April

01.04.25

 

A fun one to do - catching the two separate strips at various points with a few full width picks.

 

• The black was too dark to see the splits/joins which is why I added the white floats for emphasis.

• Maybe just one to put in the store cupboard for the moment?

02.04.25

 

• Playing with the thick yarn - which side do I like the best. 

• Initially I assumed that I would like the tufted side (right) but I actually prefer the flatter side. It feels less messy and I like the fact that I can see the warp threads clearly catching the supplementary weft float.

03.04.25

 

And one of the difficulties of weaving on a small loom - this has taken me 2.5 hrs to weave - the finer yarns obviously take longer and the complexity of the weave (which isn’t really difficult) takes longer as well.

 

• I definitely need to find a balance with time devoted to these weaves and with wanting to do my PhD, let alone just live a life outside the studio.

• Does something have to give?!

04.04.25

 

Still struggling with ths. There is a bit more definition to the weave but still not nearly enough. 

 

• The pattern is more evident in the photograph than it is in the actual piece.

• More work to be done on this!

05.04.25

 

A bit more playful - using the warp ends of some of the silk warp that I have threaded up. 

 

• These warp ends were from one of my printed samples - in reality you can still see some of the printing on the ends but in the image they disappear completely. 

• Taking photos of all of these pieces of work makes me realise the value of that - I find that I see things that I haven’t noticed in the actual piece, or vice versa.

06.04.25

 

Black on Black - more doodles with a doubled up yarn.  

 

• Again the photography and the mounting is so important. On the black background you really have to look to see the yarn. Echoes of my white weaves on white mount which I also like - the subtlety of this is pleasing - it doesn’t shout out, it makes you come closer and explore more.

07.04.25

 

Got the members of my group to handwrite a small piece to weave with this rather than the typewritten transcript of the conversation.

 

• This isn’t really a conversation - or maybe it is a conversation in the head rather than with another. 

• The various responses of the group members to being asked to write something was interesting!

• It makes for a more varied weave, but does it lack a cohesiveness. 

• Back again to dying the paper in different tea/coffee strengths.

• This weave is really loose - the random shaft lifts are interesting and I like them but it makes for a very unstable weave.

08.04.25

 

Wove two picks of black yarn in between the paper wefts which makes for a much more stable weave which is helpful.

 

• I like the contrast between the typewritten words and this - I am finding myself thinking about a bigger piece or two complementary pieces that demonstrate the differences between a conversation with the self and the conversation with others.

• Planning to reduce/increase the size of the writing - or does the writing left at this size reflect the personality of the speaker better?

09.04.25

 

Wanting to see if I could weave a pocket on a little frame loom - and yes, I can. I enjoyed doing this, although time-consuming. 

 

• The yarns covering the pieces of card are too thick - When I do this with the fragments of conversation I want them to be seen - so far less of the weft yarns needed. 

• To explore this with finer yarns on the shaft loom. Maybe use nylon monofilament which is translucent would work. But how wedded am I to natural and paper yarns? 

• I could hold it with just a warp or just a weft - the weft would look like the lines on a page. Could work?

• Definitely set up the next warp on my Erica loom to be able to do pockets.

10.04.25

 

And just a weave - it fulfills the challenge. 

 

• Thick yarn so it goes quickly.

• Neutral colours so I don’t have to think about it - scraps that are in my basket that work well together.

 

There are times when I wonder about what I have set myself. The amount of time that it take is so much more than I expected. Could I stop? What would that mean to give it up? Other people are getting to the end of a 100 day challenge - which I guess means that I am over a quarter of the way through! 

Next week I will be weaving every day for a collaboration. Although the pieces will not be these standard sizes I will give myself permission to include them. It is still weaving!

11.04.25

 

Wondering if I can get this weave to do what I want when it gets wet - and yes, I can. 

 

• The looseness of the weave allows for the tightening and curling of the yarn - so pleasing to see it do this when it is immersed in water.  

• Definitely gives me more of the effect of those tree stumps.

12.04.25

 

Playing with shrinking the paper warp. Large floats over a plain weave ground, didn’t shrink as much as I hoped. Looks better in the sample than it does in the photo.

• There is something really appealing about the way this yarn moves of its own accord.

• Seems as if it needs both warp and weft to float in order to get a really good effect.

