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Die Cutting Felt

Die Cutting Felt

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Today I’m pleased to welcome Tracey Thompson as our Guest Artist. Tracey has been an active member on the forum and will be showing us her Die Cutting Machine and her experience cutting felt.

A recent post in the Felt and Fibre Forum led me to comment that I had tried to cut felt using a die cutting machine.  It was given to me free by a friend because she wanted to treat herself to the next model that had more bells and whistles!

Here is the die cutter, it is a Spellbinders Grand Calibur.  It cuts beautiful images in  card stock but how would it cope with felt?

I tried both commercial felt and my own prefelt in this machine.  The results were mixed with both felts, but I think this was largely down to the dies.  The more intricate the die, the more it mashed away at the felt, sometimes obliterating it!

I then remembered that I had a quite simple die in the shape of a snowflake, and as I still have Christmas cards to make, I thought I would have another go.  This next picture is my prefelt with the snowflake die and a Merry Christmas die.  The hole in the middle of the prefelt was where the snowflake came out perfectly, and the mashed up bit at the bottom was where Merry Christmas didn’t!

So I thought I would make a simple card to use the snowflakes on.  I put down two layers of Tanzanite from World of Wool, as I wanted a night time feel as a background.

I also wanted simple decoration, so I just lay a few blue and white mulberry silks on the top.

Here it is after felting.

I then ironed a piece of interfacing onto the back to make the stitching more stable. I had cut out a few snowflakes using a white commercial felt, and I used a double silver metallic thread to attach them to the felted piece.

So here is the finished card, it is a fairly simple one but it’s one to tick off the list!

Tracey, thanks for sharing your experience with us and for helping to fill in on my leave!

Guest Post – Haddington Spinners and Weavers Retreat

Guest Post – Haddington Spinners and Weavers Retreat

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This is a guest post by one of our forum members Carole aka Craftywoman. Thanks Carole for this interesting and informative post. 

The Haddington Spinners and Weavers are a group of people who meet regularly and once a year head off into the Scottish Borders to Innerwick to enjoy time together, have fun and explore new creativity.

Our guests on this weekend were the Sgioba Luaidh Inbhirchluaidh –  “Inverclyde Waulking Group”.

Waulking the tweed or the cloth is a term used to describe how women would collect together on the islands of Scotland including Skye and the Outer Hebrides to waulk the cloth after it had been woven. They would sing in Gaelic as they waulked the cloth (moved it around a table between them in a rhythmically thumping movement) to shrink it by about 6 inches and make it a firmer fabric for tweed clothing and so on.

Our weekend was greatly enhanced by these wonderful women and in their words – “In the songs you can express your every emotion; the hypnotic thumping of the cloth on the table helps to release all your tensions and frustrations (and it’s very good exercise!); in the company of your friends you can have a good gossip, and talk over problems. It’s great “female bonding”! And cheaper than counselling!” http://www.waulk.org/index.asp

The Waulking songs (in Gaelic), pictures and a video of our Waulking at Innerwick in the Scottish Borders can be seen on this link to their Facebook page. On this page you will see women in Poland and America Waulking the cloth. The technique was taught to women in America via skype – how things have moved on.

https://www.facebook.com/Sgioba-Luaidh-Inbhirchluaidh-130538446971489/?hc_ref=ARTLadcY6tDtD8HjkZBkrn6ZOb3pA_l9fu9HL4OsKwMLO5Gp1ZzJKmnFa53NrxUu0oM&pnref=story

Felted piece

A felter who sadly passed away had started this lovely piece of work. She was a felt artist,  which is apparent in many of her pieces, but unfortunately, she never finished this piece.

During our weekend away at Innerwick in the Scottish Borders we sat together and discussed her and her work, scratching our chins and wondering how as a group we could come up with a plan to complete her piece. We had pieces of felt work that some people had completed when working with her, plus our own merino tops and Shetland fleece, the fleece from one of the women’s own flock.

