Collaborating with Dot One . . .

Last year I embarked on an intriguing commission with product designer Iona Inglesby for her Masters show at the Royal College of Art.  Iona had taken her families DNA and transformed it into a series of bright colour block designs which I then wove using a double cloth.

Now Iona has now set up Dot One, offering up her unique design services for commissions.

Dot One translates your genetic data into understandable colour patterns creating your own DNA 'tartan'. The design embeds trends of inheritance, similarities between siblings or records the merging of two families. All you need to do is a simple cheek swab and let your DNA do the designing!

Iona and I recently met up in London to talk about her latest commission and are now hatching a plan to combine our design skills to produce some limited edition products collaboratively.  Sampling is currently taking place and we hope to have more information about this exciting work very shortly, so watch this space!

 Images courtesy of Dot One

Buddying Heather Shields . . .

I've been kindly asked by the Crafts Council to act as a 'buddy' again this year and have been paired up with Glasgow based weaver Heather Shields.  I'd met Heather briefly last year when she attended the 'LOOM' seminar I curated for Stroud International Textiles, so it has been lovely getting to know Heather and her work better.  Combining playful colour palettes and bold patterns, Heather creates vibrate contemporary fabrics and homewares.

Heather's strong affinity with weaving began at art school where she immediately became fascinated with the physical practice and endless possibilities for experimentation and innovation.The meticulous nature of weaving challenges and satisfies her drive for technical perfection and quality.  She currently works on a George Wood peg loom but is just putting through an order for a new loom which will help her to take her business to the next level.

Heather started on the Hothouse program just over a month ago and has already been busily traveling around the UK to attend events.  She is part of the fifth run of the program which provides selected emerging makers with targeted creative and business support.

I caught up with Heather a couple of weeks ago in Glasgow where she showed me around the city and Glasgow School of Art (where she also works as the weave technician).  I had such a lovely day 'geeking' out with Heather in a constant chatter about all things loom, weaving and beyond and look forward to spending more time working with her over the coming months.  Her fabrics are truly stunning and she is definitely a talent to keep your eye on.  You can follow Heather's development on twitter, facebook and pinterest.

Thank you Interns 2014!

I'd just like to say a massive thank you for all the hard work of this years summer interns. Sophie, Emma, Laurence, Helen and the two Alice's, I could never have got through the summer production run without you guys! Thank you for winding, reeding, threading, knotting and sewing. You were all fabulous! H x

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.

Goodbye 2013, Hello 2014 . . .

Oh my what a busy 6 months it has been (hence the long break from blogging). Since I started the summer production run back in July I don't feel like I have stopped! I have been working the two looms in rotation, using 'Levi' to produce the Regal scarves and 'Lawrence' for the Festival collection. Its been a great system which has allowed me to weave on one loom while the other has been set up by one of the amazing interns I have had through this year. And my what a fantastic help they all were, I couldn't have done it without them, so special thanks must be awarded to Nav, Victoria, Katie, Alice and Charlotte (especially Charlotte who put up with me for 10 whole weeks!).

Charlotte knotting on a warp

With three shows this Autumn, a whole host of new stockists, plus my regulars and a pop-up shop at Somerset House I needed to weave a lot of scarves! At my final count just before Christmas it totalled 153 woven this year. Nothing like being ambitious!

My stand at Lustre, Nottingham (Nov 2013)

So after such an extensive weaving schedule I've let myself have a well deserved break for Christmas and New Year. Now I'm looking to the year ahead.  Part of what has kept me so busy lately was that I was asked by Stroud International Textiles to curate a seminar which will be taking place in May. The seminar is titled LOOM and will feature some fantastic speakers (even if I do say so myself!). Tickets aren't available just yet so I will be posting more details of this later.

And then my real big news is I've decided to move to Bristol. I'll be setting up a studio with one of my best friends who is also a weaver, all very exciting but means there is lots of planning to be done. This will be happening around June/July so  if anyone would like any commission weaving now is the time to get in touch. So thank you for your continued support over the last year and if you're looking for a bargain there are still a couple of days left to take advantage of my Winter SALE!  Happy New Year everyone!

experiments in flax . . .

Here's some images of the three leno panels that I made on the collaborative warp with Zoe Acketts Textiles.  The pieces were on show at the fantastic old flax mill in Shrewsbury a couple of weeks ago.

two become one . . . .

What happens when two weavers make two warps to make one cloth? . . .

This warp was a collaboration between Zoe Acketts and myself.  I shall post images of the woven cloth next week.