I re-found this Carol Anne Duffy poem today; I read it at my mum’s funeral in 2012.
Then, like a sudden, easy birth, grace –
rendered as light to the softening earth,
the moon stepping slowly backwards
out of the morning sky, reward
for the dark hours we took to arrive and kneel
at the silver river’s edge near the heron priest,
anointed, given – what we would wish ourselves.
© Carol Anne Duffy from Rapture
French window blind research continuing with a first sample of scaled up weave. It’s shown her in mercerised cotton with a linen/wool mix weft. I’m liking the movement of the weave blocks held with crammed stripes to hold them in place. Threading inconsistencies are easier to see with the stripes.
© Sue Orton
With beautiful linen and linen mixed supplies on the way from Gary at GTM, I am testing the pattern and threading with 3 x 2/16 mercerised cotton. I should get it finished this morning ready to weave and see if the scaling up works.
© sue orton
Today I’ve been scaling up double-weave cloth with blocks. My brief is to provide window treatments for a french window. Imagine a 3m drop 2m wide (approx), I’m looking to weave a small piece of the pattern full size. Interesting. I will be warping and putting it on the loom tomorrow. I’m exploring the use of cramming and spacing to assist here too.
Phew .. thanks to Melanie Venes our tutor on Handweavers Diploma I’ve had a light bulb moment and real progress in my explorations. I wanted floating warps in sections and I’m getting there.. it bodes well for scaling up.
Linen, twills and double-weave, exploring fabrics for upholstery, has been on my agenda this week. I have not found linen as difficult as everyone seems to think it is.. pride before the fall perhaps 🙂 Double weave seems fine too, once I had sorted out the selvedges and which layer is doing what; much more to be discovered though. Here are some trial pieces.
sue orton | gathering threads 