Saturday, February 21, 2015

Searching for the New 0,0

I felt restless when I finished this, noticing the kind of cloth I want to weave started shifting. Then the internal debate subsided while working on this because I had to adapt/modify so much. Then I started this and the disquiet returned.

A while ago I followed a link on Facebook and came across a UK weaver whose work I liked very much; her name was so easy to remember I didn't save the link. Doh! It was a she, her name may have been something like Angela Simpson, but I can't find her. Within my limited knowledge and dodgy recollection, her work was something like Marbo Selby's in Ptolemy Mann colors. I think the article (?) was about interior fabric. Her work appeared fresher, more modern and geometric than my favorite old, upholstery-style fabric.

Around the same time, and belatedly, I discovered searching for weaving images works better on Pinterest than Google. I see a lot of familiar pictures there, (your pieces!) along with work by weavers I'd not heard before, among them Juania Girardin and Loominarias.

Because my interest in textile since childhood has been first and foremost the pattern/motif, more is always better and I still suffer from bad shaft envy. But I'm also pragmatic and since I've seen that I'll probably never get more than the current 16, (for which, make no mistake, I'm very grateful,) I've been looking for ways to make my cloth more interesting on 16. Good thing, then, the cloth I liked on Pinterest were often combinations of simple but different structures/patterns, in many colors, in different proportions.

Even if I can't add shafts, I've hardly tried "all" the threading yet, and then there's tie-up and treadling. Then there's Inge Dam's inclusion of card weaving; pickup and other hand-manipulated techniques; something I found on Facebook and lost the link to but can remember, a combination of pickup and treadling to create pictures on double weave. And add texture and colors and I think there's enough material for the next 10, 30, 50 years.  But I'll probably always be afflicted with bad shaft envy. 

Which makes me look at my stash reduction process in a different way. Although I would like it done relatively quickly, (1137 days left,) instead of quick and dirty projects, I should see each as experimentation to build on to get to the next milestone. Or yardstone.

I still prefer to make flat cloths, though, so that's that in case you were wondering.

2 comments:

  1. Hang in there - we all reinvent ourselves now and then. You'll be amazed at what comes off the loom afterwards!

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  2. Yes, fingers crossed. I don't think I'd last very long, though, if I didn't have to reinvent or revamp once in a while, Sandra, my being the type that gets a bored a little too soon.

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