Weaving Navajo Style

You may remember a while back I tried my hand at weaving. It's something I tried way way back in the mist of time (cough, whisper, sshhh it was the 1970's).  That and macrame, both of which I never thought I would see a recurrence of appreciation for. But like everything, things come back in fashion. 

I must admit, I never thought I would see G-Plan furniture coming back in style but saying that publicly just makes me look like a right old codger haha.  There are so many schools of thought on decorating, it's as personal as your clothes. I'm all in favour of revivals in styles, so whether you were born before the 70's or way after, you can either re-live your youth or play with ideas from the past. 

So with the return of retro, teak sideboards, Trechikoff paintings, browns, teals and mustards, comes the macrame plant pot holder and the woven wall hanging, and I love it.

But you don't have to go the whole hog with the look, replicating every element, if you are clever with colour you can mix it in with pieces from other time periods.  Placement is also key, and because weaving is a textural thing it can work as a way to soften a more minimal harder surrounding.

The first few little weavings I did were just to get my hand in, with anything crafty one does need to practice the technique a bit to get the tension right and also to the design that appeals to you most. 

I started with some freeform lines, seeing how different thicknesses of yarn would sit together and while its much neater to use the same size yarn all the way through you can create a more three dimensional piece with fringes and variations in weft.

So what to use as a frame, well if you look on pinterest you can see that almost anything can be adapted as a frame, old picture frames, branches etc.  Here's where my adaptation for a frame comes in, I bought a tapestry stretcher frame on ebay with the idea that such a thing might come in handy one day (oh the hoarding mentality). 

This large tapestry frame has given me the chance to make a larger piece although it is really tricky trying to keep the warp threads at an equal distance.  As my intentions were to use up some of the yarn stash it seemed a bit counter productive to buy an expensive purpose made weaving loom, and I can just imagine the reaction from the other half at spending loads of money on four bits of wood with notches in. I think if he was better at d.i.y. I would have asked if he could make a loom, perhaps you will have better luck with your spouses abilities in the wood working department, (probably not if he or she is a musician though)! I think that when this piece is finished I will decide if I like the 'handmade' look or whether to get a professional frame for a neater look.

Now I've looked at designs a bit more I'm gravitating towards the American Native Indian style of geometric, you can see these on my pinterest boards too. This week I am definitely channeling my inner Navajo.  

Textile artist Maryanne Moodie does fantastic things with fringes, I wish I could go to one of her classes as I'm not getting on well with the fringe aspect, I can't get it to sit smoothly, so for now Im giving it a miss. 

So that's my progress so far and I will show you the finished results fairly soon.  I'm also weaving beads on a small bead loom but that will have to wait until this is finished, one thing at a time. 

Urban Jungle Bloggers and Woven Wall Hangings

Im really quite excited at the moment by two elements of interior styling and the use of colour. One of these elements is the re-discovery of house plants through the network of Urban Jungle Bloggers and the other is woven wall hangings.

If you are wondering what Urban Jungle Bloggers is all about then let me give you an idea here.  Set up by two lovely souls, Igor and Judith, they have brought an online community together of people who love house plants.  At first I thought it was for people living in the city but now I've met Igor and Judith I realise its for everyone who likes plants in their home and who like to style with them. 

As I've mentioned before, I attended a blogging conference a few weeks ago, primarily to meet in person the people behind some of the most inspiring things on the internet.  Bloggers are people who often are working in complete isolation and this can become far too inward looking if you're not careful. So when you meet the creators of a cool online community and they are really nice with a great philosophy and attitude, its a bonus for sure.

Having travelled extensively when I was in the music business, to over 42 countries around the globe, you find that some nations have very cool attitudes to life and I think that this is exuded by Igor and Judith in bucket loads. Their 'no rules' approach and philosophy is so rare these days, the idea to facilitate the meeting (virtually) of like minded people for no financial reason is a Karma which will return to them Im sure. This is also something I would love to emulate in my #paintpassion community.

Setting a theme monthly to their house plant stylings Im delighted to say that in my first month they have chosen my area - colour - to be the topic, giving it the hashtag #plantcolorpop (and don't forget its the American spelling of color not the English spelling - Colour.

Since working with Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint(tm)for Painters In Residence, Ive continued to explore this paints properties and abilities. Becoming more and more free with my approach I've been developing a technique of working with a wet brush and just dipping the same brush into different colours, then working it with water and so on, to blend and wash.  Ive chosen to do this on some back boards as a way to practice but Im intending to expand onto canvases too.

The backboards give me the possibilities to try out colour combinations and see how they work with different objects on and around them.  So to my third element here, the woven wall hanging.

I studied textile and embroidery for A level in the late 1970's, so the revival of the this type of wall hanging has amused me enormously. Its been a right trip (in the hippy sense of the word) to pick it up again and be able to play around with it for interior styling. 

Last weekend I went to Yarnspiration2015, a day of workshops and socialising for people who love their yarns, like alcoholics anonymous for wool hoarders - where do you keep your hidden stash?, did you secretly spend the housekeeping on cashmere and silk yarn, oh the confessions.  Hello my name is Janice and Im a yarnoholic.

It's Fibre East at the end of July, a big yarn related show which I shall be popping along to and reporting back on.  Its my nearest big wool show, in Ampthill. 

Anyway, back to the wall hangings, Ive tried two on the small basic hand loom and one utilising a tapestry frame.  I don't want to give a tutorial here yet until I feel Ive tried out a few things and can tell you the do's and don't from first hand experience. Like anything, practice makes perfect so I shall practice a bit more and let you know.  

You can find Urban Jungle Bloggers here and I'd put money on it that after looking you will be rushing off to the garden centre.

Im back off to do some more weaving and paint sploshing now, please tag me and #paintpassion so I can see what you have been up to.