by katie | Oct 2, 2015 | Blog
Recently I visited the Maltings in Farnham for the Thread Craft Fair, which I thoroughly enjoyed. While there I came across the Old Haberdashery Shop stall containing loads of really interesting haberdashery items. In particular I found some banana yarn which I hadn’t seen before. It is has a beautiful texture and sheen. Since purchasing it I have found that it is sometimes used as a vegan alternative to silk yarn. Below are the images of the banana yarn I bought. I love the slubbyness of the yarn. particularly the finer yarn.
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by katie | Sep 18, 2015 | Blog
One of my friends recently went out to Tilburg in the Netherlands to visit the Texteil Lab and Museum. It is a place that anyone from students to textile designers to architects can go and receive expert help to develop their ideas.
It works slightly differently depending on who is going. For students, they would need to visit in a group of three to work on a collaborative project for three days with their own personal technician. They would have access to a huge range of materials with which to explore their ideas and industrial equipment to create samples or a small production. Designers can use the expertise of the technicians and the huge range of materials to push their ideas or use it as a place to get their designs produce to industry standards but in small quantities. The industry grade equipment means that anything produced can be replicated by other companies for larger scale manufacturing.
The Texteil Lab has a huge range of equipment in the following areas:
- Weave (Jacquard and powerloom)
- Knit
- Embroidery
- Tufting
- Ribbon Making
- Laser Technology
- Digital Print
Students only generally have access to weave, knit and print but I believe this is negotiable. It sounds as though the Texteil lab have particular expertise in weave.
Not only can one develop, experiment and see your ideas become a reality but they have the technology to enable you to produce fully functioning textiles, for example fully fire proofing.
As well as the lab they have a museum and as part this they house some historical looms. Unfortunately, these looms are not set up to work but have cloth and yarn in place to show how they would have worked. How I would love to go there to clean up the looms and get them working!
Their website is full of inspiration, have a look: www.textiellab.nl/en/
The Texteil Lab and Museum sounds like an amazing and inspiration place to visit!
by katie | Sep 4, 2015 | Blog
I am really pleased with how my dip dyed warp is weaving and enjoying working with the colours I have chosen. I found that choosing the weft takes quite a bit of thinking about because the colours are very different; what goes with the coral colour may not work so well with the blue-green colour. I have used more muted colours so far but would like to try a much brighter bear when the right section of warp comes up.
When I weave a warp like this I plan a few ideas in terms of structures and weft threads but I also take each section as it comes. Each section is different and as I approach it and see it on the loom I then make a decision about what weft yarn and structure would suit that particular part of my warp.
by katie | Aug 14, 2015 | Blog
I am really excited to be doing some dip dyeing again. Now that I have access to a great dye lab I am able to be more experimental with my dyeing. I am also trying out some beautiful new yarn Geelongora. This is a mix of Geelong lambswool and Angora. My graduated colour teddy bears were popular a couple of years ago so I will be creating a few more once I have sampled my ideas.
by katie | Aug 5, 2015 | Blog
I have just arrived back from an amazing break in Warsaw, Poland. Warsaw is a very modern city that seems to be continually changing with lots of new buildings. The building that stood out to me were in the old town in Warsaw and although brand new they are restorations of the beautiful buildings that use to be there.
The colours, patterns and lines of the buildings are very inspirational to me.
by katie | Jul 10, 2015 | Blog
My finished my knife! I am so pleased with the way it has turned out. I had never made anything like this before with metal or wood before and so I have a new skill set to add to my portfolio.
I must admit I did start with a pack which consisted of two rectangles of beech wood, two piece of brass, an unfinished blade/spring and a piece of nickel for the rivets. From this I cut, drilled, shaped and finished the individual pieces before putting them all together with rivets and finally shaping he handle.
When making the knife, a lot of time was spent taking it apart. Once all of the pieces were roughly shaped the internal working of the knife had to be perfected, in particular the kick and the part where the blade meets the hinge when open. In order to get these exact the knife had to be put together to see where the changes were required and taken apart to make the changes gradually in small steps. Therefore, this was repeated many times until right.
I had great fun making this and will never look at a knife in the same way again.
