Musings

This is a time of year when we traditionally look both back at what has happened and forward to what may come. It has been a busy year for me, with wonderful opportunities but I am increasingly wondering who I am, as a textile artist. I wasn't even sure what I meant by the question when I thought about it, usually in the shower.....





I think back to those people who have had enormous influence over me, things they have said, things I have seen them do and how I view them. I was very struck by one of my first teachers telling me that she sees things in numbers: if she is planting a flowerbed she will see 7 tulips, nine daffodils, three iris and twenty-one crocus. When that is sorted in her mind, she will move on to the subtlties of colour, texture, spacing and timing of flowering. When I repeated this apparently bizarre account to another weaving friend, she said: "Well, don't you see it like that?!"





No, I certainly don't! But I wonder now about how I do see things, and if I was planting that same flowerbed, how I would visualize it right at the beginning? And I realise that I see things initially as textile, or aspects thereof. I look at a catkin and see a braid, I look at bourgainvillea arch and see a shawl, in silk. I look at a painting and my brain automatically begins to translate it into cloth, yarn and dye. A flower will be a subtley shaded, naturally dyed fleece; a skyscraper will be a repp woven mat; popcorn will be a textured yarn.





I like to do everything from scratch and, stupidly, feel that if every aspect of an item hasn't been produced from the raw material (scoured, carded/combed, spun, dyed and knitted or woven) by me, it has somehow failed a test I set myself. I am, however, realising that if I want to produce more textiles, I need to give myself permission to use commercially spun and dyed yarn - after all, I have no problem with my friends and colleagues using these 'short cuts.' And the skills of dyeing and weaving are valuable and satisfying in their own right.





A very happy celebration and 2012 to you all

Long time, no blog

Well, what a lot has happened since I last put in an appearance on this page!

Fleece First is up, running and nearly over - finishes next week for those of you near Bovey Tracey who haven't seen it yet; I've managed to crack the lampas weave and finish my sample from Jetta Vandermain's course in - well, some months ago....

Since then I have been on two more courses - one extreme to the other, you might say. Ann Richards with collapse weave making very fine, delicate samples; and Jason Collingwood making fab rug samples. Both of these, in their different ways, made me very happy and I will be taking pix at some time in the near future and showing you what I have achieved.

In the meantime, here is a photo of the woven fabric in the exhibition:

What happened to my resolution to update the blog every week without fail?! Life, I suppose. I am still spinning madly away to get the yarn done for the fabric and when that is finished, the dyeing and weaving are still to do.

This is the colour sample on the loom - the blue is woad and the brown walnut. The yarn is Bluefaced Leicester, combed on English woolcombs - hard work! - and spun worsted. I've currently spun just over half the warp.

Combing - you can see the unwashed fleece on the floor, though the fibres were clean when I combed them

Pulling the fibres through the diz - this preparation is more than worth the work - properly combed sliver is a joy to spin.

Fibre Fest was a busy weekend for us and it was very nice to see lots of old friends there and make new ones. The silk workshop went well and it was particularly nice to have Maria from Moscow there, though I haven't been able to suggest what she can do with 10kg of carrier rods! Well, I have given her suggestions but I think she has a lifetime's supply...

Last weekend was a family party, and lovely to see so many relatives- though a bit of a shock to see that a gorgeous baby I remember is now 6 and at school! Still gorgeous, of course, but he might appreciate my saying that!

The bee-keeper is currently in occupation in the kitchen and is quietly delighted at the amount of honey he has this year, despite the weather being unhelpful for these wonderful little creatures. I really don't think the world in general appreciates insects as much as we should.

Next week, if anyone is in the Tavistock area, I will be spinning at the Alexander Centre on Monday afternoon - teaching, so there's still time to sign up, indigo dyeing on Tuesday, likewise, and helping with textile design on Thursday.

Tomorrow is Fleece Fair day at Dulverton - see Devon Fine Fibres webpage for details. I shall be there with spinning wheel, spindles and assorted spinning and weaving gear, so maybe see some of you there? It is an opportunity in particular for farmers to see how we use their fibre.

Am I the only one whose inbox is filling with suggestions of what to buy friends and family for Christmas? The children haven't one back to school after the summer break yet and already the rush to part us from our money has begun.

Well, it's a while since I updated this blog because I have been getting some much needed inspiration and education and preparing a major piece of work for Fleece First, an exhibition to be held at Devon Guild of Craftsmen in September, October and November. September is next month.....

First the silkworms. They are all but two in their cocoons now and I won't be raising any more this year as the oak is not good and my privet bushes for the Samia have taken a bit of a hammering and need to regenerate.

