It has been a most busy year for me in Falmouth. Sunday dinners, long walks, kayaking, sea shanty-ing, new friends, sea food and more than my fair share of pub visits are just a few things that have been keeping me busy. In the midst of it all I have also managed to complete my first year of Textile Design!
For my final project, I chose to work in weave. I based my project on moss and it's fluffy, curly, tangled textures. Here's a look at some of my final samples and a few sketchbook pages as well...
I made two different warps, both focusing on the same moss theme. This sample is from the second warp. I splatter painted a fine worsted wool with black ink to achieve the mottled and patchy effect. I also chose to use a high twist crepe yarn in the weft of this sample to cause puckering and distortion in the fabric. I wove this, and a couple other samples in plain weave, in order to allow the warp to stand out.
This sample is also from the second warp. Here, I used a very fine silk in the weft and a twill throughout with inlay of linen snippets.
This sample is from my first warp. I used a a block threading, which allowed me to create those large floats across the sample.
More twill with a silk crepe weft.
One of the most simple samples, but also one of my favourties; this sample is from the first, linen warp. I used white, linen weft and inserted knots of wool which I later felted to create bobbles!
Here, I wove double cloth on a point threading. The bottom layer is linen, and lays very flat after finishing. The top layer is the same high twist crepe wool that I used earler, and has twisted and pulled the fabric in some interesting ways. I also joined the two layers every so often with the coloured bits of inlay
Simple stripes, subtly combining plain weave and a twill variation using my block threading.
Double cloth woven on my first warp. The bottom layer is a very thick wool and the top a much thinner one. I chose this so that the top layer would not be able to beat down as much as the back. It has caused more puckering and uneven weft picks.
I think that these waffle weave samples are my very favourite from the entire project. I just loved weaving this structure and LOVE the way that both of these came out. The top sample uses the wool crepe again. I pulled extra yarn out to the front in loops as I was weaving. In finishing, these loops have twisted up on themselves and pulled the entire sample in (which is actually what I wanted it to do!) The sample in the back uses a very fine silk in the weft, and sits perfectly flat after finishing. It drapes so beautifully as well!
...a closer look at the bottom, silk weft sample (with some inlay)
I chose to weave my third waffle sample using my warp yarn in the weft as well. This all wool sample is light, soft and bouncy. I also replaced a few warp threads with different colours, giving me vertical stripes as well as horizontal.
Just a bit of plain weave with a stripe.
Towards the end, I got really into this 2/2 twill. It's so exciting to weave on a point draft because you can make diamonds!! This stripey sample was my favourite of the twills.
And here are just a few sketchbook pages...
my favourite waffles...again...
I had the best time working on this project and found myself becoming completely obsessed with weaving. I finished my samples so quickly that I had time to make myself this scarf as well...
...for some reason, this image is all distorted and I don't have a clue why or how on earth to fix it. Imagine something that looks like this, but is scarf shaped. There you go.
