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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

Those selvage bobbins from my last post now instal

Those selvage bobbins from my last post now installed and working nicely.

I recently made a pair of ‘selvage bobbins’ b

I recently made a pair of ‘selvage bobbins’ based on a drawing in Luther Hooper’s “Handloom Weaving, Plain and Ornamental” (1920), but made from some left over steel and plastic.
The bobbins sit at the back of the loom, one on either side, and allow for the weaving of a dozen or so selvage threads with a different weave structure and take-up rate to the main warp. Each selvage bobbin has its own tensioning mechanism, working on the same principle as that of the main warp beam, called a ‘pace’. A cord is wrapped a few times around a drum, with a weight hanging on one end and a smaller counterweight on the other. The large weight pulls against the warp, keeping it under consistent tension, while the counterweight keeps the cord tight around the drum and stops it from slipping. When the warp is advanced the large weight rises; lifting the counterweight loosens the cord and allows the large weight to fall back down. The warp tension remains constant every time the warp is advanced, and when the shed is opened, and the system gives a little each time the fell is beaten.
It’s a neat system, but I had been getting some unwanted slippage and uneven tension, and it’s hard to see what’s happening at the back of the loom when I’m sitting at the front. So I took the bobbins off the loom and made this mock-up to help me work out what was happening. The problem lay in the contact between the cord and the steel drum. When I polished the drum it was too smooth and the cord slipped, but when roughened it snagged. A cardboard tube over the drum seems to solve it. If I had been able to make a nicely turned wooden bobbin, like the one in Hooper’s drawing, the problem may never have arisen.

#theoryandpractice #handweaving

I had read about the direction of yarn twist affec

I had read about the direction of yarn twist affecting the clarity of twill weaves, but I was surprised by how much difference it makes in practice. I wove this sample of 3/1 twill with plain and black dyed linen and tried running the twill line in different directions. The middle band in the photo, where the twill runs up to the right, looks more ragged than the top and bottom bands where the weave is tighter and tidier. The best explanation I’ve found is in William Watson’s ‘Textile Design & Colour’ (1912), which is where ‘Fig. 14’ comes from. My sample uses ‘Z’ twist yarn for warp and weft, so corresponds to ‘E’ in the diagram, with ‘Y’ indicating the “proper direction for a bold twill effect” on warp-faced fabric. Took me a while to get my head around.

#textiledesign #theoryandpractice #handweaving

#blackouttuesday

#blackouttuesday

(SOUND ON) Re-edit of archive documentary, focusin

(SOUND ON) Re-edit of archive documentary, focusing on the intimate communion of worker and technology. The cloth maketh the man?
Excerpt#5 from “The Linen Weavers”, remixed 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.

#bodies in motion #timeandmotion #loom #machines #handweaving #textilehistory #weavinghistory #crafthistory #linenweaving #leinenweberie #handmade #weaving #handwoven #handcrafted #handloom #textiles #ruralindustry #craft

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