IPADS and other news reading apps and devices aren’t for weavers. A screen can never really double as a weft, or add to our stashes. (well maybe it could if I smashed it up and took out the microchips but at the cost of an IPAD that’s not going to happen any time soon)

I was given a most beautiful woven table runner for Christmas by a thoughtful friend who was saddened by my lack of newspapers cluttering the dining room table. Now they are all there in their woven beauty, albeit written in Indonesian. This type of ‘up-cycled’ ingenuity and creation of beauty is common in Indonesia and I can’t describe how beautiful it is. In contrast to this post on spinning the news, preparation of these newspaper wefts requires only rolling. This is how it is done. However just the right width of newspaper needs to be determined so it isn’t too heavy or too light. Colours in the newspaper peek through providing a quiet elegance. Achieved by random placement I suspect, as planning it all would make it too structured.

The other important design element lies in the threading of the loom. Easy to achieve on any 2 shaft loom, and more extended variations on more shafts,  it allows more of the newspaper to peek through when areas are threaded on the same shaft for a few threads. See the pattern. It’s a way of showcasing the weft.

Here is a similar type of thing without the weft showcase threading from Oxfam.

I’m going back to reading real newspapers. A weaver can always do with more wefts and real newspapers give of themselves twice. Once with depressing (I mean in the political sense) and stupid stories and secondly with woven beauty.