Bradford College End of Year Show

My final project for the HNC in Contemporary Constructed Textiles is now all in place in the Dye House Gallery in the Lister Building at Bradford School of Arts and Media. I'm now looking forward to the preview on Friday evening. It will be interesting to see how people respond to my work  as I'm the only student graduating from my course this year. Hope to see some familiar and some new faces. 

More cushions!

Following on from the last cushion, I had some warp left on the loom to use up and decided to try to do something hat has a retro feel to it. I thought that I would use white and orange to complement the chocolate brown, white and gold in the warp and wanted to make a staggered geometric pattern. Because of the scale of the warp, I found that a stitched hopsack has given me the effect that I was looking for.

The yarns are all from Texere; the orange is Fine Worsted in Orange 196 (Pure Wool), the brown is  Islay in Chocolate (90% wool, 10% nylon and the white is Jura in Silver (again 90% wool, 10% nylon). I've thrown in a random stripe just to keep me on my toes!
 

My latest project is using hand spun Herdwick (undyed), which I have then plied with linen (again undyed). I have a wool and silk warp on a straight draft using 16 heddles. The lifting plan is for a waffle or honeycomb structure.

I'm pleased with the result as I like the way that the coarser Herdwick is contrasted with the smoother wool and silk finding its way into the pattern.

 

I've just finished a new piece, which uses some handspun yarn; spun on a drop spindle and plied with wool. This gave me a textured (for textured, read 'lumpy'!) yarn with flecks of white, grey and rusty brown. I thought that this needed to be seen as separate from the pattern in the weave so decided to frame the handspun in rectangular blocks. I've used a set of 14 epi to accommodate the handspun and the structure is tabby woven on 8 shafts.

I thought that it would work as a series of windows, framed by black machine spun wool flecked with a little white and with a purple sheen. (This isn't really evident in the photograph, however I'm sure it makes a difference in terns of the depth of colour in the finished piece.)

 I'm very pleased with the final result and am going to think about how to get the contrast between my dodgy handspun and machine made yarn to work in future projects.

Rigid Heddle Project

I've had a linen warp on my rigid heddle (Ashford) and thought that I'd like to try to use some Axminster rug wool from Texere, which I've been using to crochet cushions, to make a throw for a favourite chair. I used a plain weave with 4 picks of each weft colour to reduce the impact of the warp. I am happy with the colour combination and the finish and also have enjoyed weaving on a portable loom when the winter light has meant that spending time weaving on my floor loom has been limited. 

 

In search of some inspiration and because the cafe has the best scones ever, yesterday I went to the Harley Gallery near Worksop to see an exhibition of tapestry by Jilly Edwards. The work is based on journeys through the landscape and consists of panels, strips and pieces that are installed in their own exhibition cases. I like the way that these small samples become focussed and precious.

 Photos by author, tapestries by Jilly Edwards

The thing that struck me most was that she had abstracted the aspects of the landscape that interested her and had used these to create blocks and slashes of colour and texture, sometimes using text, but all evoking and suggesting the subject not merely representing. This is something I am struggling with in my own sketchbook work. Fortunately, Jilly was on hand to answer my questions. I came away from the exhibition, not only inspired but also armed with some helpful advice. 

I've finished the project that has been ongoing since September. This one was based on the character and qualities of skin, looking at folds and wrinkles. I had high hopes when I started, thinking that I could use high twist linen and double cloth to achieve a range of different distorted fabrics. To some extent this has happened, though I would have liked a more refined product as a result. Anyway, I guess the purpose of experimenting is to find out what happens and then to learn from the experience.

These are the resultant samples:

The next step was to try to put these ideas into practice. My idea was to use the fabric to make something that could be work to emphasise the skin. I'd been looking at the way that ruffs frame the face and thought that the pleated fabric would work well to do this. I wove a length of double cloth using natural linen on the top layer and high twist linen on the bottom, then wove the top layer in high twist leaving long floats at the back and then weaving both layers together with high twist. The resultant cloth was made up into the ruff, trimmed with small pearl beads and then placed in boiling water to form the pleats. I'm pretty pleased with the outcome.