Weaving Denise Gates, Sandra Kendall January Meeting 2017

This month our workshop was on tapestry weaving led by two of our own members. Denise has been weaving for a number of years and produces fine detailed weavings.[see examples below]

 Sandra has only just started weaving a few months ago and is favouring textural weavings with found objects. [see below]

Members were told that weaving is very ancient craft going back into the stone age and practically every culture developed some form of weaving. Looms varied according to the needs and lifestyle of that culture.
We were also reminded that we had probably done some weaving in our embroidery e.g. darning, needleweaving, backstitch wheels etc.

 Denise and Sandra demonstrated how to warp our cardboard looms under tension and then how to do plain weaving.
We then warped our looms and made a start on plain weaving remembering not to put the weft under any tension otherwise we would have a piece of weaving with a "waist!" 

 As members reached the end of their thread they were shown how to add another colour and some brightly coloured pieces began to emerge.

Member then began to experiment with different textures, horizontal and vertical stripes and blocks of colour.

 Soumak, tassells and rya were demonstrated and members were able to add any of these stitches to their weavings.

 
 It was a very busy and profitable day with members enjoying learning new skills. 
We only scratched the surface of what you can do with weaving but by the end of the day you could see that members had already started to develop their own style and will hopefully go on to do more.
Thank you to Denise and Sandra for a good day.