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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

Excerpt#3 from “The Linen Weavers”, remixed fr

Excerpt#3 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.
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#loom #machines #handweaving #textilehistory #weavinghistory #crafthistory #linenweaving #leinenweberie #handmade
#weave #weaving #handwoven #handcrafted #handmade #handloom #textiles #handcraftedtextiles #ruralindustry #craft

Excerpt#2 from “The Linen Weavers”, remixed fr

Excerpt#2 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.

#loom #machines #handweaving #textilehistory #weavinghistory #crafthistory #handmade #timeandmotion

Excerpt#1 from “The Linen Weavers”, remixed fr

Excerpt#1 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.

#loom #machines #handweaving #textilehistory #weavinghistory #crafthistory #handmade

Stills from “Bäuerliche Leinenweberei” (1978)

Stills from “Bäuerliche Leinenweberei” (1978) by Gabriel Simons, Ayten Fadel & Gabriele Harzheim, for the German Institut für Landeskunde und Regionalgeschichte.
I will be discussing the film in a lecture called “The Weaving Lesson” for the conference Degrees of Shadow: Making & Communicating Knowledge Through Artefacts & Practices at De Montfort University, Friday 14th June. Also talking: Tim Ingold, Tincuta Heinzel, Assunto Ruocco, Benedict Carpenter, Ricardo de Oliveira Nascimento.

#degreesofshadow #weavinglesson #gilbertsimondon #linenweaving #woventextile #handweaving #leinenweberei #handmade

Cotton spinning mule at the wonderful Helmshore Mi

Cotton spinning mule at the wonderful Helmshore Mills Textile Museum in Lancashire.
The mule was a hybrid of Hargreaves’ spinning jenny and Arkwright's water frame,
invented by Samuel Crompton in 1779, and developed into the the self-acting mule by Richard Roberts in 1825. The mule frame pictured is one of four at Helmshore Mills, each with 714 spindles. They were built by Taylor Lang of Stalybridge in 1903, the year after my grandfather James Slater began working in a cotton mill a few miles away near Blackburn, aged 12.
#SamuelCrompton #spinningmule #textilehistory #lancashirelife #woventextile #textile #helmshoremills #cottonspinning #drawingmachines

Drawings of Loom Mountings from Clinton Gilroy’s

Drawings of Loom Mountings from Clinton Gilroy’s “The Art Of Weaving By Hand and By Power” 1844.
#EmmaKunz #notEmmaKunz #SerpentineUK #looms #machinedrawing #woventextile #handweaving #textilehistory #weavinghistory

New photographs of new loom. #woventextile #textil

New photographs of new loom.
#woventextile #textilehistory #cottonweaving #sculpture #cloth #handweaving #handloom #weavingstudio

Patterns-Upon-Ends: Animation of Thomas R. Ashenhu

Patterns-Upon-Ends: Animation of Thomas R. Ashenhurst’s “An Album of Textile Designs, containing upwards of 7,000 Patterns” (1881)
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#weaving #workshop #textile #history #cotton #sculpture #art #cloth #engraving #productivity#loom

Last few days, until 16th December: @kingsgateproj

Last few days, until 16th December:
@kingsgateprojectspace Come and see our current millimetre02 - Trigger’s Broom: Kingsgate Mix
With work by Jo Addison, Adam Gillam, Anna Hughes, Neill Kidgell, Max Mosscrop, Clunie Reid & Alice Walton
Curated by Adam Gillam and Max Mosscrop
Open 12-6pm Thursday - Saturday until 15 Dec + extra day Sunday 16 Dec
📸 Tim Bowditch
@maxmosscrop @adamgillam @joaddisonartist #AnnaHughes @neillkidgell @clunie_reid @alicewalton72

Engravings from George White, “A Practical Treat

Engravings from George White, “A Practical Treatise on Weaving By Hand and Power Looms” 1846

Plate VI: Power Loom for Heavy Domestics
Plate IX: Power Loom for Muslins

Sunny morning studio

Sunny morning studio

#loom #warp #cloth #weaving #weavingworkshop #stud

#loom #warp #cloth #weaving #weavingworkshop #studiowork #workinprogress #sculpture #newwork

Studio, yesterday. Warping. #cloth #weaving #weavi

Studio, yesterday. Warping. #cloth #weaving #weavingworkshop #studiowork #workinprogress #sculpture #newwork

New cloth, flat sculpture?

New cloth, flat sculpture?

Instagram post 17875914538128070

Instagram post 17875914538128070

Instagram post 17862053158166342

Instagram post 17862053158166342

Studio today, work in progress

Studio today, work in progress

#cloth #weaving #weavingworkshop #studiowork #work

#cloth #weaving #weavingworkshop #studiowork #workinprogress #sculpture #newwork #contemporaryart #abstraction #abstractart #exsquisitecorpse

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