A couple of months ago 12 year old Katie visited my studio with her Aunt and Grandmother. Seeing a family in action weaving and yabbering together filled my studio with light and energy. This is Katie with her first weaving woven (left) in a single session on the Piccolo. She seemed to enjoy it and certainly had a natural ‘feel’ for the rhythm of the weave.

The following week when they all returned for a follow up session Katie brought along her textile design painted digitally on her tablet! She had been dreaming design ideas and captured them on paper screen. Who does this so immediately after being exposed to a new skill? I was totally taken aback. Although weaving leaves many people unable to sleep with design dreams and what ifs, they rarely come back on the second session with a tablet of journalled ideas and designs.

The design was a painted (no presets) gradient transitional colour cloth with the detail of black fringes included. I wanted to help her realise the design and she set about choosing a variety of colour shades and thicknesses  to match the image. I just showed her how to transition one colour to the next in a subtle and gradual way.

The cloth went from reds, oranges, yellows, greens to blues and purples. It was a truly lovely cloth which took two sessions to complete.

I see a lot of talent in my studio. Many people are used to thinking that they don’t have enough talent to create beauty but Saori weaving always proves them wrong. Just being human means you are capable of creating art and expressing beauty in a tangible form.  It’s encouraging that children and early teens think creativity is normal and they remind me of this every time.