Over the two days we started to needle felt in a sweep of colour and natural pieces from turquoise through to purple, everyone added their own flair

After much discussion on what we should do and how allowing for the those of us who went off-piste, we produced this final piece. It looks like stained glass windows one woman from the group is going to make a beam out of driftwood with a naturally plaited loop for hanging.

Now we can take the community spirit of the Haddington Spinners and Weavers with us where ever we go be it running workshops, gorilla spinning and showing the crafts of spinning, weaving and braiding at exhibitions.

Individual pieces – one woman has taken on the onerous task of making a Shetland Taatit Rug for young couple marrying next year. The woman is Scottish and loves horses and the man is from New Zealand so a feather will represent him. Basically, she has woven the base for the marriage bed rug, and now is tatting images for both the bride and the groom as well as celtic crosses and circles, hearts and traditional designs to ward away trows (mischievous spirits) and witches. The rug is laid on the bed stitch side up.

https://www.shetland-heritage.co.uk/taatit-rugs-exhibition

Whilst the rest of us knitted, wove and spun.

More From Jan Scott

More From Jan Scott

Comments 17 comments

Canvas 3: arctic Fiber Gold, Qiviut!! Now that is Canadian

Now I was on to canvas 3. I had been looking and thinking of quintessential Canadian topics, I considered moose and had selected a couple reference photos that I may do at some other time but just wasn’t quite what I wanted. Then I started thinking about the arctic. Muskox!!

My brother Dave is a Geologist, he has worked up north most of his career. He told me of being on a mapping traverse and stopping to sit on a bolder. He had been innocently enjoying his lunch when he heard a Whiffling sound behind him. So he turned to see what it was. It was a muskox squinting at him. He seemed to be trying to figure out what Dave was, likely hoping for a sexy new female muskox and not an interfering male one. He got a little closer and seemed to realized it was only a geologist having lunch, did a snort, looked indignant, turned and left. INSPERATION!! I will do a muskox. (But without Dave and the rock).

I kept to the same work process as before, Research first; off to the internet to look at lots of muskoxen, eastern arctic, western arctic and Greenland. I looked for various pictures with details I wanted. Coloring, body shape, horns, feet, nose, eyes. I spent hours having fun surfing Google images. I made of folder of the ones I thought most helpful.

When I had a good selection of reference photos in my file, I grabbed a scrap of paper (which now I can’t find to show you) and did a quick composition sketch to fit the 12×12 square format. I wanted the muskox to be emerging from the background. So I would need the head and shoulders forward and land for the muskox to stand on. Ok I will need a background to work this from. I am not fond of getting wet if I don’t have to so needle felting is my preferred method of working. I made a gray brown back ground so I can add foliage and muskox to it. I used a felting tool I purchased at the fiber festival Twist. It is perfect for background work! You can get it here https://halcyonyarn.com/felting/68862190/10-needle-felting-tool-_-aluminum

For the background I used some of the leftover fin-wool form Miaka’s great fish cat cave https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2016/02/25/the-great-fish-creation/ and some Shetland in a gray brown. I measured out the felt so that I had enough to rap around the stretcher bars of the canvas and secure it to the frame.

Next was to build up the core of the muskox and base. I had used an armature in the frog but here I was only working with part of a muskox, so the front legs and one back one have an armature, as well as the neck, head and horns. It was very handy to be able to tilt his head up so I could work on his chin!!!

 

I continued using Rideau Arcott for my core wool. It was free, unfortunately it was also dropping veggie matter all over the floor. But it made a good solid base for the muskox and the promontory he is standing on. I added the armatures in as I built up the structure. The flexy neck was really odd in this under layer form.

