G G Hornby

 My father acquired a book of pen and ink drawings of Edinburgh sometime during his life. I do remember that he took some of the drawings and had them framed, although what has happened to those I do not know. The book ended up with me after my parents deaths. It was in a sad way. Because so many had been removed, the spine was wrecked and the covers dirty and in a bad way. 

I have just finished redoing the binding completely. Since all the pages were loose sheets, I created an album ad each sheet is attached using double sided sellotape. There was no way I could use the cover but by scanning and cleaning up the title page, I made have a passable front cover. The old new versions are shown below. It was taken on my phone so quality not good

Now to warp up the Shacht with a very stripey warp with an Oelsner draft.

Design for Weave

 I have attended several courses on Design and even a couple of courses on Design for Weave but I do not seem to get anywhere. This is nothing to do with the tutors but just that I find nothing in them to change/improve the way I work. I was complaining about this to Dorothy who replied in her usual way that I seem to produce nice stuff. I thought about that and realised that well yes, not bad getting fabric into the Convergence yardage show. But then Convergence always has a theme. Is there a clue there. So I thought a bit more.

I concluded that I get on best when there is a theme. For instance the theme for The Guild`s forthcoming exhibition is THE SEA. And it did not take me very long to decide what to do. 

So I looked at the. Web and found a firm called John England who design and weave a fabric for you and they outline the way they approach designing. The first topic is to choose yarn. Now that really surprised me but they have another 5 or 6 topics.

.

Now I have a lot of nice yarn to be used up. So there are two approaches.   

Select a theme

OR

Select a yarn

Or

Select the final use of fabric

After finishing Daryl striped fabric for a waistcoat (currenly the warp is waiting to be wound on,, I need something for the Guild exhibition whose theme is the SEA. Four colour double weave? I have a 32 shaft draft for such a fabric which was woven in 60/2 silk. I have given all my 60/2 silk to my niece, Cally Booker because my eyesight is not up to dealing with a fabric woven at 60 epi. So I will use colours in 30/2 yarn. Need to size fabric to use what I have already. Suitable colours for THE SEA are needed and I have blue,  green and somewhere in between. I need four colours and the weft. May have to buy some yarn. Start by looking at what I have. Actually this uses two out of the three startpoints.

I feel happier for writing this all down. So conclusion? Do not go to any more classes on design for weaving. And write up how I got to the final fabric each time I weave a piece.

I would be very interested in how other people actually selecct the draft and the yarn.

Writing in My Head

 I create blogs in my head while doing other things. But they do not get onto the computer! So can I remember my wonderful pieces of literature? Not likely.

I have finished the fourth scarf in a fancy twill. I need to hem it and cut the last two scarves off the loom and then tidy up and wind another warp, based on Daryl Lancaster`s striped fabric. But the draft will be sort of twill, an 8 shaft one from Oelsner and it is sort of undulating twill. I have it in mind to finish this by the end of February and then I am going to roll up my sleeves and finish the remaining 7 yards of Lampas curtains. And this is only because I want the Megado for a major project (4 colour double weave) for the Guild exhibition this autumn.

I have done other things. I had a go at reduction printing in linocut. Registration is all in reduction printing. You need to be very accurate when you place the second colour, like quarter of a millimetre. The reason for using such a method to use more than one colour. But I can use other methods, not least using coloured paper to print on! So I have designed an A5 size one on the London Skyline. Actually I might call it Vauxhall. 

I have had a fine time excavating all the different sorts of paper I have. Quite disgraceful that there is such a lot.  ( i had decided to pack it in when 90. I have just added 10 years to that to get through this mountain of paper. 

 Anyway, I easily lose track of what is where. So I created a list on Excel. And found various useful things! One lot  of heavy paper I have turned into an album for linocuts. I already have one but I have got to the last page. It is a proper album with spacers  at the spine to accommodate the thickness of all the linocuts The first one is landscape A4 and so this one is - - sort of. To allow for the stubs, you need the paper to be not 21 by 30 cm but 21 by (about) 34 cm. And blow me, I found 14 sheets of 28 by 33cm. I rather think it was bought in Kuala Lumpur and is Chinese paper. I obviously bought a load of stuff in the East.

The print class is not functioning just now and the College has substitute a day`s Zoom course. Everyone in the class is turning and we are doing all sorts of arty thing. Good for me. I have never done anything like this.