BAREFOOT weaving

With my looms currently empty and awaiting a new warp, I had planned to get onto a new weaving before the end of 2012. However, currently laid low with a severe throat infection since Boxing Day, means it will be 2013 before I trust both my brain and body to go through the complexity that is the warping process again!

Portion of woven tapestry by Marie Gnarajah

However, weaving and woven textiles are still close at hand, with my son's gift of a wonderful new woven tapestry from weaver Marie Gnarajah of the BAREFOOT weaving studion in Sri Lanka. This weaving is 1700cm x 900cm and will be hung in my family room (opposite my floor loom), the colours perfectly complimenting the decor. 

A few months ago he also brought back from his visit to their studio in Colombo, two lengths of fabulous warp faced heavy cloth. One has already been in use as a perfectly sized tablecloth for my rather large family table and the other (pictured below) currently draped across the back of a sofa as I cannot bear to cut it. Simply constructed in plain weave, but the use of colour is superb, with each piece of cloth imbued with an energy that only handweaving brings to cloth making.

 

BAREFOOT began over 40 years ago when Barbara Sansoni was invited to design cloth for women learning to weave in a convent workshop North of Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Today the company she founded has a small team of dedicated designers who work with our own dyers, weavers and skilled needle women. Take a look at http://barefootceylon.com/ to see something of the beauty that is BAREFOOT.

Weaving a Life

Weaving a life

with threads of glass;

fragile and sharp

they can cut you.

Reflecting a world

of beauty and pain;

the warp of years

the weft of experience.

Weaving a life

with threads of song;

joyous release

it can free you.

Harmonies of love and sorrow;

the warp of years

the weft of experience.

H.Walters 2011

I wrote this poem last New Year's Eve - clearly in a deeply contemplative mood at the time! With my mother's 80th birthday approaching I have reflected on her life. Her lack of options for education, her entire adult life marred by illness, repeated surgery and long periods of hospitalisation. 

Her indirect influence on my life has been conversely to value education, value independent thinking, question everything and value creativity. My gift to her is to weave a summer silk wrap, combining a strict weave structure with free form Saori type weaving. Somewhat of a metaphor for our contrasting approaches to life!

This wrap comprises my first attempts at a leno weave, my first use of a silk warp and weft and using the maximum width on this loom at 45cm. The finished length of the wrap is 185cm plus 18cm fringes at both ends.

 

As I wove, I made conscious moment by moment choices about changing the weave structure, adding silk fibre, changing the beat and skipping some warp threads. Struggling with uneven warp threads due to my uneven beaming, meant I had to constantly add weights to parts of the warp. It sure wasn't smooth sailing! Rather like our lives.

It is now off the loom, hemstitched, washed to see settle the silk yarns into their new life, twisted fringes done and ready to give to my mother. With my love woven in, even if I cannot say the words.