Next I went to the living room and started searching for the colours I would need, I used alpaca for some of the black and reddish brown as well as merino Shetland and assorted bits I wasn’t sure what they were anymore. The pull it apart over and over again blending technique really worked well here. I used the photos to try to get a realistic colour. I started adding the colour layer from the Hooves and nose first and working up the body. I blended only a bit at a time and re-blended to create more so there is uniformity in that I am using the same base colours but the exact percentages are changing as I mix each batch. I was not blending to the point of a uniform colour so the individual colours still showed as I used them which lets the eye blend them. I also considered the light source as above and slightly behind the muskox. So you have was lightening of the colours from both sun damage and visual lighting conditions to consider as I worked up the fur.

To create the fur effect I used a combination of securing the fibers at one end and the fold over technique to get the shaggy fur look. I used a single needle and a tiny bit of black blended alpaca for mouth and eye details. It was amazing how little fiber could create so much detail.

Mounting: With the canvas removed it was easy to use double sided Carpet tape to position the piece and then sew it around the stretcher bars. I again used the indentation of the stretcher bars to give myself more height for the piece. I carefully adjusted the foot and attached it to the promontory then adjusted the head down and made final adjustment to the horns. This is the show and tell presentation at the guild. Sorry that Froggy is giving you a cheeky butt view.

 

 

 

 

Cretan Felted Shepherd’ Cloaks – Guest Post by Jill

Cretan Felted Shepherd’ Cloaks – Guest Post by Jill

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This is a guest post by Jill about her recent trip to a local museum. Thanks Jill for this great post!

A recent visit to the excellent Cretan Ethnological museum in Vori, South Crete, gave me an unexpected surprise – a glimpse of a felting machine! This folk museum, in a tiny town in rural Crete has won many awards and has an interesting textiles section. I knew of the historical farmers’ woollen capes, but had not realized they were felted.

For hundreds of years, life for sheep and goat farmers in Crete remained almost unchanged. Indeed, many people still live in a relatively similar way now, albeit with 4 wheel drive trucks instead of donkeys for transportation.

During the winter, shepherds lived in their family’s village in the lowlands , with olive trees, a kitchen garden and often orange groves; moving their flock around this area to graze. In April-May the sheep were shorn then moved up into higher altitude pasturage, until November; the shepherds remained in the mountains during much of this time. Their most important garment was their felted woolen cloak.

It is a voluminous coat, heavy, water-resistant, with a large hood, and often below knee-length.

Cretan sheep are kept primarily for milk (much used for yogurt and cheese) and meat, the wool is a by-product. Coarse, it was used mostly for weaving heavy rugs, bags and blankets.

To make the cloaks the wool was usually washed, carded and woven at home by the women of the household and then was stamped by foot by the men for long periods in a water-filled wooden basin and support frame. OR by using a kind of felt machine, water powered, which had paddles to agitate the wool into felt.

I have read that each cloak took 4 kg of wool. Mostly white or brown (natural), some were dyed dark blue or black. Whilst the most basic are a simple tent shape, I was surprised that most do have sleeves. The cloak was used as bedding as well as worn outside.

The wool was also used as padding in donkey saddles. I loved the recycling element on this saddle.

The decoration is made of bottle tops from the local fizzy pop, called Gazoza. The museum’s displays are kept dark to avoid light damage to the artifacts, hence the poor quality photos.

Woolfest – Guest Post by Tracey

Woolfest – Guest Post by Tracey

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Tracey attended Woolfest recently and was kind enough to take photos and write about her experience for us. Thanks Tracey!

I recently attended the wool and wool crafts extravaganza that is Woolfest, held over two days at Mitchell’s Lakeland Livestock Centre, Cockermouth in the beautiful Lake District in the UK. It is all about creativity and design, amazing colours combined with quality skilled craftsmanship. I think around two hundred exhibitors attend.

So let’s dive in and show some pictures!

One highlight for many is the raw fleece sale. Any individual farmer/breeder may enter a maximum of 5 fleeces per breed for sale. Visitors can then have a good sort through and leave them in the Fleece Creche to be collected later!

Sheep and Alpacas are also on display for visitors to chat with the farmers and breeders. Here are a few photos.

