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.
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.
What a contraption! The AVL warping wheel is fantastic. So easy to understand and use.
This is the first time I’ve used this tool….and it’s a keeper.
Essentially, it allows you to warp and beam at the same time as long as you have a sectional warping beam. Mutiple yarn cones or even just one cone of yarn can be used which saves winding out many separate yarn packages. Rather than dragged to a chore, I actually looked forward to winding, like a game, as I saw the warp creeping along the warp beam so quickly.
I think I’ll also be able to use a variant of the warping process with painted warps but I’m just trialling it now. No doubt lots of weavers have already discovered how to do this. I hope to do a video soon.
On another note check out Meg’s 2010 Picture Challenge. Meg – where do you come up with such luscious exchange ideas? I’m going to commit to this one because I need a focus on designing new cloth and pushing my stash of yarns into living cloth. Meg has set out a great way to get those fibre juices activated.
Thanks to all who have offered such helpful and generous advice on my fly shuttle woes. I know I’ll get it going, but in the meantime I’ve finished the blanket that I was strugglying to weave just in time for the birth of my newest neice – Casey Eve – yay!
A nice blanket ribbon trim finished it off nicely and I’m really happy with it.
If you’ve noticed by tardiness to my blog entries it’s because I’ve temporarily been seconded to the world of e-learning design. That is designing online courses. It shares some similarities to textile design and processes. It’s a weaving together of different medias, rather than yarns, to create something memorable and meaningful combined with function. I’m learning so much that my head is near exploding point.
As 2009 drew to a close my fly shuttle problems didn’t resolve themselves despite my very best efforts. You can see in this video some of the problems and workarounds I’ve used but to no avail. The fly shuttle should work more like this. Not by half pushing the shuttle through the weft each row. Any suggestions are greatly welcomed.
To soothe the weave issues I’ve had this year I had to order some new yarn to work with from Avril. These super fantastic quality Japanese yarns are so wonderful that I’ve run out of adjectives to describe their beauty. I have a kilo of the natural 2/20 linen which is so soft that it is unsuitable for a wall transparency and will be better in cloth to wear. Also some stainless steel yarn and a luscious cone of white pine yarn. Happy Weaving for 2010!
Thanks to all who have offered such helpful and generous advice on my fly shuttle woes. I know I’ll get it going, but in the meantime I’ve finished the blanket that I was strugglying to weave just in time for the birth of my newest neice – Casey Eve – yay!
