The warp and weft blog...

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Laura Daley

The River Thames by Night (detail)

The River Thames by Night

A little while ago I was invited to the University of Creative Arts to talk about my work and to do tutorials with the textiles students. One of the final year students I met was Laura Daley who showed me some utterly exquisite samples which I knew were going to develop into something showstopping. I'm therefore delighted that she went on to win the prestigious British Contract Furnishing Association (BCFA) Award at New Designers last month.

Her graduation collection of work is a highly sophisticated interpretation of photographs of city lights by night. Hand-dyed spun silk weft yarns have been hand-woven in satin and sateen constructions that perfectly capture the essence of her photographs. She has also managed to bring a fresh aesthetic to the ancient art of ikat weaving through her judicious eye for composition and restraint.

I look forward to watching her career develop...... I feel quite sure she's going places.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Laura Miles, WOVEN studio

Brushed mohair floats. (C) Laura Miles WOVEN studio

Structural floats with slub yarn. (C) Laura Miles WOVEN studio

Last week I had the pleasure conducting my first interview for this blog (well, more like had a good chat) with Laura Miles, founder of WOVEN Studio, a woven textile design consultancy for fashion fabrics.

Laura studied Fashion and Textile Design with Business Studies, specialising in weave at Brighton University, graduating in 1997. Laura then took full advantage of the various opportunities that exist for graduates to support ‘the next step’. Exhibiting at New Designers, Donna Karan purchased work from her final collection. She was then selected to exhibit with Texprint at Indigo, where she won the Weave Prize, and sold lots of designs to Italian mills, some of whom became long term clients. Buoyed by this success, she applied for and was awarded a setting up grant from the Crafts Council; support from The Princes Trust; and a Clerkenwell Green Association Award which gave her a free studio for one year.

After purchasing a loom, Laura industriously wove a new body of design samples, and flew to Italy to visit the contacts she’d made through Texprint to sell more work and then on to New York to visit the Donna Karan studio and other fashion houses. And thus her business was firmly established.

Laura has had an interesting and varied career working with some the luminaries at the very top of the fashion sphere. Generally the focus is on producing hand woven swatches which are then put into commercial production, but she also produces handwoven meterage on occasion.

She has a vital role acting as the conduit between the mills and the fashion designers. She translates, designs and articulates what fashion designers need, and then often liaises with mills for production. Indeed she has a number of long term consultancy roles with various mills, with UK silk mill Vanners being one of the most interesting and illustrious. Fabrics from her biannual collection for them have been sold to the likes of Balenciaga, Giles, Alexander McQueen, Hussein Chalayan, Roland Mouret, Ungaro, Vera Wang, Carolina Herrera, Donna Karan and Christopher Kane.

A new focus for her is her Laura Miles Tweed Collection, launched in 2010 and now into its third season. Working with Marling and Evans, a mill in Huddersfield, Laura has created a collection of forty summer and winter weight tweeds that are all woven off the same warp using stock yarns. This approach gives flexibility to respond quickly to both small and large meterage orders as the dedicated mill loom is always ready with this set-up.

When I visited her studio which is currently in the basement of her beautiful house (a converted shop) in Islington, her assistant was busily working on the current project to produce inspirational hand woven fabrics (swatches and lengths) for the new biannual Spinexpo yarn fair in China working with the new seasons yarns from their exhibitors. In evidence on two of the three ARM looms, were some delicious samples exploring structural weft floats in fine mohair.

Accompanied by her lovely 3 month old daughter Maia, we had a great hour chatting not only about her career, but also the challenges facing the UK textile industry and our mutual dream of owning a mill one day! Although I readily admit that my business brain wouldn’t be up to it! By contrast Laura has an in-depth understanding of the demands of the international fashion industry and her the idea of her being at the helm at a mill is truly exciting...... fingers crossed!

Laura stood in front of her 'moodboard' wall, with Maia

The studio

Yarns.....

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Katie Davies & Gwennan Thomas, Coleg Sir Gar BA Textiles weave graduates, 2011

Am delighted to share with you the work of my two Coleg Sir Gar weave graduates this year: Katie Davies and Gewnnan Thomas.

Gwennan set herself the ambitious task of completely renovating an old Mini, both inside and out. Inspired by vintage florals, picnics and tea parties, she hand wove lengths to reupholster the entire interior in an eclectic style. The interior door panels were lined one of her digitally printed floral designs and hand felted woollen balls hang from the rear view mirror. I still can't quite believe it, but the car was actually maneuvered into the college gallery space for the end of year exhibition. As you might expect it caused quite a stir, with many lusting after the car!