On display in the main show ring were breeds such as Jacob, Manx Loaghtan, North Ronaldsay, Exmoor Horn, Hawkshaw, Hebridean and rare breeds. There is a small seated audience with lots of interesting commentary. I particularly took a liking to this wonderful beast.

There was quite an amount of Nuno felting, scarves, blouses etc, so when I saw these beautiful blouses I thought Nada, one of our forum members would love to see them, as she makes lovely garments, they were gorgeous. If you look to the left of the blue blouse you will see lots of beautifully made slippers too, just like Nada makes!

Then I saw something that Ann (shepherdess) may like to see as she has recently posted a cat cave blog on the this site. They were hobbit hole cat caves, they were wonderful, so solid and well made, I had to take a picture!

The time at the show was slipping away and it was when I saw this quirky teapot cover that I thought yes, it’s time for refreshments!

Suitably refreshed my friend and I continued around the show.

There were many demonstrations going on at various times of the day. Such as spinning, shearing, Dorset button making, needlepunch, Saori weaving. Also how to crochet a simple flower, how to knit faster!, simple felting, tapestry weaving, doll making and a spinning wheel surgery, so lots of advice available.

Here is a picture of a silk paper artists stall.

It was quite hard to choose where to spend your money when all the stalls looked as colourful and inviting as these:

Here is a display of shawl pins:

I was taken with these lovely wall hangings, some were quite large, I can only imagine the work that goes into them.

I came away with a few happy purchases such as Merino wool, nepps, wood and ceramic buttons, slubs, locks, yarn, silks and throwsters waste, lots of little pretty things! Oh and we were there from 10am – 5.30pm, what a fun filled day.

Well I hope this has given you a little insight into the world of Woolfest, and if it inspires anyone to go, I am sure you would not regret it. It is a busy show with lots of visitors, but this is my second visit and I feel it is a relaxed place, you do not feel jostled or pressure in any way. I think it is because you are surrounded by like minded enthusiasts, a lovely calm experience. It is just a wonderful place to be.

 

Thanks Tracey and it’s great that you were thinking of us as you wandered through Woolfest!

 

 

 

Textile Journey in Norway

Textile Journey in Norway

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Today we have a Guest post from Cathy Wycliff (Luvswool) on her textile journey in Norway.

Norway has been recently named the country with the “Happiest People” in the World.
My May vacation to Norway was a nature lover’s dream, which is part of their secret.
We traveled with a group of weavers and knitters through the beautiful countryside, which
was dotted with waterfalls, fjords, mountains and lush greenery.

 

First stop was Oslo, where we witnessed Norwegian pride as the country celebrated their
independence day with parades and flag waving.  We visited the Viking Ship Museum,
where carefully restored Viking long ships are on display, circa 700-800.  There were textile tools on display, but only a few textile fragments have survived through the centuries.

The next two weeks were spent traveling through the rural areas, one of which was Rauland in Central Southern Norway.  We stayed at the Rauland Folk Arts Academy, where we studied and learned about tablet weaving and Norwegian traditional loom weaving.  I thoroughly enjoyed the floor loom weaving but did not take well to the tablet weaving.  No matter, you could weave what you  wanted to weave, as long as a loom was open.  We used primarily Glimakra and Oxaback Swedish made looms, which seem to be the standard for Scandinavian floor loom weaving.

This was a new experience in weaving for me, as I am a newish weaver and have never before woven using patterns.  My Saori loom is a floor loom used primarily for artistic “free weaving,” although it could be used for other types of weaving as well.  I enjoyed  trying to follow a pattern at the Academy.  After four days of weaving we were ready to move on.

We also learned Hardanger embroidery in the quaint town of Utne, which is tucked into a mountain range and located on a beautiful fjord.  If my eyes were only 30 years younger, I might have become addicted to this fascinating, but time-consuming type of traditional “white on white” Norwegian embroidery.

We visited several historical textile mills and museums on the west coast of Norway.  At Osteroy museum, we were fascinated by the ancient floor looms and large collection of traditional textiles.

