4 Feb 2015

Design Wednesdays

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It isn’t a very snappy title, but it’s the best I can do for now.

I decided to start Design Wednesdays back in November after a long spell of being too rushed to think. In the first place I just wanted to make sure that I had a few hours each week to explore my weaving ideas before I took them to the loom, but I’ve gradually rolled back the requirements so that I can simply indulge in design exercises without any other end in view.

Sometimes I set my own challenges, sometimes I revisit exercises I have found helpful in the past and sometimes I refer to books for suggestions. For the last couple of weeks I have been cutting up circles and rectangles as per the first exercise in Finding Your Own Visual Language (Dunnewold et al). Here are some of the rectangles. I like them scanned in to the computer, because it hides the mess I make when I use glue…

rectangles 1

rectangles 1a

rectangles 2

rectangles 2b

“Design Wednesdays” was posted by Cally on 4 Feb 2015 at http://callybooker.co.uk

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30 Jan 2015

Small achievements

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I do hope that January is not indicative of the way 2015 is going to go. It has altogether been a bit of a disaster weaving-wise and the lack of Phoebus continues to depress us all. But there is no point in beating myself up for the things that I haven’t managed. On the positive side, I am very happy with the patchwork design and colours. I will even be able to weave it full size because – tada! – I have the new cord for the fly shuttle.

new cord on the fly shuttle

The green and grey warp on the Megado has been rethreaded and I have started weaving. The weft is that cone of bright yellow you can see behind the Delta in the picture above.

In spite of the brightness it is still on the subtle side, though there is a bit of texture coming through… I’m not sure what I am going to do with it next: I have a few other colours I might throw at it.

green and yellow woolly weaving

And although I have been busy this week getting ready for the new OU teaching session (starts tomorrow!), I have also managed to meet the application deadlines for a couple of events. Time for an evening off, I think.

“Small achievements” was posted by Cally on 30 Jan 2015 at http://callybooker.co.uk

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22 Jan 2015

Meanwhile on 8 shafts…

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More patchwork sampling, with some of the pattern areas expanded and an unfortunate yellow stripe.

patchwork in progress

Well, it might have worked. Off the loom, I am now getting the sort of larger scale effect which I like, with squares gradually shifting from one colour to another.

more patchwork sampling

While close up there is some interesting detail in the pattern (plus you can shut out the yellow).

more patchwork sampling detail

“Meanwhile on 8 shafts” was posted by Cally on 22 Jan 2015 at http://callybooker.co.uk

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20 Jan 2015

Meh

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The weaving muses have abandoned me. I put a lambswool warp on the Megado last week, and my main question this week is “Why?” Specifically, why on earth did I think that a combination of middling grey and middling green would be in any way appealing?

grey green wool warp

It doesn’t appeal to me at all. I am pondering my options. There are several ways I could use it, including re-threading. Or I could take it off the loom altogether. I don’t really want to do that as I reckon I can at least use it for practising ‘something’, whatever that something may be. On the other hand, there’s a chance I will just waste a whole lot more time fiddling about with it… and then abandon it anyway.

In the meantime I have warped up the Delta for more patchwork samples and am about to wash the first piece. So I’m not idle, I’m just denying the problem.

“Meh” was posted by Cally on 20 Jan 2015 at http://callybooker.co.uk

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