Some photos of samples I’ve been working on, I’m part of the Complex Weavers Dimensional Texture study group and our topic of study this year is Layer Interchange.
My first warp was 2 layers 10/2 cotton and 2 layers of R110/2 Tex corriedale. The wool layers are the only layers that interchange. The weft yarns were the same as the warp, and I also tried the cotton as a weft yarn on the wool layers to reduce the weft-wise shrinkage of those layers.I washed the samples in hot soapy water with agitation to cause shrinkage in the wool layers. After finishing the first sample I removed some warp threads from the left hand side, effectively moving the wool warp threads off centre
I wound a second warp using 20/2 cotton instead of 10/2.
Now I just need to decide on the final design and weave my samples to send to the other members of the study group.
Last month I attended a weaving workshop covering double weave, deflected double weave and differential shrinkage techniques. It was held as the part of the Auckland Creative Fibre Spring Education Festival and led by Agnes Hauptli. There were 10 of us and prior to the workshop we were supplied with pre-wound warps to dress our looms, a different one for each student. The workshop was run as a round-robin so that at the end of the workshop we all had a variety of samples to take home, as well as the remainder of the warp on our own looms to weave off. The samples were all wet finished and here are the results.
Back in February I wove a bunch of doubleweave vessels based on the instructions from VAV magazine Nr. 3 2023. I was using corriedale yarn from Anna Gratton instead of the yarn used in the magazine so had to experiment a bit to get the results I wanted. The basic method is to weave a tube, using different yarns and weave structures (plain weave and extended plain weave), which will give you the variations in the diameter of the vessel. Once off the loom you then gather the bottom up to make a base, tidy up the edges however you like and give it a hot wash in the washing machine until it’s felted to your liking. Once you remove it from the washing machine, you have to shape your rather sad looking tube and then leave it to dry.
Off the loomTube gathered at the bottomOut of the washing machine
So when I put on my first warp to further explore what I had been doing at the workshop with Stacey Harvey-Brown I decided to try make some more vessels but this time using 4 warp layers to weave a double layer tube, with the inner tube having a wool warp and the outer tube a cotton warp. The wefts were a mixture of cotton, paper, and wool. Once off the loom I gathered the bottom of the tube and then wet finished it by hand in hot soapy water until I was happy with the results. The shapes and textures of the vessels are caused by the differential shrinkage between the inner and outer tubes, different weft yarns and when and how the inner and outer layers are connected,. I particularly liked the effect the paper yarn produced when used in the weft, you can see that in the upper edges of the vessels.
Exterior of tube before wet finishing The tube turned inside out to show the inner layerThe interior of the vessel before wet finishing
Time to dust this poor, neglected blog off and post some new photos. There’s been a bit happening but the most exciting is our trip to France and London in June. I mentioned in a post way back in September last year that I had been awarded the Creative Fibre Mason Charitable Trust scholarship for 2023, and that I was putting the funds towards a weaving workshop with Stacey Harvey-Brown. The beginning of June saw me and my husband flying to Paris where we spent a fabulous few days sightseeing before heading to the Loom Room France located in the beautiful SW French countryside near Nérac.
Just one of many photos of the Eiffel Tower from our trip.
The Loom Room is a purpose-built studio integrated into a renovated barn, attached to La Tuilerie, a ‘maison de maitre’ which is Stacey and her husband Graham’s house and where we stayed. There were 2 other weaving students staying for the week and we were each had our own weaving programme tailored to what we wanted to learn. While I was off weaving, Dale explored the neighbouring countryside on foot and just generally relaxed.
Outside La TuilerieThe view from our bedroom windowLooking outside from the studioThe garden gate leading to the path in the next photoThe start of morning walks, exploring the country side
We were all staying on site, which meant we shared meals together. Graham cooked us delicious lunches and dinners, and Stacey went into town each morning to get fresh bread and pastries for our breakfast. We also were treated to local wines with our meals and Graham’s own beer from his micro-brewery. When we weren’t weaving Stacey showed us around the neighbouring area including a woad-dyeing business, the Saturday market at Nérac, a couple of bastides (fortified towns), some amazing churches, local artists and several meals out.
But back to the weaving, I was interested in learning about sculptural weaving so Stacey had a 8-shaft table loom ready for me warped up with 4 layers, 2 cotton and 2 wool. My samples didn’t look too exciting on the loom as they were flat plain weave layers. I explored swapping layers, weaving tubes, using different yarns including paper and linen and lastly removing some of the edge warp threads from the woollen layers. The magic all happened on our last weaving day when I took the samples off the loom and wet finished them, with all sorts of ruffling, gathering and shrinking going on. We also discovered during finishing one of the wool layers was probably machine-washable as it didn’t shrink as expected but that just added even more interest to the results . It was so exciting seeing my transformed samples.
Off the LoomBefore Wet FinishingAfter Wet FinishingBefore FinishingAfter FinishingAfter FinishingBefore FinishingAfter FinishingDrying on the line
I had such an amazing time at this workshop, Stacey is such an enthusiastic and inspiring teacher. Since returning home I have been continuing to explore the techniques that I learnt and having fun seeing what I can create.
March is the start of feijoa season, and also time for Easter eggs.
On my table loom I have been weaving a colour with double weave sampler from an article in an old Weavers’ magazine. On my floor loom I have been weaving some pieces using upholstery weave from The Weaving Book by Helene Bress. The piece under the Easter egg basket above, and in the middle photo below used 3 weft colours, and the piece on the right used 4 weft colours.
Rufus enjoyed a trip to Te Toro beach, with many things to sniff, though he was rather disappointed that he wasn’t allowed to fully investigate the dead gull he found.
