Japanese inspiration for a new adventure

A long overdue post, but really, just the beginning of a new story.

My weaving adventures in Japan have lead to even more weaving adventures in Australia and I have plans underway to open Art Weaver Studio in Melbourne in 2014.

With a view to becoming an accredited SAORI studio, www.artweaverstudio.com.au will soon be the web address to visit to keep up to date with what is happening.

Discovering the freedom to create at a young age

My wonderful full week of weaving training in Japan at Saorinomori in Osaka affirmed my desire to create a place where people of all ages and abilities can come together to discover and develop their own creativity. Saori weaving encourages, inspires and delights; enabling absolute beginners and experienced artists alike, to create individually unique cloth from the outset. 

Under the instruction of Kenzo Jo, co-founder of SAORI worldwide

Art Weaver Studio is the culmination of my lifetime love of colour and design, of the immense satisfaction in creating with one's own hands, and now of teaching and sharing this joy with others.

Here's a glimpse of what I enjoyed whilst at Saorinomori, a taste of what I hope to bring to others with Art Weaver Studio in the years ahead!

Saori Sojourn

I have recently returned from a weekend workshop of weaving and warp dyeing held in Yarrawonga (Victoria) by Kaz Maddigan of Curiousweaver. This was a first for me - in that I had never previously woven alongside others!

Having followed Kaz's Saori exploits for the past couple of years and explored this approach to weaving on my own, it was a real delight to learn some specific techniques from her and to share in this experience with a group of like-minded weavers. 

Looms warped and ready to go, I enjoyed focussing on the intuitive approach to selecting my yarns for both colour and texture in real-time. No measuring, calculating, preliminary sketching or charting here. Simply moment by moment decisions, totally absorbing me as the hours of the weaving day flew by. All these images are of the one piece of Saori weaving I achieved in one day's weaving at the workshop!

With my planned trip to Japan to study at Saorinomoro in Osaka later this year all booked up, this weekend workshop reinforced my growing desire to focus more on expressive forms of art weaving. Seeing the work produced by the other weavers was truly inspirational and the variety of individual expressions infinite.

The Next Challenge

I have a long history of never taking the easy road in anything I do. To make sure my brain and my skills are stretched yet once again, I decided to find a way to weave a wavy design (continual S curves) along the length of a fabric. This search brought me to network drafted advancing twills. Now, I can understand each of those words in isolation, but as a phrase, that was another thing altogether!!

Reading and re-reading (more than a couple of times) an indepth article on WeaveZine by Bonnie Inouye titled: Flowing Curves: Network Drafted Twill. I discovered how to do what I wanted on my table loom with six shafts. I took me quite a while to work out the process and I sure don't fully understand how to design my own weaving drafts, but I got to work deciphering the information. Bonnie is a highly experience weaver, so I was worried I may have been way out of my depth.

This meant a 42-thread repeat on the warp threading and a 100 pick (row) repeat in the weft weaving. And in between each of these pattern picks, were alternate odd & even tabby (plain) rows. Attention to detail at every level and step of the way was paramount to the success of this weave structure and design, but I was determined.

It's now complete.  A 2 metre scarf using a deep olive warp with purple and seafoam green weft. The set was possibly a little coarse and using finer yarns would have defined the pattern more, but it has a lovely soft drape. Once I got the hang of it, it was however quote boring to actually weave. I wasn't making moment by moment decisions about colours and different yarns and textures and all the things I really enjoy about weaving!  By following this weave pattern to the absolute letter (essential for the outcome), I became an extension of the loom. This process has produced a fine looking scarf, but without the personal input to design. To me, it doesn't have the life and energy that I bring to my art weaving.

Tiring of the repetitious weaving and abandoning the advancing twill pattern, I went on to have a bit more fun with a short scarf, introducing a multi-coloured yarn along with some silvery highlights. Just because I could!

Because I put on a 6 metre warp, I plan to move on to another 2 metre length which uses simple tabby weave BUT represents something much more, with use of different colours, yarns and their ever changing interactions.............

my next post will explore the outcome of that adventure!

Silken Sands

I began this weaving with loose ideas and concepts. After an overload of planning and documentation in past months, I wanted to weave a summer fabric in silk and cotton allowing intuition to be my main guide.

Commencing with the natural silk/cotton blend warp and the same yarn in the weft, I gradually introduced a natural raw silk, a hand dyed blue softly spun silk, and yet another raw silk (also dyed blue). To add some energy and contrast to this softness, I had to include a wonderful multicoloured yarn sourced from the Linton Mills in the UK in 2011.  Varying the beat, using two shuttles and two sticks at times, this weaving continues to grow and speaks to me of the soft colours of silken beach sands and seaweed.

Having now just returned from a few restful days at Port Albert (Gippsland's oldest port), and after a long trek around the shores of the nearby Nooramunga Coastal & Marine Park, I was surprised to see how the colours of the tidal beaches there echoed the colours in my weaving begun two weeks before this visit. I was also delighted to see a recent post by Curiousweaver http://curiousweaver.id.au/ about her recent seaweed weaving experiment! 

As a non-swimmer with a fair Irish-Anglo complexion, beaches are not usually a place where I spend much time. So my colours are not of typical Australian sunny, hot beaches, but rather of softer shades, where different blues and greens meet and move across the sandbars.

Beach at Nooramunga Coastal & Marine Park, Port Albert, Victoria

Another strong image on this walk, that may well appear in future weaving, was the large number of huge banksia trees. I had never seen so many banksia in one place and was intrigued by their twisted forms, their large soft yellow flowers in full bloom and the myriad of fallen dark eyed banksia cones.

Weaver to Weaver

Back in early December, Meg  http://www.megweaves.co.nz/ proposed a way of connecting with other weavers around the globe and sharing some "weaverly love". I signed up for this and sent off two little packets of inspiration to weavers in New Zealand and USA, neither of whom I have ever met. The next step was waiting for a couple of packets to arrive from others, all of us assigned names randomly.

I had been wondering who would be sending me some weaverly love and excited about the possibility of some new weaving friendships. With the new year off to a start, I was delighted to receive the two envelopes over the past couple of weeks.

 The first one, from Helen, filled with inspiring images and pieces of her own weaving. She is a long way ahead of me in weaving experience and her letter was filled with the wonderful details of her 2012 weaving year. Truly inspiring and as she just so happens to live nearby, we may actually meet up in person to share even more. One can never have enough weaving friends!

Close up of Helen's yarn & handwoven fabric samples

 My second package arrived today from Jane in the UK. Inside was a copy of an exquisite painting done by a friend of hers (http://www.amandapellatt.co.uk), based on Jane's Chinese moon moths. Apparently Jane raises these moths from silk worms. She also included some lovely hand dyed silk yarn in soft greens and rose. Jane is an experienced textile artist and tutor, and you can read more about her at http://www.janedeane.co.uk/  Thank you Jane!

With comparitavely so little hand weaving in Australia, it is exciting for me to meet up with other weavers, even if by long distance. There is ALWAYS something new to admire, learn and be inspired by. Thank you Meg for initiating Weaver to Weaver!