Looming and Weaving

Looming and Weaving

Just thought I would post this picture as it is one of my favourites that I have taken in this project so far. It shows the cloth developing on the loom and I am really pleased with how the colour palette and structures are working. Also what is particularly interesting is how the 'stripes', in the weft on the left hand side, appear to curve slightly and merge into one another capturing an element of fluidity in the changing heights that result from these structures working alongside each other.

I hope you enjoy this image too!

What a Way to Make a Living: Weaving 8 'til Late...

Yarn Wrappings of Inspiration







Weaving So Far...

After taking two full days to thread up my loom... today was the day when I could finally start to weave! After a tutorial with Margo Selby on Monday, I have chosen to take inspiration for the cloth design from yarn wrappings that I had done. The idea of some of the yarns shooting only half way across the warp seemed an interesting angle to take, and something that I have never thought to replicate in cloth before. This idea really excited me and I have had a really enjoyable day starting to weave with this idea! I have put on a blanket warp, with a block draft warp next to a pointed draft warp, so I am getting interesting and exciting things happening on both of them that sometimes are not planned. These photo's are close ups of the cloth which is still on the loom, but I wanted to put them on because I am really pleased with the way they are going. The colour palette is much more enjoyable to work with than previous projects as love the bold, bright colours taken from my concept!

Car Lights

Car Lights

These were taken by moving the camera around while taking the photo which produced this lovely movement in the lights. The lights were just the car stereo, but I thought that they still had quite a collection of colours and combined with movement would create even more colours as they would mix together. I really like the loops produced and the softness that is applied to the otherwise, stronger, bolding lighting. The third photograph still had the flash on, and you can see just a subtle movement of light which I thought looked quite surreal! My favourite is where the light loops around, reminding me of tassles or a floaty fabric.

Colour in Brighton!

Beach Huts

Bit of a grey day in Brighton yesterday, but walking from Hove to Brighton along the sea-front I became rather fond of these brightly coloured beach huts! I have always loved bright colours and I wear alot of bright colours too! Which is why for this project a bright colour palette is essential so that it becomes more personal and enjoyable to me! I really liked all the different bright colours of these huts and they really brighten up the walk along the prom! Very uplifting and wonderful inspirations for colour palettes!

Dying, Drying, Coning and Warping.... Yarn!

This week has been such a busy week, however I am not into rugby so I thought I would take this opportunity to catch up with my blogging! My project has really got going this week which is good as I like to feel productive! I have created an initial colour palette and experimented with dying my yarns for the first time! I am using silk to work with for this project as it captures and reflects light really well so understatedly enhances my concept. Not only this, it also a perfect yarn that can be used in both fashion and interiors which it makes ideal for my intended outcome of a dual-pupose fabric for both design areas.

This week I have been keeping a photographic record which I thought I would put up on my blog!





Mixing Dyes: The kitchen became a lab for a few nights this week with mixing bowls everywhere! Just using dylon cold water dyes you can get really well matched colours by mixing the poweders together and doing lots of little tests with small yarn windings, testing times and dye intensity!

Before dying the yarns you have to make hanks, which is when you spin the yarn off the cone onto a hank-winder -- I should probably photograph the hank-winder as it would make so much more sense!





Initial Colour Palette: The silk dyed really well and produced some really intense hues of colour to match my colour palette ideas for this blanket warp. 5 colours taken from my sketchbook work based on the previous photographs of light that I have posted on here. I am really pleased with the yarns! (They are shown at the beginning of this post too on the cones).

Note: tying lease knots (like half inch bundle knots) in the hanks of yarn worked so well as the yarns didn't tangle at all!





Hank Onto Cone: To be able to make a warp and weave with the now dyed yarn I needed to get it back onto a cone. As the photos show, you use this machine to get it back onto the cone. Amazingly the yarn did not snap very much at all! I kept it going at a very slow speed to try and prevent any snapping and the whole process took about 3 hours as I had 8 bundles of yarn to get back onto cones!






Warps: Finally these last 2 photos show my warps on the warping mill. I have made 2 warps that will sit alongside each other to produce an overall blanket warp, so that I can experiement with different structures and effects!

I am really excited to weave with my yarns as I have found it particularly enjoyable learning the craft processes of dying and preparing yarns that go into producing highly personal fabrics all from scratch. I am beginning to feel more strongly about how important it is to encourage crafts, particularly weaving back into Britain!!! Which, reminds me, I really want to make sure I watch the new series on T.V by Monty Don about reviving crafts in Britain!

The Inoue Brothers

http://www.theinouebrothers.net

The Inoue Brothers: 'One of a Kind Scarves'

Those who know me will know that I love to travel with a passion for the world, particularly after my travels in South America, which is why I was so happy when I came across this danish-japanese duo of designers who have taken a South-American influence in recent work! Bolivia being a key country to their inspiration (and also my favourite country that I visited over there), they are using alpaca yarns within their work to create these beautiful woven scarves amongst other garments. The scarves however caught my eye the most with the array of vibrant colours! You can see the rest of their collection on their website which I have posted above and their work with photographer Nicholas Taylor is also currently at Dover Street Market, London. I will definitely be paying a visit!! They also have a short article in the January 2010 edition of Wallpaper magazine.

Dan Flavin

http://famousinstallations.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/dan_flavin_4.jpg

Dan Flavin

Yesterday I researched the concept of 'light' further and came across a book called 'Light From Artificial Light' by Weibel, P and Jansen, G. Brilliant book for light and colour inspirations and one of the most inspiring people in the book to me is Dan Lanvin. The colours given off from the bulbs creating strong panels of colour on the walls in different tones and hues really interests me. It is inspiring in terms of ways to record visual research in my sketcbook and really pushes the concept of artifical light and its beauty.