I've been on two marvellous courses, one weaving, one dyeing. Weaving first - Jette Vandermain from Canada came to Devon Weavers Workshop to teach a course on Lampas, a structure I had never tried before. It is totally fascinating and has such possibilities. My sample warp is still on the loom and I am longing to finish it, not least because I will be doing a course with Ann Richards in September and already have my high twist yarns and instructions for making the warp......Plus a recents small bequest has enabled the purchase of a mechanical Magic Dobby loom and I'm longing to have a go with it!

The other course was with Michel Garcia, natural dyer extrodinaire. I had been one of the mob surrounding his instant, organic indigo vat at ISEND and was delighted to hear that he would be teaching at the National Quilt Festival at the NEC.

We made vats with bananas and indigo, henna and indigo, indigo balls, metallic vats (not organic, but non-polluting). We made resists, we overdyed with madder, cochineal, weld (found in a field near the NEC!) and an indigo paste we could paint with. Absolute bliss!

The picture shows some of the resist effects: white on blue, and mordant resists with weld and madder

Inbetween all this excitement we had a family wedding in Wales, beautiful bride, handsome groom, lovely countryside - shame about the rain but it was Wales in August!

Now I have a week, nearly, to get ready for FibreFest, so back to the dyepost, spinning wheel and loom and hope to see some of you there!

Sunshine and showers

Well, the weather is behaving in the way to which we have become accustomed - rain, then scorching dry days and then more rain and chilly winds. The Japanese indigo doesn't seem to mind, and I've already had one very successful woad vat from a plant that decided to spend the year in the polytunnel! Lovely blues, and I will be doing a woad vat on Wednesday with Claire Crompton, of Give Fleece a Chance fame.

This week I have been trying to make a start on my project for the Fleece First Exhibition to be held at Devon Guild of Craftsmen, in the autumn. I'm using Bluefaced Leicester fleece, from a local farmer, Neil Coles, and will be combing the fibres on English woolcombs in a traditional preparation. It will be woven on my Delta loom but the yarn design and weave technique are still at the mulling over stage - the adrenaline is beginning to kick in, so hopefully this time next week there will be something positive to report.

The photo shows the fibres at the bottom with the combed sliver on the left and the noil (waste from combing) on the right. I have to make dye decisions too - woad is obviously on my mind so maybe that will be the colour to choose.

My a.pyrni caterpillars are now the size of my index finger and they have gone quite pale, so I hope that they will be spinning soon. The S.ricini are still munching merrily away on the privet and the first few hatchlings of the Eri eggs have started appearing - if all the eggs hatch I hope the piviet will be able to cope! I hope there will be some caterpillars to show at FibreFest, particularly if the silk spinning course gets any takers....

Back to the combs - no wonder woolcombers were usually big strong men, my shoulders are aching and I've only done a few grams!

Just a quickie!

Just to remind you that Fibrefest is happening at Bicton College in August and that I will be doing a mini-silk spinning course during the event. If anyone wants to come and try their hand at spinning this most wonderful fibre, look at www.fibrefest2011.org for details

Another Monday

The weeks whizz round so fast and each new Monday brings with it the knowledge that everything I needed to do last week still awaits me...







I had a fantastic time at Devon Weavers' Workshop, on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, learning all about lampas. Jette Vandermeidan is certainly the best tutor I have ever had, and I've had the benefit of doing classes with some of the most highly regarded in the world! So, I am really enjoying the workout my poor old brain has had - doing two seperate warps that sometimes interlock and sometimes don't, each capable of weaving two structures and all the possibilities that offers, has been a bit of a shock to the system! Pictures when I am happy with the samples.







Yesterday I travelled to the other side of the moor to teach a dye workshop at Organic Arts. We had a fantastic time, got lots of colour from the plants growing on the farm and I was pleased to have a squizz at the new dye garden. I have given them some madder and Japanese indigo, so hopefully that will get them off to a good start. Wonderful to see how the dye garden movement is taking off in this part of the UK.

We dyed with weld, madder, woad, oak, ash, beech, willow, nettle, onion skin, and then overdyed some of the yellows and the madder with woad to get purples and greens. Fantastic! And the weather was wonderful, too.

The caterpillars are growing away, doing their thing quietly. I have high hopes that my Eri eggs will hatch and give me the option to continuously brood this species, as their silk is good. They eat evergreen pivet, so I can feed them all year round.

The plan for this week is to get lots of dyeing done for a school fair on Friday - my little gradaughter's school, so all the stops pulled out, and to make a start on an exhibition project. Will also need to fit in gardening, washing, housework, etc, so don't expect to hear from me for a while....