And today, I finally got around to cutting the kōrari (flower stalks) from the harakeke (NZ flax) plants in the garden and harvested the seedpods for a dyebath. The first photo below show the flowers and seedpods last month, the birds love feasting on the flowers. Once the flowers have died off the seedpods fully develop and usually I harvest them when they are still fresh but I left it later this year so most of the seedpods have dried off and split open to distribute their seed.
I’ve had a busy few weeks starting with travelling to Wellington to attend the Creative Fibre national event ‘Festival of Fibres’ held in Porirua. The accompanying 2023 National Exhibition was at Pātaka Art + Museum, below are photos of a few of the works on show. Photos of the award winners should be going up on the Creative Fibre website soon.
Top: Woven Bowls – Margaret Hill
Middle: Totem Pole – Cathy Priddey, Te Ao Wairua (The Spiritual Realm) – Hanne Vibeke
Bottom: Aureola – Agnes Hauptli
Top: Chaos – Dianne Dudfield, Textural – Jane Clark
Middle: Totem Pole – Cathy Priddey, Te Ao Wairua (The Spiritual Realm) – Hanne Vibeke
While I was in Wellington I took the opportunity to visit Te Papa and the Mataaho Collective: Te Puni Aroaro exhibition. Mataaho Collective are four wāhine Māori artists who have worked together for the last decade. The description of the exhibtion from Te Papa website: These monumental installations evoke the histories of water, light, atua, and wāhine Māori. Industrial materials reflect contemporary Māori experience, and showcase the ever-changing nature of customary textile practices.
The following weekend I was off to Tauranga for a weaving workshop with Melanie Olde, an Australian experimental weaver. Melanie was keynote speaker at the Festival of Fibres and also gave talks on Biomimicry In Weaving and Experimenting With 3D Weaving.
The workshop was titled ‘Thinking Outside the Plane’, and it was wonderful. We worked with a multi-layered warp on 8 shafts and explored different weave structures and techniques, you can see some of my samples below. Further explorations await.
Last but not least, especially if you only come here for kurī (dog) photos, here’s Rufus:
At the beginning of the month I completed two pieces for an exhibition at our local community gallery. The theme of the exhibition is Connections and these two pieces were inspired by a metaphor used in Nordic countries where the red thread can refer to a shared characteristic or core theme that runs through and connects themes, ideas and stories.
“Connections” consists of works by six local Franklin artists including me, we have got to know each other through our shared passion for fibre and textile art. We were offered the exhibition slot at fairly short notice after a cancellation so we had not seen each other’s work until installation day and it was exciting to see how well the pieces all worked together.
The exhibition is on at the Franklin Arts Centre, Community Gallery until 3 October, so if you’re in Pukekohe pop in for a visit.
I have also been working on my entry in our Waiuku Spinners & Weavers group challenge which is due this week. Each member was given a bag containing some corriedale, alpaca and angora fibre and one of 4 themes (fire, water, air and earth) with the challenge to make something inspired by the theme using the fibres and whatever else you wanted to add. My theme was water, I spun the fibres, dyed them and have been weaving a piece on a frame loom.
Dog Tales
Rufus is not allowed near my weaving very often as he has a tendency to chew on things he shouldn’t (as all puppies do) but I had my table loom set up in the dining room this month and he decided to try out the weaving bench for size.
August is racing away, I don’t know how we are already over halfway through the month. The weather has been wet and cold so it’s been good to be inside weaving. First up are some photos of the double weave scarves that I mentioned in my last post.
Each scarf has a wintery phrase woven in morse code, from left to right they are: “It’s Cold Outside”, “Wrap Up Warm” and “Looks Like Rain”. The right hand side of the photo shows the full front and back of “Looks Like Rain”. They were on display at “Gathering”, a collection of works by members of the Franklin Arts Festival committee. It was held at the Franklin Arts Centre, Community Gallery from 3-22 August.
The tea towels are finally off my Mecchia loom and are now waiting for me to hem them.
Last week I put a cotton warp on my Ashford jack loom and wove some woven shibori pieces using the techniques from Catharine Ellis’ book “Woven Shibori”. I wove four pieces with a cotton warp and two with a polyester weft. On Saturday my local weaving group had an indigo dyeing workshop and I dyed all the cotton weft pieces and one of the polyester weft pieces. I dyed both polyester weft pieces with Rit Dyemore dye as well and steamed them to set the pleats.
Woven shibori pieces on the loom
Cotton warp and polyester weft, the piece on the left was first dyed with indigo before both were dyed with Rit Dyemore dye.
Cotton warp and weft
Dog Tales
Rufus is now 6 months old and continues to keep us on our toes as everyday he finds something new that he can reach. He loves playing with his balls and running around.
July has been and gone so I thought I’d better post here before too much of August has passed and I had forgotten what I’ve been up to. Thank goodness the photos on my phone have dates on them 🙂
I finished weaving the Monk’s Belt placemats from Season 6 of Jane Stafford’s School of Weaving. They’re waiting to be hemmed, which might get done before the end of August.
Once my jack loom was free of the placemats I got to work weaving some samples for a trio of double-weave scarves I planned to make for a small group exhibition coming up in August. I used some 2 ply corriedale wool I had dyed previously that was in similar colours to what I planned for the final scarves, wove a small sample to check the sett was OK and then wove off the rest of the warp. I used double-weave so that I could weave phrases using Morse code into the scarves.
Once I had finished the samples I moved on to dyeing some more wool and warping up the loom for the final project. I cut the scarves off the loom on the last day of July, which was a relief as the exhibition they were for opened on the third of August. I’ll post some photos of the finished scarves in my next post.
Kate Alberta Weaving 