Weaving
I love weaving! It is like a meditation. I love colour and I love texture. I like using yarns of different varieties and in particular, fine luxurious yarns. I love the look and feel of handwoven garments and fabrics. In fact if I am really honest, weaving is pretty much an addiction for me, I have to weave regularly and always have new ideas "on the boil". Besides it allows me to also feed my yarn addiction!
I weave shawls, wraps, scarves, rugs and cloak lengths. I usually have several projects on the go at one time. I prefer to use natural fibres for the basis of all my works – wool and silk in particular. However I have fun including some of the wonderful novelty yarns now available, as a feature in the weave in some projects.
I have five looms I use - each serves a different purpose:
The first loom I ever bought is a Druva four shaft floor loom. This loom lives in my lounge room overlooking the ocean and on it I weave my snuggle rugs, wraps and lately my rebozos.
This is my Druva loom with a snuggle rug being woven on it
Down in the end room is my enormous Glimakra eight shaft countermarch loom - this loom is verging on "industrial". On it, I weave long lengths of fabric with complex patterns, currently for use in creating my Lord of the Rings cloaks.
Here's my Glimakra loom with a Lord of the Rings length being woven on it
In my studio I have a heavy Varparpu four shaft floor loom, on which I weave floor rugs at the moment. It also sits overlooking to ocean - very relaxing for weaving.
Then I have the eight shaft Ashford table loom - this one is used for complex, fine weave scarves in silks and ultrafine wools.
The Ashford eight shaft table loom with a silk scarf being woven
And last, but not least, is my little Ashford Knitters loom - a rigid heddle loom. This one only does simple tabby weave, but is just perfect for creating scarves where the weft is the most interesting component - such as handspun hand dyed silk yarn, other random dyed yarn and interesting novelty yarns, which do not need to be lost in a complex pattern.
The Ashford Knitters loom being threaded up, with a scarf just taken off the loom in the foreground
I generally start with undyed natural yarns which I hand dye to suit the article. Each handwoven article is unique, individual, never to be repeated and woven with love and pleasure, in the hope that the person who wears the garment will feel this. Each piece is a small adventure in exploring colour, texture and pattern, to create something unique and beautiful.
Woven pieces include
- Silk and wool fine weave scarves
- Fine wool shawls
- Fine silk and wool shawls
- Snuggle rugs
- Woven cloaks
These two handwoven silk and wool scarves are both over ten years old and have been worn literally hundreds of times and washed numerous times. They were taken straight from being worn to photograph, so that you can see what these garments look like when well worn. They are extremely long wearing and promise to give years and years of comfort and pleasure.
As well as having handwoven garments for sale, I run weekend weaving workshops (or during the week, if that is more suitable) where you can learn some of the basics of weaving for yourself.
Click here if you would like to see more weaving.
Click here to see workshops available
