Archive for March, 2008

Mar 24

Teeny Handwovens

Inevitably any handloom fabric length which is cut for western clothing has left over fabric. I can’t bear to just thow it away and have experimented with lots of different ways to use it. Cutting again, stitching, quilting, joining, fraying then joining, tubing, moulding….I’ve tried it all. Sometimes with surprisingly successful ideas. If you are limitied in any way with your work, in this example small pieces of fabric, you can use this to great advantage. It’s great for me because my ideas are all over the place and limitation is useful for controlling myself.

My newest foray is purses. I’m even designing special fabrics for them because it is a small and intricate way of showing off many techniques that can’t be used in products like scarves. For example, very long and impractical floats can exist on the back of the fabric and crazy ideas can be used on the front.

My supplies have firstly come from Nicole Mallalieu in Melbourne. She also sells kits to get you going…and her service is super friendly and easy to deal with.

The purse in handwoven ikat in plain weave,
cut on the bias.

Mar 11

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The Amazing Jacquard in MELBOURNE

I’ve just returned from the adventure of a weaving lifetime. I’ve been to Melbourne (the style and textile capital of Australia) to explore Jacquard weaving. Louise Lemieux Berube from the Montreal Centre for Contemporary Textiles gave a workshop at the RMIT School of Fashion and Textiles to a group of exhilarated weavers. Aside from breathing in the creative and vibrant atmosphere of Melbourne itself and especially the college, I was so pleased to meet other weavers and young textile designers whose passion and fresh approach to textiles has encouraged me greatly. Just imagine, I was talking to other people about tie-ups and treadlings…and they undertstood what I meant! I love the way weavers are problem solvers and the ways they co-operate with each other, sharing their knowledge and ideas. Weaving and textile construction is fraught with creative problems AND possiblities. I think the best way to explain my adventure is with a few photos…

A magical room full of looms at RMIT in Melbourne	Digital dobby looms

Melbourne Street Art	The Purse – made of granite! Melbourne’s Street Sculpture

The almighty Jacquard	The prime movers for the RMIT Jacquard Workshop, Rachel Halton, Louise Berube (Tutor) and Pat Jones

The lovely group of keen Jacquarders

Examining the cloth. This was the rewarding fruition of our very intensive week of designing on the Pointcarre software.	The back of the Jacquard showing the threading

Previous week’s jacquard samples	My purple and yellow Jacquard brocade sample on the loom – woven face down. It was very exciting seeing the jacquard weave on the samples.

Photographic imagery. One of our first lessons involved the preparation of a photographic image with good greyscale graduations. This was done in Photoshop. In the Jacquard software – PointCarre – each shade of grey was associated with a different weave that approximated the shade. Essentially ‘painting’ with weave structure. Here one shuttle of weft can be used to create the various weave structures across the web of the warp. No pick up is required as the Jacquard loom allows manipulation of every thread individually and can prepare the shed in any way. To achieve something similar on a dobby loom many, many pick ups in every row would be required. However, there are possiblities in combining some of these ideas with warp/weft painting and well planned design and pick up.

Image with twill structures applied.