These are my images going to Terri in Canada.  She has now received them and posted her inital thoughts here. They are a mix of the ordinary, the mundane, the extraordinary –   human, built and natural..along with some apples!

I think they offer interesting ideas for textiles but I’m interested to see what Terri thinks.

This challenge sees us all working in our own ways to create something unique to our own experience and skills. It’s a shared but also personal approach to design. This sort of thing always gets me thinking about connections and the power of the web to enable us to do this as participants have probably never met each other in person but share a passion for creating weave textiles.

We’re all using our hands, minds and reactions to create textiles by hand. Most of us are most likely in a position where we aren’t dependent on the creation for our incomes or material needs but there are still people in this position in the world, and cheaper industrial, throw away products, threaten not only the continuation of their skills but also our general attitudes to the value of the item and the work within it. The Textile blog has an interesting one on hand embroidered lace in Lefkara, Cyprus which is worth watching.

That is the brillant thing about Bhutan. The little girl photographed here lived in a Buddhist Nunnery in Bhutan and was posing for a drawing at the time. Bhutan still has hand textile production going on everywhere. On household verandahs everywhere. And highly skilled, technical handweaving at that. The skill and its products are largely supported by their monachy and customary values.  Digging out these photos has brought back strong feelings about that trip. I hope Bhutan finds a way to continue those handweaving skills within their communities.

I’m at work with my images from chewiedox. See what I come up with.

Post Post: The rock formation photo was taken on Staffa Island in Scotland. Have a look here.