Archive for April, 2007

Piecing the glass into a rough pattern.

This diversional therapy was a real change for me. Meaghan, my new weaving student, told me how to do it in a couple of short, non threatening sentences.

"You get a sheet of glass, cut to the size you want. Then cut up pieces of coloured glass (available from a stained glass supplier) and mosaic them on top of the sheet of glass glueing them down with araldite.Then finish it off with black grout." Simple! Also one extra clue – I saw the mosaic cutter used to chip away at the glass so I knew what it looked like.

Now, if I was to write up instructions for this in a booklet, contemporary Australian convention would have me write the first chapter devoted to how dangerous glass is and that it can cut you. Beware, Beware. This chapter would have totally put me off starting or even lingering longer to think that I could ever do it.

But Meaghan’s direct instructions allowed me to get the materials and have a go, before being put off by too many experienced instructions. I learnt alot while doing this and I used my commonsense pushing ahead without procrastinating. (and yes, I cut myself a little once)

Too many instructions and warnings are threatening rather than encouranging to beginners. I think our own practical experience is important to develop on our own, with only gentle guidance from teachers. What constitutes a good teacher? And is there common traits in good teachers aside from their own experience?

I am so happy with this completed project as it is quite outside my usual yarn activities, working with dangerous media.But I’ve learnt something important about learning itself.

Completed panel of glass installed in my kitchen

Teaching Meaghan to warp and weave her first textile on her loom was great fun.

She was organised with a custom built warping frame and had started the warping process before I arrived. She’d even done those pesky weaving calcs to perfection. The only variation was too little yarn for the warp so the original plan had to be modified in situ.

I shamefully but all too naturally slipped into using weaving jargon without being aware. Meaghan looked puzzled, then I realised that this is what a beginner weaver must contend with. The language of weaving. Raddle, reed, sett, cross…special words to explain weaving specifics. Words that don’t mean anything outside weaving.

The Leclerc Fanny loom was in sound condition but had an unusual tie on system for the back and front warp beams which I had never seen…but worked really well. It was just an apron with a rod inserted through it then a permanent lacing attached through the rod and apron. This lacing held another rod where the warp could be tied on.

Although it was a good method, it still takes the brain a bit to work around how I normally do it on my own loom. After years of warping my loom has various additions, like extra cords, attached to it to make the job easier. Another loom is rather naked in a way and needs a weaver to dress and adapt it for her own ways of creating a woven textile.

The loom is a four shaft counterbalanced with six pedals. We threaded the loom in a four shaft straight draw i.e. 1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4 etc. then tied two pedals to plain weave (1 & 3 vs 2 & 4), and the other four to a twill. The tie up on this loom was very easy to do and could easily be changed even when weaving was underway.

Teaching Meaghan has stimulated my own practice and I came home to my studio with a renewed sense of excitement, contentment and committment.