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Posts tagged ‘pics to picks2’

Aug 31

p2p2final2
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P2P2 Final Reveal

TaDa – the final P2P2 reveal!
I so love this scarf. And I don’t think my pictures do it justice. It’s a combination of the two weaves I did with the narrower blue textile stitched around one long edge of the scarf like a collar.

Then sort of knotted with in so it looks like self fabric flowers along the edge. It just sings when worn.
This project has enabled me to take a step back and look at the design process with visual images from another weaver.
It helped that I also, coincidentally, had a box of blue and purple yarns at my finger tips too.

Aug 14

p2p2weave2
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Weave bud, ready for bloom

These two images are my preparation for the big P2P2 reveal. I’ve been working with the purples from the mandala image and  a box of purple wools I have. The weave is interspersed with hand dyed chenelle warp thrums and stainless steel silk to give a crinkled look.

Here you can see the beginnings of the completed weave, off the loom, washed and ready to bloom in a bud like state. I’m also going to add the other weave based on the blue/purple potatoes so the finished textile really does form a reflection of a couple of the images that chewidox sent me.

Aug 7

Mandala Image

Playing

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Jun 26

design4
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Egypt and Japan interlace in Australia

Weaving underway with the narrow warp I decided to use tapestry techniques to emulate the rounded shapes of the potatoes. I’m weaving lozenge shapes to get the feeling and using a little more of the contrasting orange that the imagery suggests so I can get a stronger effect. Historically this type of weave was explored best by the Egyptian Copts. Here is an example. Instead of weaving to a straight fell, the weave is built up to express the required shapes ignoring the inclination to have all rows even and ordered for either aesthetics or tension. The result is a weave that goes with the design rather than flattening it, especially curved and lozenge shapes. The skill of the weaver lies in balancing  the beat of each individual weft to allay tension issues which could impact on the completed cloth. 

I’m trying not to beat heavily overall but allowing some denseness for the lozenge wefts. I think this technique is really suited to the Saori technique.  What am I making? Skinny scarf mark one.  More next week.

Jun 20

design2
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Quick Experimentals

I’m taking each of the images now and looking at what I could do. I’ve received them digitally but when I get them in the post I’ll look at doing a bit of drawing.

I thought this purple image was of some sort of whacky grapes but Geodyne mentions Arran Victory potatoes! This year these type of potatoes have turned up in our supermarket but they aren’t given a name.  Australians would probably call them Purple Potatoes and dispense with any allegorical or ethereal poetry or meaning about them. Either way the shapes are interesting and I had a play in photoshop to simplify the image. Somehow, under my click anywhere Photoshop skills it turned blue, so I went with it. Totally unintentional.

I got a palette together and quickly set up the Saori loom with a narrow warp. Part of my palette is a left over ikat dyed warp which I hope will replicate some of the spacing in the image via the weft.  You’ll notice the image also includes white – a colour which I hold an incredible bias against and I just can’t weave with! But I’ll try with this one. 

15 minutes and I was weaving. I learnt in Japan that I can just thread the heddles and reed at the same time. I would never, in a million years, thought of doing it that way. I guess it would have its limits with more shafts but it might work with a 4 shaft loom. I usually thread the heddles without a hook, but threading all together at the same time saves time too.

Jun 13

p2p2images
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Images to Explore

Now it’s my turn to explore and build on the images I’ve received from chewidox. Luckily, all together, the images are slanted towards purple. A colour I don’t seem to be able to enjoy weaving without.

There is a mix of simplicity and austerity with nature patterning. There are also a couple of mandala, kaliedoscope images based on the flowers which offer ideas of symmetry. Symmetry is a standard option in weave design, but because I’ll be using Saori style ‘unintended’ weave techniques I’ll aim for an asymmetry of sorts.

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