Communicating with Saori Weaving

I know…it’s been a while for a post. At times I felt as if my ‘voice’ had gone and there is nothing left to add to so many things going on around me at the moment. Are we all caught in a revolving door going round and round and not moving – helpless to stop it revolving again and again? The big Aussie luck has saved us thus far from Coronavirus which is a very good thing. Now we are in major flood in the Manning and it is really heartbreaking to see the terrible impact for many people who have lost their homes and businesses.

So it was absolutely wonderful to fire up the studio with a mother and daughter team workshop recently. Freya focuses on pink. But diverged into other brights and put them all together is a most happy way. Our Saori cloths really illuminate how we feel or something deep inside us. I think Freya would find herself feeling ‘sunny’ in the workshop if I am interpreting her colour choices correctly.

Freya’s mother Jo took an equally interesting approach in another way that adds a soft contrast to her daughter’s work. She wove the new two shuttle technique on cotton/linen and we renamed it ‘moth-eaten’ technique when we turned the fabric to the back. Both sides are very different and so much can be done with it especially in clothing design.

We always get to talk alot in workshops and using our textiles to communicate stories, feelings and even protests came up. Stitch has always been used to communicate both outwardly and secretly but I also learnt that Oya crochet in Turkey is also about communication for Anatolian women. Maya Kuzman writes ‘Oya was the secret language they developed to tell the world what they had or how they felt. For example blue oya meant happiness and yellow meant tiredness. ‘

I think I should weave with more yellow!