I LOVE my new Toika loom. The ‘lack of’ pedal action is amazing. Here is a video of me weaving a few picks on my bamboo shawl. It’s already off the loom and being finished.
The only mistake I made due to lack of restraint is that I washed my shawl before finishing off the fringe. Yikes! I do know better but the excitement of seeing my weave complete was too much. Now I’m stuck with many nights of untangling the finges so I can braid them. Utterly foolish I know. But I’m very happy with the 2/52s bamboo sett at 80epi. It is a substantial fabric in its manner but very drapey and soft. Rather like the bamboo itself – deceptively strong yet elegant.
Added at 12:39pm 20 February: Yes! the loom is computerised so it only has one electric pedal for all shaft selections determined by the design I’m using in the software. It is a countermarche style so there is a lift and drop to obtain the shedding.
I’ve just returned from a mini trip to Melbourne. What a great city it is. Art, textiles, people, little lanes and YARN!My first stop was to visit my old loom and Amanda who already has a warp well underway, and the loom looks lovely in her house. It’s nice to know that your ‘children’ go to good homes and are loved.
I was able to get some silk/stainless steel yarn from Amanda which came from her Japanese adventure. After this I headed to Beautiful Silks in Fitzroy. Wow, silk yarn on tap – I ‘needed’ many of these.
Bringing home these yarns and seeing Amanda’s Japanese supply has excited me about the new projects I have planned. The yarns, as you can see, await. Yarn is so full of expectant and potential energy. The only thing stopping a textile being manifested is imagination and the time or labour of the weaver being added to it. Already the yarn has much labour invested in it to get it to a yarn stage – including the silk worm input. It is a wonderful path that weavers get to follow.
However the awaiting yarn is a bit like a blank canvas for a painter. It taunts you and suggests that I may not have what it takes to retain and enrich its already beautiful state.
This blog posting is one that I’ve been procrastinating about since I returned from Bhutan. Mainly because I didn’t know how to say what I wanted to.The loss of so many lives in the bushfires in Victoria this week gives me impetus to write. We are all vulnerable to so many things in this life and the forces of nature regularly impact on our world. So many of us try to understand this with our particular beliefs and injecting meaning and purpose into our lives as we connect with other lives. All to ensure that our thinking and reactions to loss and change will give us strength when we need it – for ourselves and others.
This sense of connection to nature and others is revealing and close to you in Bhutan. It’s like a blanket touching your skin. Buddhism is the state religion there and their government/monarchy is entwined with Buddhism. Jamsho, pictured here, is a Bhutanese tour guide who showed us about the spiritual beliefs of his country. Although it’s completely unreasonable to judge an entire country on the few people you meet on a tour it is difficult not to take away something of what those few people give you as you glimpse another world. Jamsho gave me a new appreciation of the virtue of gentleness, inspired by Budddhism. This is a virtue that I’ve rarely come across in men and then only if you are very close to them. Jamsho readily shared his gentleness with everyone.
The unexpected aspects of Bhutanese culture and their unique natural environment are also reflected in their textiles. Pictured here is a textile worn over the left shoulder by women called a rachu. It is plain weave with discontinuous weft patterns interspersed over a strongly striped fabric. The stripes are basically ignored at each end and the rich weft patterning is executed regardless of their placement. This is a design technique that is rarely seen in the west. As we would probably feel the need to match the spacing between each of the stripes with the design so it didn’t look ‘feathered’. But the feathering has made it a delightful, playful textile which shouts out at life rather than retiring under symmetrical aesethics. This is why it is so refreshing to really look at textiles from other cultures as they have an interesting story to tell about themselves and their beliefs in life.
Active Travel are running two tours to Bhutan this year.
