Last Friday I had the pleasure of teaching two workshops at the Contemporary Craft Fair at Bovey Tracey. They are only two hours so one can't expect to achieve a lot but what a wonderful set of students!
The first was 3D weaving - those amongst you who are weavers will understand that this is a concept that has limitless potential but I confined myself to two options.
The first was to use a cardboard tube (the inside of a tube of wrapping paper for straight sided pots and cardboard cones from weaving yarns for pots with narrower bottoms than tops) used to support the warp whilst the tapestry technique was employed to produce a weft faced fabric.
The second option was to use willow prunings to create areas of fabric in the spaces between the branches.
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| Willow branch in progress |
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| Finished branch |
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| Pot in progress |
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| Finished pot, though the ends still need to be clipped |
The afternoon session was the perennial favourite, indigo dyeing
We made a vat, stronger than I would normally make but in two hours there isn't much opportunity to hang around!
We clamped, stitched and tortured cloth in various ways, wetted the pieces out, then dipped them in the indigo. Then came that 'Ahh..' moment when the cloth started to turn blue, the stitching was removed and the white patterns on blue revealed.
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| Cloth emerging from vat and just beginning to turn blue as the oxygen returns to it |
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| The star of the show! Anna, the felting tutor, had this example of nuno felting with devore to show her class. It was a pale orangey/yellow and she bravely put it in the indigo. It is just glorious! |
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Some of our results
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