unexpectantly about a topic. Sort of breaking out of my normal patterning in my thinking.The word ‘chair’ came up. How is chair connected to the design problem with the bamboo photo?…comfortable, functional, sturdy, western, collective – gather in groups. The chair as furniture defining how a people use their bodies for comfort and relaxation and also determining the clothing development of a culture. What clothes are imagined with bamboo or an intermitent covering. A translucent weave with areas of opaque weave/fibre. A partial cloth allowing air between….it goes on…..I think I’ll have to come up with another less boring word!

Pics to Picks – It’s a start

curiousweaver — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 04:43:40 +0000


After receiving my design photos for Pics to Picks from Meg, I started having a play around, happily selecting from my new big box of prisma pencils grabbed at an Eckersley’s sale. They’ re so beautiful to use, I can feel the pencils gliding over the paper inside my heart. That sounds funny, but it’s the same feeling I get when weaving or even touching some textiles.I guess the design process is easier when the images I’ve received are so luscious. A mix of colour, form, and perpective. I’ve made a few initial, and obvious, observations on the images.

I love coffee ….and cake, but it’s the mix of rich, maybe Moroccan feel of the colours which make this image.	The distinctive and leafless branches remind me of lace or needleweaving possibilities. Or ways of using an inlay weave or brocade to create the shapes.

Movement, children, colours blurred and not quite tangable. Ikat blurring?	A three dimensional form, with subtlety built in one hue.

Bamboo….my favourite plant for humans besides the coconut tree. It can be used for everything including yarn for weaving/knitting. Behind the bamboo is perhaps someone working or cooking…..doing…. The bamboo could be represented as striping on cloth or somesort of double weave base.Just some cursory ideas on the photos. I’m going to work in a scribble book first then may use photoshop…..not sure…very undecided really. I found this most interesting site though through Alice Schlein. The textile blog reviewed the textile designs of Charles Rennie Mackintosh.I like seeing design work in progess or unfinished. It looks untidy and sort of possible and gives me some confidence that I may be on the right track with my playing… Note: Mackintosh used different grids as a basis for his geometical designs, Pattern Design by Lewis F Day is a good place to start for this.

Weave Sensing in 2010

curiousweaver — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 02:51:37 +0000




I’m in for Meg Nakagwa’s 2010 Weave Challenge.Above are the weave sense images I will be sending to another weaver, as yet undetermined. It doesn’t really matter why I choose these particular images as idea developers as the recipient will receive them in their own way based on their own living experiences….and how they relate this to their weave structures.They are are mixture of feelings for me and structures I am drawn to; Mandalas or circle drawings, and even the circle in general has always interested me. The way a centre radiates an energy bubbling with growth and reaching out like a web, but sometimes contained within the line with no beginning and no end. Even when the centre is merely a point or dot, it holds an enormous potential energy. There is so much to circles. The plant is a banksia. This is an Australian plant species which combines whaky, edgy elements with elegance and sophistication. A pretty difficult act to pull off. Serrated leaves, sometimes huge powerful brush like flowers and seed pods that look like eyes…hence the story of the Banksia men. The charcoal drawing by Kathe Kollwitz I find enormously emotional. See some more drawings here. The charcoal medium lends itself to sensual and emotional responsiveness but here the subject matter does too… mother and child. It’s so wonderful and I’ve not seen any other drawings by anyone of such powerful heart expression. In my view art, and music, create a shared human language to make a physical representation of what we can’t explain in ourselves. Post update 12 March: WOOPS – apparently this isn’t motherly love at all but vampire love! who would have though. Please excuse my ignorance as I thought it was a mourning photo. How wrong can you be. Lastly, Starry Night by van Gogh. A famous and very well known painting but one that uses a very limited colour range but achieves a mood very strongly. Our challenge is to examine an image provided by another and create the design brief for a weave textile.I’m excitied about the challenge.