Made in Nova Scotia November 2013 by Kelly Grant
Yes, it’s true; Sally and I spent an entire afternoon
chatting about textile related things one Friday not too long ago. I asked her if it was possible for us to set
up a blog where we could all contribute, so that we’d know what everyone was up
to and possibly could get together and work on some projects. I have been feeling a little like I am lost
in my own bubble sometimes, and am losing track of what other textile junkies
are up to. I told her that I’d
contribute, and here is my first entry!
Summer Residency at the Nova Scotia Centre for Craft and
Design
Every summer, the Centre for Craft and Design opens up their
studios to artists in the form of a self directed residency program. I applied this year and was accepted, my
project plans were to weave linen textiles from the 18th and early
19th centuries. I am an 18thC
re-enactor, so this project has been in the back of my mind for a while. Over
the course of the summer, I wove strapping to re-seat a couple of ladder backed
chairs that we use re-enacting, tea towelling and dishcloths and the major
project was to weave yardage for shirts and aprons. I ran out of time before getting to my fourth
warp, yardage for a tablecloth. I ended
up sharing the studio space with just one other textile person, who was
creating needle felted sculptural items and doing some hand embroidery. All the looms in the space were mine to
use...oh, if only I could have cloned myself!
The shirt warp turned out to be quite the diva
mistress. I blazed through the
strapping, towelling and dishcloths. The
shirt took me all summer to create. I
began on the July 1st weekend, winding on 15 metres of string onto
the warping mill. That took the better
part of a week, as I was hoping to weave a plaid, so there was much counting to
be done. Then, the warp took me and
several friends most of the month and many cans of starch to wind it on the
back beam. When I finally got it all on
and not in a tangled mess, I walked in to weave the next morning and found that
the warp had slid off the ends of the back beam and tangled itself. I had been using paper to separate the
rounds, not the greatest thing with this much warp. After a temper tantrum of epic proportions, I
pulled off what I could by winding it on to the front beam, cut the snarled
mess that remained, and started to wind it on again, this time with lees sticks
supporting the rounds. I am now a
convert to the lees stick and will wind all my warps that way from now on.
I managed to weave enough for a shirt for my husband Pierre
and an apron for my mum or I to use when we are working around the re-enacting
camp. I hand stitched the shirt and
finished it the night before the show was installed at the beginning of
September. As I put the finished shirt
into the wash for one last test before installing it in the gallery, I prayed
that I wouldn’t have a pile of string to install after all of our hard
work. I am happy to say that the shirt
survived the wash and will now enter the second phase of the project, being
worn by Pierre at encampments so that we can see how long a shirt might have
survived in the field.
I have the remaining warp (that tangled mess) safely in a
large Ziploc bag waiting until I have a loom of my own and space to untangle
the mess. I ended up using 15 cans of
spray starch, after soaking the whole warp in a starch bath. I think I needed so much starch because of
the air conditioning in the studio. I
know my skin also went through a lot of hand cream over the summer! I’m thinking that this project will have to
wait until the weather is damp, and not too hot or cold as air condition and
forced air heating could play similar havoc to a linen warp. I would also like to see if I can get the
warp to weave up tighter, I wasn’t quite happy with that issue, no matter how
hard I beat done the weft threads.
You can read about all my weaving antics on my personal blog
at http://kellyarlenegrant.blogspot.ca/
So, who’s going to be next?
We want to hear from you!
awesome, thanks for sharing your story!
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