www.instagram.com/maxmosscrop/

First glimpses of the second Ralph Watson ‘hapin

First glimpses of the second Ralph Watson ‘hapings’.

Top left: Ralph Watson’s original manuscript draft c1800
Lower left: digital drawdown
Right: woven linen

I used an undyed weft for the first few inches to check for threading errors and to get my head around the treadling sequence, before switching to white (2nd image).

Manuscript image courtesy @north_yorkshire_archive: The Weaver’s Guide; Linen Designs by Ralph Watson of Aiskew; Ref Z.371.

#HandwovenLinen #NorthYorkshireHistory #HandWeaving #TextileHistory #CraftHistory #YorkshireHistory

Broken Thread Remix from “Baüernwerk im Rheinl

Broken Thread

Remix from “Baüernwerk im Rheinland / Bäuerliche Leinenweberei”, archive 35mm film recording the re-enactment of traditional linen weaving in Dickenshied, Germany, 1978-1979, courtesy of LVR Landschaftsverbandes Rheinland. Original film and sound recording by Gabriel Simons, Ayten Fadel, Gabriele Harzheim, Rainer Nagels, Manfred Grans, Manfred Müller, Konrad Grunsky-Peper, Heinke Jopp.
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#thislife #bodiesinmotion #timeandmotion #loom #machines #handweaving #textilehistory #weavinghistory #crafthistory #linenweaving #leinenweberie #handmade #weaving #handwoven #handcrafted #loom #handloom #textiles #ruralindustry #craft

Here lie the remains of Ralph Watson, of Aiskew, D

Here lie the remains of Ralph Watson, of Aiskew, Damask Weaver, who departed this life April 26th 1812 Aged 64 Years.

Church of St Gregory, Bedale.

Thanks Val.

An early Christmas present from the Cooper Hewitt:

An early Christmas present from the Cooper Hewitt: the museum has recently posted new high res photos of the Thomas Jackson Book on their website. Hats off to staff at the museum for re-photographing this unique cultural record and putting the images in the public domain.

The manuscript records the work of four generations of North Yorkshire weavers, all called Thomas Jackson, between 1689 and 1769. It includes drafts for Huggabacks, Happings, Callomankos, Quishings, Sattonetts, Sattonesco, Ragbag, Lincy Wonsey, Shagg Pettocoats & more!

Cooper Hewitt Accession Number 1958-30-1; Object ID 18423091

#CooperHewitt #manuscript #NorthYorkshireHistory #Weavers #HandWeaving #TextileHistory #CraftHistory #YorkshireHistory #Smithsonian

An early Christmas present from the Cooper Hewitt:

An early Christmas present from the Cooper Hewitt: new high res photos of the Thomas Jackson Book. Hats off to staff at the museum for re-photographing this unique cultural record and putting the images in the public domain.

The manuscript records the work of four generations of North Yorkshire weavers, all called Thomas Jackson, between 1689 and 1769. It includes drafts for Huggabacks, Happings, Callomankos, Quishings, Sattonetts, Sattonesco, Ragbag, Lincy Wonsey, Shagg Pettocoats & more!

Cooper Hewitt Accession Number 1958-30-1; Object ID 18423091

#CooperHewitt #manuscript #NorthYorkshireHistory #Weavers #HandWeaving #TextileHistory #CraftHistory #YorkshireHistory #Smithsonian

Low winter sun picking out the pattern in this Ral

Low winter sun picking out the pattern in this Ralph Watson linen this morning.
Big thank you to everyone who braved the cold to come to the open studio over the weekend.
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#handweaving #eighteenthcenturytextiles #historictextiles #ralphwatson #linenweaving #yorkshirehistory #haping

OPEN STUDIO Today, 11-6 #camberwellartsfestival20

OPEN STUDIO
Today, 11-6

#camberwellartsfestival2021 #camberwellarts #creativecamberwell #openstudios #coldharbourstudios

This weekend Saturday & Sunday 11-6 Coldharbour St

This weekend Saturday & Sunday 11-6
Coldharbour Studios SE5 9PG
@camberwellartsfestival

OPEN STUDIO 27 & 28 November 11-6 I’ve spent mu

OPEN STUDIO
27 & 28 November
11-6

I’ve spent much of the last year following instructions left by a weaver called Ralph Watson around 1800. Come and find out how we got on.

