Before finishing UNI for
Christmas a student that I didn't recognise came up to me and asked how I was getting on with weaving. I said it was going ok but I was finding it difficult to translate my thoughts and designs into weave. She said she hadn't tried weaving and was dying her yarn for tapestry. At the time I thought how is that different to weaving? surely its just more of a complicated weave. But it turns out that it is different, and actually when researching it, it has helped me interpret my pictures into possible design pieces.
A loom is a piece of equipment to hold lengths of yarn taught and straight in rows.
Tapestry is a process of transferring a picture into cloth. You can start anywhere on the loom and be more intricate with the picture, its like using thread as an artist uses paint. The thread is woven into the fabric using a basic plain weave and pushed down into the lower row to hide the warp threads. Yarn is spun around spools and hangs from the tapestry as you require them. Yarns can be removed anywhere on the loom if a mistake is made and remade.
Weaving always starts at the bottom of the loom and works its way up, creating a pattern. This pattern is created by lifting the warp threads in different formations and passing a shuttle holding the thread through the gap known as the shed. The weave is pushed down with a heddle. Different colours of yarn can be used and warp threads can be placed differently to make many different pattern combinations.Yarns cannot be removed if a mistake has been made as the yarn will unfold.
picture by picture from my own weaving
Mirrix CEO Claudia Chase
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