METIER À MANETTES (Another hand loom)
CHAINE- POLYAMIDE (Monofilament)
AMEUBLEMENT - PANOI/ ECRAN
After my complete and utter nightmare with Loom number 5 I really didn't think things could get much worse but Loom number 5 is quickly becoming my new nemesis! Initial confusion over the threading plan left me baffled as to why my weave structures were not working at all and my hours spent trying to create "Mid D'abeille" were very frustrating and totally unsuccessful. Clthilde had told me to try as it was possible and I have seen this dense honeycomb structure created on a monofilament warp before which I though looked really impressive and structural
It took me a while to realize why this weave pattern wasn't working at all. I had not noticed that the loom was in fact threaded on 16 shafts and not 24. I know this sounds like a fairly obvious thing not to notice but as it was the last 16 that had been threaded (i.e. shaft 9-24) I had simply looked at the back and seen 24 threaded and assumed it would be shaft 1 to 24. After this ridiculous error was acknowledged I got on with using more relevant (and hopefully successful) weave structures.
After experimenting with the Fausses Perles weave structure (above) I decided to simplify my weaves by using just toile (plain weave) and instead experimenting with unusual wefts. With this kind of freedom for the first time it was easy to get carries away! But the words of the teacher in the first week or so - "fantasy thread= use with caution" stuck in my mind. Unfortunately I was thinking of aesthetic effects and the practicality and durability of the cloth totally went out of the window. When my teacher (who has been away for nearly two weeks now) came back she said I had to "jeter", basically chuck most of my samples on this warp as they were too fragile and easy to dismantle as weaves. On reflection I should have used some clear monofilament to add plain weave in between each line of fantasy thread to give the cloth a more rigid structure. If I have time I will try and redo this.
I also wasted about 5 hours trying to create a rigid, textured cloth using a mid d'abeille (honeycomb) structure which Clothilde had told me was possible. No matter what I tried didn't seem to work and I couldn't figure out if it was a problem with the Gauffre weave structure I had designed or the slippy nature of my monofilament warp. I asked a third year who put me out of my misery- The warp simply did not have enough fils/cm (ends per inch) for such a structure to be realized as it has only 18 fils/cm. How frustrating.
The way of teaching here is so different and it is definitely hard to get used to. I think I have been told off by a teacher more in the last 3 months than in the last 10 years of my life. If a sample is unsuccessful they tend to shout at you for not having sat down and thought about it more beforehand. If you make a mistake within one of your samples you are told off and if you break a thread....well don't even go there. It seems technical perfection is the ideal. Whereas at Chelsea you learn from your own mistakes and experiment on the loom to find new and exciting possibilities, here it could not be more different. I wonder how well I will adapt back into the relaxed style of teaching back at Chelsea....
No comments:
Post a Comment