After two weeks of beautiful scenery, wonderful food and amazing textile experiences, it was time to say goodbye to the happiest people in the world.

Cathy, thanks for sharing this beautiful and educational journey with us.

Exploring Different Pod Shapes

Exploring Different Pod Shapes

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We have another Guest Post by Tracey from the Forum today.

I wanted to carry on exploring how to make different shaped pods by altering the shape of the resists. I thought a stone shape may open up new possibilities regarding the surface design. I have always used pond liner for my resists, I think it is perfect for the job, especially as we had a lot left over from pond construction! Here is the resist, it roughly measures 15.5” x 10.5”.

As before I placed six layers of Merino wool either side of the resist and here it is wetted down with yellow and orange silk hankies as decoration, the colour of the wool is a lovely rust so I thought how this would compliment it.

After lots of hard work felting, I cut a cross to take the resist out, it is a small hole, luckily I have small hands to get inside to start the fulling!

Once it was fulled, I packed it with fabric to help it dry out, by doing this it creates ‘memory’ and hopefully retains the shape you want it to be. When it was dry I had plans to decorate it slightly with some Mother of Pearl nugget shell beads that needed a home, the colour matched perfectly. Here is the finished pod.

Because by then, I definitely had the bug, I made more.

When I am layering the wool, I try to lay it neither too thinly or too thickly, but evenly of course. I was putting down six layers of wool each side of the resist as I have mentioned before. However, when I have held my pods I feel that the very bottom ‘gives’ a little, even though I work them until my shoulders and arms ache!, so I was not very happy with this. I decided to go to seven layers, a lot of wool!, but I am far happier with the outcome, much sturdier and thicker of course!

I then decided to change the shape of the resist once again and cut an oval shape, this one measures 16.5” x 13.5”.

For this design I put down four layers of Merino each side, wetting down each time. I then added two small circles of resist to reveal craters in the end design, with a different colour underneath. Here is the picture, I didn’t realise at the time but it looks like a happy grinning martian! I then continued with the remaining three layers each side.

I then decorated it with lots of lovely Blue Faced Leicester locks and wool nepps.

Lots of hard felting and fulling later, here it is, with a little bead detail.

IFA Conference

IFA Conference

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This is a guest post by Anne H. (penguin), one of our forum members who recently attended the IFA Conference that was held near her home. Thanks for the post Anne!

I’ve only been felting a couple of years, and I’m certainly no expert, but when I saw that the International Feltmakers’ Association was holding their annual conference (with workshops of course!) only an hour away from me I couldn’t resist. I was a little nervous going on my own as I’ve done a few residential courses before (for embroidery) but I’ve always known some of the people there – however, the group of approximately 65 ladies (and one man) couldn’t have been friendlier, and I had a wonderful time. If you ever get the chance to go, I highly recommend it!

The whole event was also extremely well organised and there was something to do all the time – although of course you didn’t have to join in with everything. Shortly after we arrived an aluminium jewellery workshop started, and later that evening there was a mini-marketplace with a few members’ stalls and a bring and buy charity sale, and Annemie Koenen, one of the tutors and a remarkable felter, had brought an entire shop with her from Holland – lovely dyed wools, tools, soaps, silks … most of us wanted to go home with the lot!

The meetings are held alternately somewhere in the UK and somewhere … not in the UK. Next year it’s Sweden. I wish I could go! We had someone from Canada and someone from Iceland, and two or three from Holland, although most people were UK based.

The two workshops I did were with Zsofia Marx – hat making, and Chris Lines – Felt Faces. The one with Chris was on the first day and I learnt an incredible amount. I was going to use a pic of my hubby, but he’s got a fair bit of hair and a beard, which would have made him a very tricky first subject. So instead I ended up doing a brooding looking popstar – Chris couldn’t remember who hewas but I liked his face!

