The fabrics from Dashing Tweeds are beautiful, the colours are subtle and natural, just the sort of colours that draw me in. They are a British Company that specialise in menswear but also create fabric for interiors. Have a look at their website below.
I am currently exploring weaving multiple cloths on my loom and ways of making them three-dimensional. Below are photos of the weave on my loom where I am weaving and interlacing four cloths.
Recently I decided to have a look through some of my textile books for inspiration for my weaving and rediscovered my passion and excitement for weaving all over again. I came across my Warp and Weft Exhibition book, remembering all the amazing work on show there. I was particularly fascinated with the three dimensional weave. The idea that I could weave a seemingly two dimension piece of cloth on my loom and when I take it off it can be transformed in to something completely different.
This has certainly been an inspiration and something I am going to continue to explore.
http://laurathomaswoventextiles.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/warp-weft-exhibitions-and-symposium.html
This amazing knitting clock was created by Siren Elise Wilhelmsen, a Norwegian designer. She stimulates ideas and discussions through her curiosity and investigations in to everyday objects. From these concepts she creates products and installations for the private and professional markets.
The 365 Knitting Clock was the product of her University thesis, Everything Counts based on the relationship between products and numbers.
When I first saw these sculptures, they just looked like ordinary stone sculptures, beautiful but ordinary. I was then mesmerised when they were stretched! It was impossible!
These incredible stretchy sculptures are made by Li Hongbo, a Chinese artist fascinated by paper. His interest in paper started when he was a publisher, taking great care to consider which paper he should use for each book; the characteristics of the paper, texture, durability, look, style etc and make sure the paper he used suited the book being published.
During holiday times in his house they would have ‘honeycomb’ paper gourd lanterns and he saw a much greater potential in the way the lanterns were created. He now uses the same techniques as these lanterns to make his incredible sculptures.
To make the sculptures he stencils glue on to large pieces of paper and layers the paper together, using thousands layers for each sculpture, until he has a big enough block and then carves out the desired sculpture. Carefully considering then the depth, width, mass, and centre of each piece to ensure it is stable, if the centre is slightly off it will fall over.
If you want to find out more about these amazing sculptures then check out the links below.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-25856531
http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2014/02/new-flexible-paper-sculptures-by-li-hongbo/
http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/03/li-hongbo-explains-his-flexible-paper-sculptures/
For christmas I wanted to give my family and friends something they would love but also didn’t want to spend a fortune. After lots of researching I found that I could make body scrubs mostly using the things I had in my kitchen cupboards. They could be as simple or as complicated as I wanted them to be. Using a base of olive oil and sugar or salt I could add a huge variety of things such as massage oils, ground fresh herbs (mint), seeds, coffee, fruit, even chocolate. Each one can be personally created depending on what they like. The scrubs turned out great and my friends and family loved them. I will be certainly looking out for more handmade gift ideas for next year.
This year I have been making Christmas Stockings. Christmas jumpers have become very popular and I love the patterned ones, so this is where my inspiration has come from. I have weaving with twills and Christmas colours. 
I have been weaving christmas inspired fabric, ready to make decorations from.
This is a panda bear that I was asked to make by a gentleman who wanted something special for his wife for their anniversary. He wanted me to make a bear just like on his wife had as a child. After receiving lots of information about what he would like the bear to look like I set about finding fabrics and fillings that would work. The look of the bear is obviously important, but just as important is the feel of the bear, how smooth or messy the fur is, how squishy or firm it is, the hugability and tactile qualities all need to be carefully considered. These things will also help determine the personality of each bear I make. If I get the feel wrong, a bear just wont work. I chose soft, messy fur to give it an old feel, as though it had been around for years. I also used poly fibre for the filling and used enough to make him firm, lots of old bears like this were firm but light.
These three bears were made as a mini collection. They are all made from Tencel and use the same warp; different structures in the weave give each bear it’s individual character. I have also cut out the pattern pieces at different angles to further add to the variation between each bear. I think they sit well together, each bear having very different colour proportions. Each bear has been filled with glass beads, I prefer this filling to poly fibre because it gives the bears weight, meaning the sit well.
