Weaving

Being new to weave, I found my first technical block initially challenging but eventually enjoyable! Drawing colours and textures from my Pop Up collection I began to create organic weaves where I could using natural fibres such as cottons and wools in order to stay true to the very ideas behind my collection. As the first week went on and I'd grasped the basics of weaving I began to be a bit less constrained by the loom and started to be more playful with what I could achieve.

My First weave trying out different lifting patterns and trapping twigs into the weave

I tried to make the weave a more 3 dimensional cloth rather than a flat piece of weave by tying areas of the warp adding a sense of transparency and weaving in pieces of bark.

I was then shown a weaving technique called leno were you twist the warp threads and weave a yarn through them creating a sort of lace hole effect i experiment with this technique in various ways using many threads then using singular threads which creates a very subtle outcome.

To help me with my weaves i created 'de-constructed' fabric samples drawing colours from my wrappings and creating a vocabulary of surface effects.

Here I attempted to show the affect of leno weaving which is much more difficult when not on a loom!

Here i began to plan my own lifting pattern to create diamond and triangle shapes with the warp threads.

 By trapping thicker yarns into my weave i creates a highly textural weave.

In this weave i trapped an object and continued to weave around it, when the object is removed the warp threads are exposed.

In keeping with my theme I mounted a few of my weave samples on twigs and hung them with fishing wire. I felt the display of these samples was just as important as mounting them on card would have turned them into very flat 2 dimensional samples by hanging them their transparency and texture is rendered more clear.

Inspirational Weavers

Laura Thomas- A welsh weaver who casts her hand weaves into resin, making traditionally free fabrics into sculptural forms.

Victoria Hyatt Sowers- An american weaver who traps found objects or memories into her pieces.

Links
http://www.laurathomas.co.uk/gallery/commissions/item/5