Aug 22
Look what I got in the post! And it took only a few days to get to Australia from London. They are moo cards. About half the size of a normal business card they come packaged in a lovely white recycled plastic box. You can have up to 100 different photos or illustrations on the cards and a basic six lines of text on the back. I used photos of my work and will use them as a business card and swing tag. They are so cute.
Aug 20
Shuttles are the workhorse of the weavers toolkit. Many different types have been developed for every different type of weaving we could do. Starting with a stick, stick shuttles and boat shuttles. They are all wonderful and make our work more enjoyable. As I’ve gotten older I’ve come to greatly appreciate skill and beauty emanating from the human hand. I love finely made and decorated shuttles (and spindles) but they can be difficult to source. Many times my husband has made tools for my craft which have such an enduring affection. Others in my life have made metal components that are customly refined for my own weaving purposes. Some people would look at the motley collection of my equipment and refer to it as ‘a bunch of sticks’. But most pieces have a story, memory and practical purpose.
This little Youtube video is a story about my shuttles. A good place for beginners to see a range of shuttles.
Aug 13
Today a blog reader, Rodrigo, managed to translate a dye article of mine to Portuguese. It’s great when we can share information across other languages. It’s now up to me to do a similar job in reverse! Rodrigo uses the google translator which seems to do a good job combined with some knowledge of the language. I like to use this tool on the many Japanese sites which are so full of creative textile ideas, too. When I’ve translated these, the translation is rather direct and provides an insight into the cultural sensitivity of the language which I find fascinating.
I find that my Australian English is becoming too economical on words. Why say something in 100 words when you can say it in five. This all started when I wrote “The Australian Weaving Book”. When writing the instructions I wanted EVERY word to count as a valid direction, so that a re-reading of every sentence would accurately and concisely illustrate the technique. Succinct writing has always been my goal.
I recently bought a book by Proust, the French philosopher, to help me expand my five words into 1000 words. If you know of Proust, he could take the process of cleaning his teeth into a full scale novel. This is the magic of the written word….luckily we have a visual textile to take some of the word excess.
Aug 7
I access video on the net for learning software programs all the time. YouTube, Teacher Tube and Lynda.com are my favourite places.
But, sadly, there seems nothing about our weaving programs to my knowledge. Weaving draft software is a terrific tool but I found it took a bit of learning to get around the interface. Using Fiberworks I printed off the manual, read through and underlined all the ‘important’ bits then promptly forgot most of it. SEEING is another way of getting it into my head.
With this ideal, I’ve recorded a short screen video on how to use the straight draw tool to develop a simple threading and how to create an ‘instant’ tie up and treadling with coloured threads. The video is a bit wonky and I’m looking at refining all sorts of things but I think you may find it useful especially if you are new to using software for making weaving drafts. I’ve uploaded to Youtube because they compress and create a universal flash file with, I hope, better odds that more can view it without problems.
In Fiberworks there are five drawing tools which can be used for the treading or treadling (or lift/peg plan).
There are advantanges and, I think, disadvantages to using computer software but in handweaving based on floor loom traditions software is increasingly used to develop complex patterning and experimentation in a more efficient way. This doesn’t mean that software is superior to hand drafting in any way, it just allows a different style of experimentation.
I have read that the Australian writer Tim Winton doesn’t use a word processor to write his books. This surprised me but allowed me to think about how differently writing is approached without a computer to cut and paste and move text continuously while writing. However as many of you may have noticed the power of the computer remains impotent if humans fail to use them properly as a tool rather than a solution. Many glossy magazines (or this blog!) have gramatical and spelling errors despite the spell check. And large companies continue to send inappropriate letters on an issue merely because your name is in the database and not updated by the humans. Attention to this type of detail occurred more before computers than now.
So having gone around the world with this, I guess I want to say that weaving software is a wonderful tool that needs to be learnt but it is only a tool. We are lucky that this tool can help make a very tangible and beautiful textile – somthing that can be held, used and loved.
Cost of loom - $1640.00. Lay-by installment plans available on request. Australian buyers only.
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Exploring handweaving in all its dimensions and techniques means learning about people from all over our world, being inspired by the ingenuity of humans for creating solutions and becoming passionate about design, texture and yarn.
