Cobwebs and dew
This time of year is just wonderful when you have lovely sunny mornings after clear nights, and the dew is not too thick. My walks with Charlie are a great excuse to get out and as the mornings are drawing in, I am getting later and later.... If I'm not too late,...
Double cloth texture – matelasse
Last week, we talked about pique and how it is a tie-down weave. Matelasse is very similar, but without the tie-downs, so that means you have 2 more shafts available for the pattern warp. Historically, matelasse was a quilted cloth with wadding picks in a double...
New meetings and re-unions
Last week I talked about the wonderful exhibitions that Laura Thomas has curated as part of the Warp & Weft series of exhibitions and symposium that she has put on in Camarthenshire - at the Oriel Myrrdin Gallery in Camarthen, and also at the National Wool Museum...
Pique for texture
Last week I gave a very brief overview of texture through double weave, and today I'm focussing on pique which is a tied structure. If you look back through technical books, pique and the technique called matelasse are frequently called each other and crossed over,...
Warp + Weft Symposium
This past weekend, I have been in deepest Camarthenshire at the National Wool Museum with around 45 other weavers and curators. Laura Thomas organised a symposium specifically on weave - a rarity in the UK - and surrounded it with exhibitions, two specifically of...
Double cloth for texture
This is a wonderful field of discovery for different textures. The areas I have focussed on so far are different setts, different yarn properties, different weave structures, different ratios. Today's blog is a quick overview of how texture can be created through the...
Exotica – an exhibition
Exotica. When the Midlands Textile Forum decided on this title for an exhibition to be staged at the Botanical Gardens in Birmingham, (on from now until 30th September), I had to smile! I could just imagine certain men of my acquaintance brightening up with the...
Overshot for texture
Overshot is wonderful for creating texture. The secret is to have all the floats on one side only. Where the floats are not floating, they need to be woven into the fabric. Bonnie Inouye first taught me this during the online workshop Wendy Morris and I did with...
Take time for a soliloquy!!
Ok, I admit it.... I'm showing off!! But blame it on the music, as they say (who are 'they' and why do we take notice of them anyway...?) Seriously though (awww!), you really can blame it on the music! As a music student one of the pieces I played as a teenager -...