Creative Dimensions in Weaving — It’s Here
There are moments in a creative life that feel both utterly ordinary and quietly monumental. This is one of them.
Creative Dimensions in Weaving has now been published.
For a long time, this book lived as conversations in workshops, as pencilled notes beside the loom, as questions from students, as half-formed thoughts about structure and imagination. It grew slowly — as weaving itself does — thread by thread, idea by idea. Many of you will have been part of this gestation alongside me.
And now, finally, it is something you can hold in your hands. The journey of discovery has been over twenty years in the making; the final part, around three years to bring everything together and make it something tangible to share.
Why This Book Came Into Being
If you’ve followed me for a while, or have seen my art, you’ll know that I am ever curious. But it’s more than that. Over the years of teaching and making, I’ve always wanted not simply to learn techniques, but to understand how weaving can become a truly creative language.
Some books teach structure beautifully. Some teach projects clearly. But what I felt was often missing was what comes after — the ‘dimension’ where technique becomes expression. It’s harder, as you become more experienced, to find books that really feed you what you are looking for. There are not so many publications available to push you beyond your comfort zone and support you at the same time.
This book grew from that space, from my own experience of exploration into deep texture, into playing with material properties both through structure and through wet-finishing. It’s a book I wished to have in my weaving life earlier on, when I first started exploring deeper. Teachers such as Bonnie Inouye and Ruby Leslie fired my interest initially but it was ‘what more could it become’ that was the inspiration behind Creative Dimensions.
It is for weavers who want to move beyond “following instructions” and begin making conscious creative choices. For those who sense that structure is not a limitation, but a doorway. Curious weavers. Weavers like me, and you, if you’re reading this!
What You’ll Find Inside
Creative Dimensions in Weaving explores weaving as both discipline and exploration. Inside, you’ll find:
- A deeper understanding of how structure influences visual and tactile outcomes
- Ways of thinking about design both intuitively and structurally
- Practical frameworks for developing your own ideas
- Invitations to experiment, reflect, and refine
- Ways that illustrate how small shifts can open new possibilities
Rather than offering fixed formulas, the book offers lenses — ways of seeing. Because once you begin to see differently, you begin to weave differently.
What Makes This Approach Different
At the heart of this book is the belief that creativity is not separate from technical knowledge. It grows through it from your own experience.
Structure is just the start! It is what makes meaningful expression possible. It allows creativity to grow. It’s like playing an instrument – anyone can play the notes (given enough practice and dedication), but it’s the expression of the music through your soul that creates the magical moments – and if you have composed the piece yourself, so much the better!
My intention has been to bridge the analytical and the intuitive — to honour weaving as a craft grounded in logic, and as an art rooted in sensitivity and response.
This is not a book about copying patterns. It is a book about cultivating awareness.
A Personal Note
Writing this book has unsurprisingly deepened my own weaving practice. It required me to articulate things I had long understood physically but not yet named or expressed clearly. In doing so, I found new inspiration to bring to my own work.
I hope it does something similar for you — that it opens a dimension you may already sense, but have not yet fully stepped into.
With Gratitude
This book exists because of students who asked thoughtful questions, colleagues who shared conversations, especially the wonderful Dimensional Texture study group in Complex Weavers, and the wider weaving community that continues to explore, experiment, and care deeply about this remarkable medium.
I am profoundly grateful, especially to Bonnie Inouye who always has pushed me to think bigger and work through my confusion (a usual state of affairs for me!!), and to Wendy Morris who has been a fellow traveller for many years on our textural journey.
If You’d Like to Explore It
Creative Dimensions in Weaving is now available here:
UK: Crowood Press – free postage/packing within UK only.
https://www.crowood.com/book/creative-dimensions-in-weaving/
Overseas: Blackwells – FREE INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING
If you do read it, and even better, to use it, I would love to hear what it opens for you. What shifts? What questions arise? What do you begin to see differently at your loom?
Because ultimately, as weavers know, weaving is a dialogue — between fibres and structure, brain and hand, creativity and practicality – and the threads that connect us all.
And I am very glad to be part of that dialogue with you.