 

One of the ladies from another workshop came round and said, ‘Coo, who’s HE?’ I managed to keep a dead straight face as I said, ‘Oh him? That’s my husband!’ The look she gave me was priceless. ‘I’ll be round yours tomorrow!’ she said … but then I couldn’t hold the straight face and had to confess that I had no idea who it was really.

Chris, the tutor, was horrified that I was using Carex hand soap and gave me a lecture on why olive oil soap was the ONLY thing to use. So why had I taken Carex? Because Zsofia, the tutor for the sculpted hat workshop, had said to bring liquid soap.

Well that evening myself and another lady who was going to be doing the Zsofia workshop next day decided we had better create some liquid olive oil soap – so I made a kind of gel in a tub with a lid, and Pat made a big (lidless) tub of soapy water, which she spent the whole of the next day trying to get people to use so she could get rid of it! Zsofia was most amused at what we’d done and said the soap I had bought would have been fine! A classic example of how every felt maker seems to work differently and swear by different things.

I’m still using my olive oil gel now and it’s great! I have to say that I did actually find things felted much better and much more quickly with the olive oil soap so I’m now a convert!

I didn’t get ‘my face’ finished during the workshop hours so I skipped the talk that was laid on that evening and went back to the workshop to finish off. Just as I’d finished my effort, another lady came in to finish hers, so I stayed and kept her company until bedtime. Unfortunately she’d used Superwash for her background without realising and of course it WOULD not felt! In the end she needle-felted the rest to her background and it looked fantastic so all was not lost.

The hat making workshop was terrific – Zsofia, a Hungarian-born lady now living in Holland and speaking superb English, was delightful. She started us off by showing us a variety of hats she’d made and then had us all trying them and telling each other, frankly, if they suited or not, while we looked in the mirror in the ladies’ toilets – as there were no mirrors in the classroom! This meant that most of us ended up not making the hat we liked the look of sitting on the table in the workshop, but the hat that actually looked good on us! I wanted to make the hat with the crazy rose sticking out of the side but it looked terrible on me! (two back on the right of the photo):

So I made a much more simple, pleated hat instead.

’Thanks to some excellent advice from the Felting and Fibre Studio forum I’d taken a selection of colours too. My intention was to make the hat purple with some peach decoration, but that was shouted down by Zsofia and the other ladies, so I stuck my hank of turquoise/green stripy merino roving on my head and said ‘What about this then?’ and they all said that suited me perfectly, so my purple hat ended up green! So much for trying to move away from my comfort zone – but at least it goes with a lot of clothes I’ve got, and my glasses; I always gravitate towards turquoise!

The hat was laid out on a 2D resist with coarser wool inside and the finer, coloured wool on the outside – except that the layout was inside out so the merino was against the resist and the other wool, in my case Corriedale, was on the outside.

 

Corriedale wasn’t the best choice as something a bit courser would have been good, but I had a lot left over from the Chris Lines workshop so that’s what I used!

Zsofia took us through the whole process from laying out, to wetting out and rolling, rolling, rolling … and then eventually cutting out the template (see photo below).

Then came fulling the hat into a 3D shape, first getting rid of the ‘seam’ from the template, and then gradually shaping the hat through rubbing until we had a fairly shapeless and ugly cone!

Then the magic happened as Zsofia showed us how to pleat the hats and set the pleats using steam.

I must say I’m really thrilled with the result, and was amazed that we all got a finished out of the process and that they were all so different!

After the second workshop we had the ‘Gala dinner’ where we were all asked to wear something we’d felted. I took a couple of scarves and also a completely mad, over the top jacket which I’d made for an exhibition a couple of years ago but never worn. I mentioned this to a few people on previous days and the answer was basically, ‘Look luv, if you can’t wear it here, where can you?’ so I braved it and it elicited much interest and some complements, so I was glad I did!

The following day we had a big show and tell in the main hall where we got to see everyone else’s work. I didn’t photograph everything but I was especially taken with the tops and dresses from the Vivienne Morpath two-day workshop:

And of course the variety of Felt Faces we managed to produce between us:

as the AGM, (which was relatively painless as these things go), and then lunch and homeward bound.