13.04.25

 

The day of the Oxford and Cambridge boat race. Woven in yarns the colour of the two teams. 

Starting off neck and neck and gradually Cambridge pulls away, winning by a considerable difference at the end of the race.

 

• I enjoyed having an inspiration to work with. Seeing the teams racing immediately gave me the colours to work with and the design of the weave followed swiftly. Not a hard one to do today!

• Maybe I need to take more inspiration from external sources on a daily/weekly basis. Gather together ideas to help me when ideas for the weaves seem tough. 

• How could I have improved this? Or is it good enough as it

14.04.25

 

A little weave on Aggie - a little loom. From the neutral colours on the other looms this one is bright. I am using yarns that I can’t imagine using in other projects that I want to make, so the colours, the textures, the ‘scratchiness’ of the wool are all going into this experimental phase of the project, as experiments in weave.

 

In this warp I did not like the purple colour at all, so I thought I might as well use it up. However mixed with the reddish crimson changed it completely and it has become a warp that I can certainly live with! And then using the rather bright orange weft changes it again. It is probably still a bit bright, but so much better.

 

Moral of the story - you can make something good out of almost everything - just weave it in (reference to Native American story - The Old Woman Weaving in a Cave).

15.04.25

 

A section of what I am weaving on Gertie (my big Glimakra loom). The treadling is from the blanket that I wove last month (my back doesn’t like crawling around the loom much) but the threading is just a straight threading dented in a crammed and spaced dent. 

The pattern is fairly random. Some of the dancers are doing the treadling, so the order is chaotic and doesn’t follow which gives long floats at times. The ‘stop-start’ of the pattern echoes the stop-start of the dancing - ideas and thoughts emerge, the story changes and the dance changes. The weave changes all the time, there is no order to it at the present time.

16.04.25

 

And the weave currently on Flo. Threaded in blocks possibly to break up the weave as I did before. 

 

A nightmare of a day - breakages on all the looms which required constant repair. 

 

This weave was about chaos - the dancers whirling around, diving in and out of each other, loud and strident. 

 

If I do this again, I would change the colour of the yarn - but there is no time to do this if I am responding to the dance - it is immediate, now, don’t think just do.

17.04.25

 

And the end result of the first four days of weaving - some done by me, some done by the dancers/other weavers.

 

• I like the fact that this is a collaborate weave - sections done by people who have never done any weaving before. 

• The storyteller/writer is matching the story to the weave - the colours reminded her of the scottish heathers, so the story at this point reflects the croft weave just what I am weaving with. For this R&D weave I am using up yarns that I can’t imagine using normally - coarse yarn, colours that haven’t dyed well (or in the way that I wanted them to!)

• Again, this echoes another weaving fable - a North American tale of weaving in the mistakes, making something beautiful out of an error.

18.04.25

 

Playing with a new paper warp on the loom - this isn’t quite what I expected to be doing with the warp, but I like the contrast between the thick wool yarn and the fine paper yarn. 

• A simple weave to do - creating a double weave pocket in the centre of the weave. 

• Looking forward to playing with this further next month! Just trying to get a bit ahead of myself in order to set myself up for a busy few weeks ahead.

19.04.25

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A very simple weave with a warp that I already have on the loom.

• The simplicity demonstrates all the mistakes - the uneven beat, the wonky selvedge, the tie ins of the threads in the weft. 

• Even on the table loom (or maybe because I am on a table loom) I can’t get it perfect - too hasty, lack of care. I notice that it is very hard to get a rhythm going, when I have to stop the weave, change the shafts manually, beat then start the weave again. between the warp and weft. 

• However I do like this weave - reflecting on how I used to want to escape the straight weave, but now there is something appealing about this - the small squares that can be seen when the weave is enlarged, which turn out not to be empty, but are full of ‘fluff’ and certainly aren’t square - again the unevenness of the beat is emphasized.

• Am I in danger of wanting perfection?!

20.04.25

 

Using up some old yarn - again, the regularity of this weave seems to be important. I found myself making the odd mistake which disrupted the blocks, and felt that I needed to unpick it. 

 

• Here the selvedges don’t matter - they are purposely ragged. Easy and quick to weave. 

• I don’t particularly like this bright pink - it is too brash, but somehow softened with the creamy white it is more appealing.

21.04.25

 

Using up more yarn - multiple threads in each weft. 