Part of Camberwell Arts Winter Open Studios @camberwellartsfestival

Tea time hiatus in cleaning & tidying for open stu

Tea time hiatus in cleaning & tidying for open studios 27th & 28th November, with #coldharbourstudios and #camberwellartsfestival2021
(Sound on)
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#camberwellarts #openstudios #drippingtap #openstudioslondon #se5 #kitchensink #loughboroughjunction

After Ralph Watson of Aiskew. #Handweaving #White

After Ralph Watson of Aiskew.

#Handweaving #WhiteLinen #RalphWatsonofAiskew #NorthYorkshireArchives

Linen, just off the loom, washed, still drying, af

Linen, just off the loom, washed, still drying, after Ralph Watson of Aiskew c.1800.
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#HandWovenLinen #handweaving

Learning sewing techniques with Thérèse de Dilmo

Learning sewing techniques with Thérèse de Dilmont’s Encyclopedia of Needlework is playing havoc with my sense of scale. Her immense encyclopedia, originally published in 1886, is only four and a half inches high and printed in a 7 point font.

#ThérèseDeDilmont #EncyclopediaOfNeedlework #openwork

Warp dressing. Single ply linen yarns tend to bin

Warp dressing.

Single ply linen yarns tend to bind together in a warp. One remedy is a dressing which lays down the surface fibres, making the yarn more resilient to fraying. Flour and tallow are the main dressing ingredients in 19th century weaving manuals. Laundry starch and skin moisturiser (basically an emulsion of white paraffin) are convenient alternatives. I brush on the hot starch paste, brush off any excess, then apply the moisturiser with my hands. With luck the lease rods pull smoothly through the dressed warp.
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#handweaving #handloom #textilehistory #WarpDressing #WeavingTechnique #LinenWeaving

Peter Fischli’s current show at Sprüth Magers.

Peter Fischli’s current show at Sprüth Magers. The ‘cans’ and their plinths are made from cardboard. The white paint for the plinths is made with chalk - from the Champagne region, no less.

Peter Fischli
From the CANS, BAGS AND BOXES series.
2019.
Mounted cardboard, paint; plinth: honeycomb cardboard painted with champagne chalk.
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#PeterFischli #SpruthMagers

Studio companion: rare Pencil Shaving Moth?

Studio companion: rare Pencil Shaving Moth?

Material nourishment at the National Gallery. A

Material nourishment at the National Gallery.

A Woman
Robert Campin
c 1435
Oil with egg tempera on oak

Portrait of a Lady
Workshop of Rogier van der Weyden
c 1460
Oil with egg tempera on oak

detail from: Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan
Hans Holbein the Younger
1538
Oil on oak

#edges #selvedges #smallthings

Warping time, part 2: Beaming. (Sound on) . . . .

Warping time, part 2: Beaming.
(Sound on)
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#Handweaving #Warping #textilehistory #timewarp #beaming #warpwinding

Jan Brueghel the Elder and Joost de Momper II. Mar

Jan Brueghel the Elder and Joost de Momper II.
Market and Washing Place in Flanders.
c 1620.
Prado, Madrid.

A day like today. Jacob van Ruisdael: View of Haa

A day like today.
Jacob van Ruisdael: View of Haarlem with Bleachfields. c 1670-75.
Mauritshuis, The Hague.
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#landscape #Ruisdael #linen #canvas

After Ralph Watson of Aiskew. See NYCROBlog, link

After Ralph Watson of Aiskew.
See NYCROBlog, link in bio. @north_yorkshire_archive
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#theoryandpractice #handweaving #textilehistory #handloom #machines #rhythm #pattern #patterndraft #draft #crafthistory

Thank you @north_yorkshire_archive for inviting me

Thank you @north_yorkshire_archive for inviting me to contribute this week’s NYCROblog ‘Following Ralph Watson’ (link in bio).
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#handweaving #textilehistory #northyorkshire #haping #linenweaving #patterndrafting

Woven white on white this Ralph Watson pattern is

Woven white on white this Ralph Watson pattern is only visible in raking light, like just now with the morning sun.
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#handweaving #northyorkshirearchives
#linenweaving #textilehistory #handloom #machines

Beaming. . . . . #weaving #beaming #threading #han

Beaming.
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#weaving #beaming #threading #handweaving #loom

Work in progress, after Ralph Watson of Aiskew @no

Work in progress, after Ralph Watson of Aiskew @north_yorkshire_archive

Teaching my feet. I’m following two-hundred-year

Teaching my feet.
I’m following two-hundred-year-old instructions for a fancy twill by Yorkshire linen weaver Ralph Watson. The notation in Watson’s manuscript (2nd image) is a kind of shorthand. Each horizontal row represents one of eight shafts. In the tie-up on the left, each column represents a treadle, the 0’s showing how to tie the treadles to the shafts. The wavy lines to the right are the draft, showing how to draw the warp through the heddles. The draft can also be written as a numerical sequence: 123456787654321 / 8765678765678 / 1234321234321 / 8765678765678 / 123456787654321 / 87654321234567 x 5 / repeat.

