Sunday 11 March 2012

A Week of Textiles

It is a week since I last wrote in this blog. I have not been idle - quite the reverse.  Some time ago I did the fabric used for the book cover above. It is  space dyed cotton with preserved flower petals and leaves on it . I only had three small pieces of fabric and decided to make an A5 book which I just managed to squeeze out of the fabric. My sister, Dorothy is holding an open Studio in September and is busy making things for it. One class of objects is Japanese-style books covered with her own fabric so I have had two sessions of pasting bank paper to fabric. One of the problems with this is having enough flat boards but I have made some more and now have 8 boards which is enough for one session of work. She managed to make 6 books while she was here!

I have done a number of other fabrics for Bournville but these are still under construction. On Wednesday, we went to Nature in Art to see the BBC Wildlife Photographic Exhibition - impressive. 

Probably the most important thing I did this week was to finish the Megado project and deliver it! It had to be mended - tidy up all loose ends and repair any errors. Then it was washed - into the bath with Woolite and we (Dorothy and myself) got into the bath and trampled on it for 10 minutes. I then got as much water as possible out of it and put it in the tumbler drier for 10 minutes on Synthetics. It felted very nicely - just enough. Mind you, I have done this before. It was woven as double weave to get the width and is in a straightforward four shaft twill.

It was delivered to its new owners yesterday (Saturday) as a very belated Golden Wedding present. It was orginally Michael's suggestion. He saw the yarn before he died.

Above is a close-up of the blanket. The yarn was very fluff-producing and I had a major clean-up of the Megado after the blanket was taken off. Now I must get the next warp on which is 10 yards of Diversified Plain Weave, much of which must be woven and off the loom before I go to Australia on 30th March.  Oh well, keeps me off the streets I suppose.



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About Me

I am weaver and - -. I dye my yarns with acid dyes, I paint my warps, put fabric collages and stencils on my weaving. I have three looms, a 12 inch wide, 12 shaft Meyer for demos and courses, a 30 inch Louet Kombo which is nominally portable but has a stand, two extra beams and a home-made device containing a fan reed. And last a 32 shaft Louet Megado which is computer controlled, has a sectional warp and a second warp beam and I am the proud owner of an AVL warping wheel which I love to bits and started by drilling holes in. I inserted a device for putting a cross in. I have just acquired an inkle loom and had a lesson from an expert so I can watch TV and weave at the same time. I am interested in weaving with silk mostly 60/2 although I do quite a bit with 90/2 silk. I also count myself as a bookbinder with a special interest in Coptic binding.