 

• There should be some colour difference in each weft pic, but somehow this didn’t show up much - I think that the colours were too close together and not enough balance between the shades. 

• The joining of the yarn really shows up in this image.

22.04.25

 

Another very bright colour, with a less regular weave. I think that this is one of the days where I just weave to fulfil the challenge! Strange to think that I have had a kitchen in these bright green and the bright pink of the weave of a couple of days ago! But it was a great combination at the time.

23.04.25

 

Spent Easter weekend with family part of which involved a group digging out of a bed in my garden. Such an ‘easy’ job with many hands and certainly a lot more pleasurable!

 

A little woven fish made out of daffodil leaves - fun and simple to do. 

 

• I wonder what will happen to this as the leaves dry out?

• Something here about transformation - reminds me of the rust work that I have done, the immersing of paper in water. Nothing stays the same, it is all changing.

24.04.25

 

Arachne’s web. A mobile structure that is woven throughout the R&D week by the various participants of the dance exploration.

In one version of the story, Arachne was the daughter of Idmon of Colophon in Lydia, a dyer who used purple dye. In the weaving competition with Athena, Arachne wove a tapestry showing the love affairs of the gods. Athena produced a tapestry showing the gods in all their majesty. Depending on the story, the goddess was either enraged at the perfection of her rival’s work or offended by its subject matter. Athena tore Arachne’s tapestry to pieces, and in despair Arachne hanged herself. Out of pity, however, the goddess loosened the rope, which became a cobweb, and Arachne was changed into a spider. Arachne means “spider” in Greek, and the zoological class to which spiders belong is named Arachnida.

25.04.25

 

I wanted some peace and quiet in the studio today - all the noise of the dancers, and the chaos of the weaving.

 

• In reality the pattern of this is much less clear, much more subtle. 

• Again, a simple design - twill based but beaten with different strength beats to give some variation.

• When I am focussed on my weaves, I lose track of what is going on in the room. It is a good space for me to be,

26.04.25

 

What a mission this one was!

 

• Trying to get a pattern that imitated circles - my brain was not in gear and I could not work it out! Took me so many attempts but eventually managed it using some graph paper. 

• A contrast to yesterday’s weaves - more life and colour. I’m limited by what I have in the studio - there will be a link between all the weaves that we are doing as the colour palette goes across the three looms.

27.04.25

 

• The final version - and now taken off the frame - will we ever get it back on! 

• It was lovely to have this moving weave - the dancers climbing in and out of it as we wove, creating the story of Arachne.

• All of the dancers contributed to this weave, adding their own touch.

• What is it about the messiness that I like so much but others really hate it?

28.04.25

 

Playing with some overshot  on a small sample. Emphasises the need for a floating selvedge.

 

• The yarn is unevenly dyed and I wonder if this subtracts from the design.

• The tabby thread is a very fine silk, with the overshot in a thicker wool yarn. The contrast in size of the yarn is too big and I don’t like the effect that it gives when you look closely at the pattern. It makes me wonder what the fine thread is doing and doesn’t seem to add anything to the weave. 

• Try again with a thicker thread.

29.04.25

 

Same pattern woven this time with a thicker tabby thread which seems to anchor the pattern more. 

 

• This has worked out well - even though the yarn is unevenly dyed the fact that the anchoring yarn can be seen more clearly seems to add to the colour variations.

• The pressure of the beat seems to vary which affects the pattern considerably. It is only at the top of the weave that I feel that the pattern can really be seen in the way that I hoped. 

• Selvedges are marginally better. I think with these weaves I am more focussed on ‘getting them done’ sometimes rather than doing them well and beautifully. 

• Sometimes the messiness adds to the weave, but at others it detracts. I think that if the weave looks as if it could be a piece of cloth, it ‘ought’ to be neater - if it looks as if it could be more conceptual then the chaos is more acceptable.

30.04.25

 

I didn’t think that I was going to like this contrast at all, but surprisingly I do! 

 

• The strong contrast is in the tabby - the overshot is a similar colour to the warp, and the emphasis on the pattern is therefore very different. 

• It brings out lines and patterns that I hadn’t really realised were in the weave. Thinking about the work that I am doing on the very fine silk, and wondering about making the tabby the colour rather than the overshot. A sample to do when I am next back on that loom.