weave4fun

 I have been under attack by the Horrible Cold for four days. I am now recovered. In the meantime, I constructed a Square of Comfort, from two couches pushed together and decked out in quilts and cushions and orange juice and penicillin and so on. It is truly a glorious thing, and not at all decadent and messy. While in the square I was feeling a little guilty about not being in college throwing my germs about and whinging about feeling horrible (imagine how productive I would have been!) so I whipped out the inkle loom and threw a warp on it. The thing I like about the inkle looms is it makes it so much easier to make a wider band with a softer handle as your weaving isn't getting pulled into a point as it is when I weave it body-tensioned. I have begun a process of experimenting with more complex ways of manipulating the cards. to create more interesting patterns. It could be a looooooong journey, as there is just so much to discover, I could be at this for year...

I Have begun tablet weaving again. It's so terribly nice to be getting back into such a satisfying and incredibly simple form of weaving and one that requires next to nothing in the way of equipment. It's incredibly to think that it's been two years since I made a tablet warp. So I am making material again. When these are completed they are rolled into discs for storage and display. I shall be selling these as both material and as friendship bracelets and belts when I am in Greece. These bands are quite strong and have many applications in the creation of accessories and garments. Of course, I shall have to do more than this, but this is the basic level I will be working from. I also plan to weave strip-cloth, as I mentioned in a previous post. As I have yet to develop the techniques for doing this it's something of a possibility rather than a certainty, though I am fairly confident that it's entirely doable. In essence, I need to develop an entire weaving...

From http://adireafricantextiles.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/new-acquisitions-part-two-liars-cloth.html There is a picture of an African Cloth called Liar's cloth. It is a silk garment made from sewn together strips of cloth. A common weaving method in West Africa is to weave strip cloth on simple portable looms. This cloth apparently gains it's name due to warp stripes that run along one edge before entering the shed and coming out and running up the other side. It isn't clear exactly how this is done, with the article making reference to the stripes being kept at a different length and tension to the rest of the warp, for whatever reason by use of small waxed balls that hang below the warp. Not sure exactly what's going on here, but I could imagine having a number of warp threads individually weighted and hand manipulated or manipulated by removable heddles, allowing them to be pulled through the shed and come out on the other side. Very interesting stuff anyway, ...

This has been a long summer. During the summer here the majority of the student body goes off to work or stay with parents or to placements or on holiday. I have become rather attached to my house and wanted to work to gain experience so I decided to spend the summer. For two months so far, and one yet to come I am working two jobs. In the first instance, I have been employed as a wandering dogsbody-type in a large mill in Peebles known as Robert Nobles, the RN is actually the name of the apparel fabric brand, and when working for the design team I have been working entirely with the Replin team, who are responsible for high performance upholstery fabric for rail and air. When I'm not working with them, I'm usually in the lab helping out with fabric analysis, counting ends per inch, measuring yarns and so on. It's more interesting than it sounds ;) In the second instance I have been working for the college repairing the handlooms in the weave shed on the remaining ...

I've been working like a MotherTrucker recently (got that off a mate one facebook, it's pure gold isn't it?) and not been having much time to think about college work or that. I have however been keeping myself active at the weekends (if I allow myself to get into a low energy condition it's difficult to get back up and leads to unpleasant mondays) by making kumihimo braids. It's kinda fun and it makes lots of useful stuff. Very good for getting rid of small amounts of posh yarn as well. Kinda time consuming, but it's not like i've got anything else to do at the weekend except cleaning and reading, so it's nice. Good for the hands. You'll notice a shaggy rug as well. I'm keeping quiet on what I'm making this with for the time being as they're potentially an economically sensible product as the materials are cheap and they don't take long to weave. They're also much nicer than any rag-rugs I've ever made. I just need to ref...

I was having dinner with a freind from college on Friday (it time out i know how to use chopsticks despite never having done so before, which is a nice surprise) and we got onto the subject of Japanese crafts which reminded me of Kumihimo which I was briefly interested in a few years ago. So I decided to make a Marudai, which is a circular braiding stand with a hole in the middle for the braid to go down. It can be emulated with a piece of card with slots around the edges, but that seems inelegant to me. I bought a secondhand coffee table from a furniture store down the street and drilled a hole in the top, after subjecting the front room to a metaphorical representation of the English Civil War. Now I am constructing the Heart Braid from Paulette Adam's website

I needed a wallet, then a freind who was clearing out her house gave me some scrap leather which she had leftover. Then I bought all the appropriate accoutrements for stitching leather and here we are