Description
Whether you’re a seasoned weaver or a total beginner, these little creations are magical to do – and better yet, you can do it from your sofa!
Discover a new skill, meet like-minded people and enjoy the rewarding feeling of having made something beautiful from scratch.
Materials are provided, but please feel free to bring any of your own yarns that you would like to use, and any found objects that you would like to use as a base.
We will try weaving around wood, rocks, slate, tiles, twigs, anything we can get our hands on.
You will discover the joys of woven structure, trying twills, dogtooths, hopsacks and maybe even a waffle!
There are so many different variations to play with – mixing the different coloured yarns together is like mixing paint! You can create shading, gradiations from one colour to another, there is so much to explore.
All the yarn we will use is industry waste yarn rescued from landfill, from mills that have either shut down or are getting rid of old stock.
Through these small woven studies, you will begin to understand a little better the structure of your clothing, the basics of how cloth is made, and can begin to place more value on craftsmanship and makers. Hopefully, you will leave the workshop inspired to try some other designs by yourself – once you’ve had a taster you’ll see that the possibilities are endless!
This workshop is suitable for all levels, no prior experience needed. We will start with a very simple twill, weaving over and under with our needle and thread, and go from there!
Requirements:
Your Lunch
£10 material contribution .
Scissors
HB Pencil
Ruler
Any yarns, threads you would like to try weaving with but tutor brings all you need.
Tutor Brings:
Yarn
Wooden Bases
Needles
Double sided tape
Paper Simulations for the participants to use and follow
Some rocks, tiles, slate etc found objects for them to try weaving around.
Artist Bio:
Sarah is an Essex based hand weaver most known for her checks, stripes, contemporary Ikats and colour stories as The Aviary Studio, and also more recently for her work as Lark & Bower, which focuses on off-loom artworks, painstakingly woven with needle and thread, using industry waste yarn.
Sarah showcases her work via artists collective Future Icons, and also teaches workshops in both on-loom and off-loom weaving.
As a climate and environmental activist, the main focus of Sarah’s work is to share knowledge through craft. She uses her woven work to advocate weaving as an art form in its own right, but also to raise awareness about waste, and the textile industry’s impact on our planet and its inhabitants.
The idea of ‘off-loom’ weaving was conceived during the first pandemic lockdown in 2020, when Sarah didn’t have access to her loom or studio. Desperate to weave, she started using leftover yarn and a needle and thread to make small studies of woven structures; twill, herringbone, houndstooth, hopsack.
Now, despite having access to both studio and loom, she has continued to work on these small, slow offerings, whilst pondering why woven structure isn’t more celebrated.
‘Hand-weaving is an often forgotten art, and one which deserves to be appreciated without necessarily being part of a functional or ‘throw away’ item.
As an ancient craft, weaving is deeply connected to what it is to be a human. Like music, weaving developed in many parts of the world simultaneously, long before civilisations had communication with one another – an idea often forgotten in our new digital and industrial world.
My pieces are born not just out of love for weaving but also out of concern for the way in which the textile industry has been shaped in recent years by the fast fashion mentality, and how that impacts our planet and our future. I intend to use these pieces as a way to raise awareness about that.’
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.