Stage 4: Developing Design Ideas into Weaving.

For this exercise, I was asked to choose a sketch, image, or idea, and develop it into a piece of woven cloth. Thus far, in this section, this was my second favourite thing to do, after the lace squares. I had seen a tutorial a while ago online for circular weaving, and without more than a few seconds thought, decided to do this. The idea is a kind of rose window - I was originally going to weave quite a simple shape, and then embroider (in a soumak style) some black wool 'lead' over the top, possibly in the traditional diamond shape. However, I felt that (as usual) this would give me too much of a certain framework, and I would become frustrated at not being able to make all 6 sections match exactly, when I was supposed to be experimental and spontaneous. There was also the trouble of the shape itself - obviously, all warp strands cross in the centre of the board, and are therefore very closely grouped in the centre, tapering off towards the edges, and spacing out. I soon realised that if I was to embroider over these unevenly spaced threads, the shape would be likely to pucker up. So I went out shopping, and found a crochet cotton weight yarn, roughly the same as the black edging. It had a nice colour change in it, and I thought it would be fine to replicate stained glass, as seen from a distance. I was pleased with this project - I felt quite fulfilled. I think that's because it looked like a finished product, rather than a sample, though of course, that's what it was. One problem that became apparent once I cut it from the 'loom', though, was that it almost immediately lost it's shape - this was due to the threads being so loosely packed at the edges of the board. It might be a good idea to insert some small "v" shaped warps in at some point, anchoring them around one or two of the weft threads in previous rows. A future experiment, perhaps.