New beginnings

I have been quite busy since my last post, which was over a month ago, I know that's bad, but I was being creative.

I really needed a change of direction, as I was getting bored with what I was doing, I think because it was almost a follow on from my final collection it felt like I had been working on it a very long time.

I decided to just choose a topic that would take my creativity in a new direction, so I have been looking at Art Deco.

Art Deco used a combination of line and curve, it took inspiration from everywhere drawing on both tradition and the modern machine age to create images that moved away from modernism's graphic styles to something that gave pleasure and escape.  Art Deco was the period of the 1920's boom to the Depression of the 30's, during Hollywood's glamour years following the end of WW1.

It followed on from Art Nouveau with the influence of nature and natural form, but also including graphic, geometric and angular styles, such as those seen in cubist paintings.

This is where I have started from, I was very much drawn to the bold colours, which was a complete move away from what I had previously been doing.

And I have a new warp:

I started experimenting with striping across to find what combinations worked well.  I have been developing my own lifting plans on Fibreworks.


I loved the way these colours worked together, I am trying to create more curved patterns across the weave to bring together the curves and straight lines, I am really pleased with how it is going so far.

I don't know what it is but it makes me feel really happy working with bright colours, it might be that along with the sunshine, which seems to be wanting to stay around for a while as well.  Ahh isn't summer lovely!!!

Vintage Loom

I thought I would share with you a job I had through my work at Texere Yarns, the Mill shop in Bradford. 

They have had a vintage loom in storage for a number of years and I said I would have a go at warping it up to see if it still worked.

The loom is a Dryad Leicester four shaft table loom, it all seemed to function well enough, and although the heddles were obviously old, they were not rusty.  The only thing I had to do was create a set of cross sticks for the warp. 

Once it was warped up I did find that it was not that good at beating into the fell, leaving the weft yarn travelling across the warp curled up in places.  This could be because of the yarn used, a thicker or smoother yarn may work better with the reed, or it may just improve as the cloth builds up.

 

 

 I had more warp ends through each dent than I would usually like, but the shed did not seem to be affected by this.

 

Warped up and ready to go, bit disappointed that this picture is a bit blurry!  The warp was made up of different shades of grey and a lilac, I thought that brighter colours could be added into the weft.

 

I won't be giving up my Ashford anytime soon, I certainly appreciate the smoothness and lightness of use you get from a more modern loom after having a go with this, although I enjoyed the challenge and it was a really interesting experiment.

New Warp

My new warp has now been dyed and is back on the warping frame.  I hope to get it onto my loom tomorrow.  It is looking pretty, the colours travel from a pale yellow, to mix with pink creating coral and through to a bright pink.

 

I enjoyed a trip into Leeds last week, I wanted to go to the library to see what weaving books they had, not many I found out, but still worth a look in the Art Library, I always find something interesting.  It's a lovely building too.

 

There was a display of antique butterfly and moth encyclopedias with their illustrated plates.

The building is linked to Leeds Museum, although I didn't have a look around, I did manage to get into the gift shop.  I really like this illustration from Ohhdeer.com, which was on the cover of a notebook, it's fun and I am always drawn to anything to do with animals.  The face and eyes are so lifelike, but the feathered headdress shows that it has clearly been painted, I like this mix of realistic and playful, creative art.