Katie created a beautiful collection of knitted and woven garments inspired by the weird and wonderful underwater world. The fully fashioned knitted garments were constructed from hand dyed cotton and viscose yarns, with some garments being dip dyed afterwards. Inspired by an excellent Jessica Light workshop at Craft in the Bay, Katie wove some extraordinary passementerie which trimmed and edged the knitted garments. The collection has wonderful sense of movement and fluidity, underpinned by impeccable craftsmanship.

Both Katie and Gwennan, along with the other Coleg Sir Gar textile graduates in print, felt and stitch will be exhibiting at New Designers in the Business Design Centre in London next week, from the 29th June to the 2nd July. Please do come and see the work in the flesh. If you want to get in touch with either Katie or Gwennan, drop me a line and I can send you their contact details.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Wallace Sewell

Wallace Sewell designed this moquette fabric for the London Overground fleet of new trains starting service in 2010. A dream commission for any textile designer, this project was perfect for designers Emma Sewell and Harriet Wallace-Jones who are well known for their use of colour and geometry in their range of scarves, throws and cushions.

Building on this association with Transport for London, they were recently commissioned by the London Transport Museum to interpret the moquette pattern as a dobby woven chenille throw. As with all the Wallace Sewell products, the throw is made in the UK. Its woven in 50% wool and 50% cotton chenille and you can buy it online at the London Transport Museum shop.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Action Weaver

http://latestaction.tumblr.com/

The Action Weaver (also known as Travis Meinolf) is a weaver after my own heart. He's literally taking weaving to the streets, and spreading the word about the weave revolution :-)

He hit my radar earlier this year when I heard he was part of the Curious About Craft? programme of events organised by the inspirational Craftspace in Birmingham. He was then serendipitously on BBC Radio 4 Midweek with Libby Purves talking about his work, when I was driving to college one day. (I was thus a little late for my students, as I HAD to listen to all of his interview.) I urge you to listen to the Radio 4 programme as its just wonderful to hear him talk about his philosophies and ambitions for the weave revolution. Likewise I'm not going to try and precis his elegant words about his work: just follow the link and enjoy.

Public weaving in Berlin 2010

ArtyFun at the apartment
Image shows one of his 'laser looms', a rather wonderful updated version of rigid heddle back strap weaving

ArtyFun at the apartment

Mauer Park 4th July 2010 public weaving

I absolutely LOVE what he's doing..... it's one of those projects that I wish I had thought of ;-) However I think its effectiveness stems from the fact that he doesn't come from the usual textile background: its all about the performance and the 'art' of the process that maybe we overlook.

All pictures are from the Action Weaver Flickr photostream..... head on over to lose a couple of hours flicking through them all :-)

GEGD8V4D7EPX

On tenterhooks......

Ever wondered where the phrase 'on tenterhooks' comes from? Once woollen cloth has been woven it needs to have the natural oils present in wool washed out. After the cloth has been washed it needs to be stretched over a frame so that the cloth dries straightened, uncreased, in a uniform fashion: ie so that the width of the cloth is consistent throughout its length. In times gone by, it would have been a common sight in areas where woollen cloth was produced to see fields full of the wooden ''tenter' frames with wet cloth stretched and held in place by the metal hooks, drying in the air.

I took these pictures a little while ago at the National Wool Museum in Wales: a fabulous illustration of this principle which greets visitors as they arrive.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Solva Woollen Mill, Pembrokeshire

Solva is without doubt one of the prettiest villages in Pembrokeshire. For some obscure reason, despite being a Pembrokeshire girl (but now living 'away') I'd never got around to visiting Solva Woollen Mill. I don't know why, and being a committed weave-nerd, it makes me feel a little daft. So last week, I was back in the county with a little time on my hands and having read about the mill's newly renovated shop and tearooms that opened in Easter, I made the journey.

And wow, what a fantastic new space the owners Tom and Anna have created. I thought they must have commissioned a specialist retail/interior designer, but no its all Anna's work: she was a nurse in her previous life but clearly has an astute eye for design. The shop looked contemporary but visually told the story of the mill heritage by cleverly using lots of the old mill paraphernalia to display the stock and decorate the space. That's was me sold :-)

The mill specialises in flat woven rugs and stair runners. Most of the products are woven in 100% British wool that is dyed to their specifications. Aside from the stripes and checks, I particularly loved the traditional Welsh double cloth 'tapestry' rugs. The iconic motifs are familiar on bed throws but look surprisingly striking and contemporary in the chunky hard wearing wool for the floor.

They also weave a very elegant honeycomb/waffle fabric for blankets and cushions in a lovely charcoal or pea green colourway.

All lovely stuff. I highly recommend a visit........