(December 2022) This is a post about my trip in July to view the collection of Lopham linen in Norfolk Museums, with photographs and descriptions of rare examples of handwoven huckaback cloth made around 1900. I am grateful to Ruth Battersby Tooke, senior curator of Costume and Textiles at Norfolk Museums Service, and Rachel Kidd, … Continue reading Lopham Linen
(November 2022) Concering the locations of Ralph Watson and Thomas Jackson, and the distribution of linen manufacture in North Yorkshire. The first image above is a map of North Yorkshire pinned to my studio wall. The black pin at the top right, near the mouth of the River Tees, locates the tiny village of Wilton, … Continue reading The linen manufacture of North Yorkshire, once upon a time.
(September 2022) Concerning a nineteenth century loom and the recollections of a hemp worker in the French Alps. Ecomusée du Clos Parchet The star exhibit of the Ecomusée du Clos Parchet is the building itself, situated on a mountainside in the Haute Savoie, built in 1815 and now preserved as a typical example of a … Continue reading Hemp weaving at the Ecomusée du Clos Parchet
(August 2022) The following is a transcription of the documentary film Bäuerliche Leinenweberei 4: Herstellen von Leinwand, with my translation of the original German commentary presented alongside stills from the corresponding scenes in the film. The film is the fourth in a series recording the re-enactment of traditional linen weaving in the town of Dickenshied … Continue reading Rural Linen Weaving in Germany: Part 4: Weaving the Cloth
(March 2022) The following is a transcription of the film Bäuerliche Leinenweberei: 3: Aufbäumen, Anknüpfen und Schlichten der Kette, with my translation of the original German commentary presented alongside stills from the corresponding scenes in the film. The film is the third in a series recording the re-enactment of traditional linen weaving in the town … Continue reading Rural Linen Weaving in Germany: Part 3: Beaming, Tying and Dressing the Warp
(February 2022) The following is a transcription of the film Bäuerliche Leinenweberei: 2: Aufschlagen des Webstuhls, with my translation of the original German commentary presented alongside stills from the corresponding scenes in the film. The film is the second in a series recording the re-enactment of traditional linen weaving in the town of Dickenshied in … Continue reading Rural Linen Weaving in Germany: Part 2: Building The Loom
(February 2022) The following is a transcription of the film Bäuerliche Leinenweberei: 1: Schären der Kette, with my translation of the original German commentary presented alongside stills from the corresponding scenes in the film. The film is the first in a series recording the re-enactment of traditional linen weaving in the town of Dickenshied in … Continue reading Rural Linen Weaving in Germany: Part 1: Winding The Warp
(February 2022) In the 1970s the German organisation Landschaftsverband Rheinland (LVR) began an ambitious project to record vanishing rural crafts, customs and work practices – including bell casting, mousetrap making, clay pipe making, butchery and bakery, as well as the cultivation and processing of flax. As part of the project, former weavers in the town … Continue reading Rural Linen Weaving in Germany – An Introduction
(December 2021) This is an update to my post From Thomas Jackson to Ralph Watson (March 2021), where I describe how I came across a manuscript written between about 1711 and 1769 by four generations of North Yorkshire weavers all called Thomas Jackson, and how that lead me to another manuscript by a weaver called … Continue reading Weavers’ Thesis Book: the Thomas Jackson Record
(June 2021) The Dutch artist Jacob van Ruisdael (1629-1682) made at least eighteen paintings of the linen bleaching fields around Haarlem. The landscapes are seen from an elevated vantage point, with the church of Sant Bavo on the horizon, and the bleaching fields in the middle distance, intersected by water channels, with strips of white … Continue reading Linen Landscapes