The treadling follows the same 140 number sequence over 8 treadles, except I’ve rearranged the tie-up to alternate between left and right feet. I’ve tied cord round every other treadle to help my feet know where they are, and I’ve got treadling tables hanging in front of me. I’m still making frequent mistakes, but my feet are learning.

Ralph Watson manuscript image courtesy of North Yorkshire County Records Office @north_yorkshire_archive: The Weaver’s Guide; Linen Designs by Ralph Watson of Aiskew; Ref Z.371.

Newly acquired old copy of ‘Mechanics for Textil

Newly acquired old copy of ‘Mechanics for Textile Students’ by W.A. Hanton (1954). I count myself among the target audience, just a bit late. Wish I had it when I was fiddling with tension and friction on my selvage bobbins. Some pages bear the stamp of Howard & Bullough School, Accrington. Nothing online about the school, but Howard & Bullough was a manufacturer of power looms, once employing 6000 workers and supplying cotton mills like the one in Blackburn where my grandfather started work aged 12 in 1902. The town of Accrington gave its name to a hard red brick used for industrial and municipal buildings across the north of England, as well as the terraced houses in Blackburn’s Mill Hill where my mother grew up.

“A machine may be defined as an instrument for doing useful work.” There are other kinds of useful work besides the lifting of weights. It occurred to me that this diagram of a machine is itself a kind of machine: an instrument for applying cognitive leverage. The same might be said of concepts like democracy & justice. Might need oiling once in a while.

#LookAfterYourTools #UsefulWork #cognition #machines #LancashireLife #textilehistory #theoryandpractice #AccringtonBrick #Howard&Bullough

It works! There have been moments in the last few

It works! There have been moments in the last few weeks when I thought I’d never get there, but the new shafts and treadles are finally installed. The current tie-up uses 8 shafts to make a 2 block satinet diaper, with a further 4 shafts for the selvedges, and the back 4 shafts idle. The phone camera has been useful for identifying snags. No such help for the likes of Ralph Watson back in the 1700’s.
Sound on.

#theoryandpractice #handweaving #textilehistory #handloom #machines

A detail from an 18th century manuscript by Ralph

A detail from an 18th century manuscript by Ralph Watson, Yorkshire linen weaver. Thanks for the image and permission from very helpful staff at the North Yorkshire County Records Office @north_yorkshire_archive. This wonderful manuscript (Ref Z.371: the Weaver’s Guide; Linen Designs by Ralph Watson of Aiskew) also contains over a hundred block patterns for diaper weaving with names such as “The Keel Man’s Frolic” and “The Deep Wounds of Calder.”
Second image is my transcription of the weave pattern from the draft for “hapings” (tablecloth?) at the top left of the page. Any guesses at deciphering “Flowered Wounce?”

Thanks also to staff at the Cooper Hewitt museum NY @cooperhewitt. I was trying to track down images of their Thomas Jackson manuscript, compiled by three generations of a Yorkshire linen weaving family from 1689 to 1761. Unable to access their image files because of Covid, they kindly sent me a note from their database, written by John Styles, former V&A curator, referencing a similar manuscript in the North Yorkshire Archives, which lead me to the Ralph Watson manuscript pictured here.

#textilehistory #handweaving #textiledesign #vamuseum #cooperhewitt #northyorkshirearchive

Delighted to have a chapter, with sculptor Benedic

Delighted to have a chapter, with sculptor Benedict Carpenter van Barthold, in this new book published by Bloomsbury next week. “Surface & Apparition: The Immateriality of Modern Surface” is edited by Yeseung Lee, with a prologue by Giuliana Bruno.

This bundle of sticks should soon be a new 16 shaf

This bundle of sticks should soon be a new 16 shaft countermarche harness. 32 coupers, 32 heddle bars, 16 upper lams, 16 lower lams, 16 treadles. 144 pieces wood, 1200 holes, 320 lengths of cord. If I’d done the maths first I wouldn’t have started!

This is what all the fuss was about. The selvage h

This is what all the fuss was about. The selvage has twelve ends running from the selvage bobbin, woven basket-weave. Body of cloth is satinett. All 16/1 linen at 36 ends per inch.

#Smallthings #handweaving

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