Times they are a changing . . .

This year has seen a great deal of change for me and Helen Foot Design.  Anyone who follows my facebook, twitter or instagram might have spotted some of these shifts.

Firstly, it's been a fantastic year for commission work so far.  Dot One orders have been keeping me very busy indeed and we've been extremely fortunate to have some celebrity endorsement to help us along our way.  One of the first pieces we produced was for Romesh Ranganathan back in January and he can be seen in the image below wearing his DNA scarf on It's Not Rocket Science.

Second up, I started the shift of moving out of my studio of 5 years to creating a home work space.  The Creative Studio has been a fantastic place to grow Helen Foot Design but it's not always been the most practical space to work in, being freezing cold in the winter and boiling hot in the summer!  I moved house back in March in order to accommodate my new home studio and have been slowly but surely getting everything shifted over since.  It's meant a bit of downsizing but it's forced this secret hoarder to clear out the clutter and think about streamlining what I need for the business moving forwards.  Last week we did the final sweep and handed the keys back in.  It's the end of an era but the start of something fresh and new!

The Creative Studio looking bare before we handed the keys back over.

The end of the academic year also saw me say goodbye to my teaching post at Hereford College of Arts.  I've spent 4 great years guiding some lovely students through their BA's and it's been wonderful to see their hard work pay off in an abundance of successes over the years.  I'm especially proud of my weavers who all seem to be taking great strides with their creative careers, through Masters degrees, Texprint success and starting their own labels.  I spent a lot of time working with students to think about their futures and how to achieve their goals and ultimately it got me thinking about my own career priorities.  With such a busy year I knew something had to give and I decided it was the right time to concentrate on my own practice again.  I hope to carry on teaching as a Visiting Lecturer so that I can work more flexibly around other work commitments.

Farewell Hereford College of Arts

For now my house is still full of boxes to be unpacked as I settle into my new work space.  Hopefully the chaos will have calmed by next week and I can crack on with the next wave of weaving.  I'll be showing again at MADE London from the 20-23 October, this time on a joint stand with Dot One, so do pop the dates in your diary and come say hello.   I'll be offering some special discounts at the show and online in the run up to Christmas, so watch this space.

Cambrian Wool Challenge . . .

Back in March I was accepted to take part in the Cambrian Wool Challenge 2015.  Cambrian Mountains Wool is an initiative of the Cambrian Mountain Farmers CIC, supported by its patron, His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, in order to raise awareness amongst consumers about the unique, natural and sustainable benefits offered by wool.  Encouraging collaboration between the community of wool producers, designers, retailers, manufacturers, artisans and interior designers living within the Cambrian Mountain region of mid-Wales, the Campaign aims to educate producers and consumers about the versatility of wool, and reconnecting them with its myriad uses.  The challenge was set for emerging or established designer-makers to create products using 100% Cambrian Mountain wool.  The aim: to demonstrate the versatility and beauty of their wool.

From over 100 entries, 35 designers were selected to take part and very luckily for me, I was one of them. 

I wanted to develop new work that would intersect the disciplines of weave, knit and stitch.  This is something I have been keen to explore for quite some time and touched on whilst studying my Masters.  Breaking away from my usual style of working with highly colourful yarns, I chose instead to work with the Cambrian wool in its natural tone.  The creation of the fabric was concentrated around the development of texture and unusual 3 dimensional effects.  Having looked at intricate cable knits, macramé and rope knotting techniques for inspiration, I developed some fabric samples which combined French knitted tubing with finer spun yarns on the loom.  The ideas for the formation of the two scarves then grew from there.  The first scarf, which is the more complex, had over 20 meters of French knit woven into the piece.  The cord weaves through the cloth and then links back on itself, snaking its way through the entirety of the scarf.  A central cable was added into the scarf once it had been cut from the loom, which runs from a central knot, through the loops created during the weaving, down to the ends of the scarf.  The second piece concentrates on creating a complex textured border as a highlight on either end of the scarf.

The creations of everyone who took part in the challenge are now going into an exhibition which will tour for the next year.  The shows first destination is the Hay Festival which opens at the end of next week.  I'll be popping down to have a look so expect some photos soon. Further dates that have already been announced include; The London Welsh Centre during the London Design Festival and Made by Hand Wales in the Autumn.  The full listing of venues and dates is available here.  For more images of my process please see the full album on facebook.

Collaborating with Sheep of Steel . . .

Earlier this year I was delighted to be contacted by Irem Arig, owner of Sheep of Steel, to see if I would be interested in making some collaborative scarves with her. Irem spins the most fantastic yarns and has an amazing sense of colour, so there was an proposition I couldn't possibly refuse!

After design meetings with Irem I set up a large sampling warp ready to test out all our ideas and possible colour combinations.  By the time I'd finished all the commission pieces in July we were ready to pick our favourites and get weaving the full size sample scarves.

But picking just 4 designs for our first batch of scarves was no easy task! We had ideas for hundreds so we really had to rein ourselves in.

So without further ado I would like to introduce to the chosen 4, Holoholo, Shamaye, Kwele and Ekoi.  And where do those names come from you may ask, well honing in on our African inspiration we picked the names of African tribes.  The scarves are all handwoven in small batches by myself.

With our first sale heading across the pond to a customer in New York if you'd like get your hands on one for yourself you can order your very own handwoven beauty via either Irem's or my own online shop for £200.  If you'd like to have a chance to try one on, Irem will be showing the collection at Handmade in Britain 2014 from the 14th - 16th of November at Chelsea Old Town Hall.  Likewise if you're in the Shrewsbury area you're welcome to pop by my studio for a peek!

Commission weaving for Noemi Niederhauser . . .

I started 2014 with a commission piece for Noemi Niederhauser, a Swiss artist currently completing a Masters at Central St Martins. Noemi contacted me because she is trying to reintegrate some textiles from the 1940's and wanted to know if I could weave a sample she had sourced in an old pattern book.  I asked Noemi what her project was about:

My practice is concerned with transcribing and reassembling cultural artefacts using discourses of ethnography and practices of the archive, to make surprising and fascinating new objects. In doing so I try to challenges historical, ethnographic and scientific narratives and  proposes new systems of exchange and modes of interpretation. For example, in my current project I am using an inherited  early twentieth century catalogue of fabric samples  and hand drawn patterns, originally the basis for the fabric design. I am using these as a basis for transcription, to make new, challenging sculptural objects in a variety of media- which themselves propose a micro order of relational objects.

An attempt to rethink conventional approaches to assemble and recount history and to propose a historiographic/ethnographical model that acknowledge doubt, subjectivity and reduction as inevitable factors when making sense of elements.

part of 'Sea melt into the sky melt into the sea melt into the land' by Noemi Niederhauser

Original fabric in pattern book.

The big challenge for me though was I'd have to do all the calculations for the warp without seeing the original piece of fabric.  This super fine cloth became one of the greatest challenges I have ever undertaken, with 100 ends per inch and being 40 inches wide, it really was epic.  Needless to say the process was extremely time consuming with 20 warp bundles to make and a total of 4000 ends to be threaded, reeded and tied on.  Just setting up the warp took me the equivalent of a whole week.

warp bundles.

fabric being woven on the loom.

myself with the finished piece of fabric.

Many hours of weaving later and the beautifully delicate fabric was done.  You can see the full photographic journey of the piece from fibre to fabric on my facebook page. Now I look forward to seeing what Noemi will do with it.  Her work will be on show at Central Saint Martins in May.