All in all a terrific weekend and I’m so glad I went. I hope I’ll be able to go to many of these meetings in the coming years.

 

 

 

Different Shaped Pods From Circular Resists

Different Shaped Pods From Circular Resists

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Today we have the first of a few guest posts from our forum member Tracey.

I am very interested in the different ways that pods and vessels can be shaped, often seeing a felted piece and thinking ‘what shape resist did they use?’
The first pod pictured here was made using a 12” diameter round resist.  It has six layers of blended Merino wool each side, and it is embellished with silk yarn and mulberry silks.  I cut a 3” slit in the centre to extract the resist once fulled, and it resulted in an oval opening.  A crossed slit would make the opening more rounded, or you can just cut a small circle.  It is always better to start small, you can then make the opening bigger if required.

I also made a seashore pod.  This was made the same way as the green pod but I think the resist was about 19” diameter, quite big! I blended blues to replicate the sea and added white silk caps and curly locks to hopefully look like the crashing waves. I then sewed a few shells and sea glass onto the beach, using invisible thread.

Then as an experiment, I felted over another slightly smaller resist of 10” diameter, decorated it with silk caps and silk tops.  This time I cut the opening to extract the resist on the outer edge of the circle, so the bottom of the ‘vase’ is the opposite side to the cut, and here is the result.

I may sew beads around the top in an idle moment!
Here is a picture of where the openings were cut to extract the resist on the green and blue pods:

10th International Shibori Symposium Exhibitions

10th International Shibori Symposium Exhibitions

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This is a guest post by Kim of Flextiles. She recently attended the Tenth International Shibori Symposium and I thought you all might to get a glimpse of what she did and saw there. Thanks Kim!

My previous post about the 10th International Shibori Symposium (10iss) in Mexico last November focused on some of the workshops I attended. This time I’m going to report on some of the inspiring exhibitions and beautiful work on show.

Several of the exhibitions were in the Centro de las Artes de San Agustin (CASA), around 45 minutes’ drive from the centre of Oaxaca. It’s a former cotton mill that was converted into a stunning arts centre by local artist Francisco Toledo in 2000. Its hilltop location gives amazing views, and it has two exhibition halls and smaller rooms for running workshops.

Here there was a wonderful exhibition, curated by Yoshiko Nakamura and Consortium Arimatsu Narumi, of historical and modern Japanese indigo-dyed kimono from Arimatsu and Narumi in Japan.

Another exhibition here showcased 12 pieces of clothing designed by Mexican designer Carla Fernandez, highlighting connections between the Mexican and Japanese traditions of ikat (known as jaspe in Mexico and kasuri in Japan).

The contemporary garments were wonderful, combining Japanese silhouettes and designs with traditional Mexican rebozo patterns.

The main exhibition hall at CASA was given over to a wide range of contemporary shibori artworks and wearables, curated by Yoshiko Wada and Trine Ellitsgaard. Unfortunately, the evening viewing I went to was quite dark, so I found it tricky to get decent photos, but here’s a flavour of some of the pieces on display.

A short walk downhill from CASA is the paper making cooperative Arte Papel Vista Hermosa, also founded by Francisco Toledo. Its members use bark, plants, flowers, cotton, hemp, silk, linen and pieces of shiny mica in their products. As well as seeing the artisans at work, visitors can have a go at making paper themselves.

For this exhibition they worked with artist Kiff Slemmons to produce some stunningly intricate paper jewelry. And yes – I did end up buying a piece! 🙂

Back in town, the Textile Museum of Oaxaca was, unsurprisingly, the main exhibition focus. One of the most eye-catching was an installation of bandhani flags by Christina Kim. This was a collaboration between artisans in Kutch in Gujarat and the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad to employ women displaced by the 2001 earthquake in Kutch. Fluttering against the blue sky, the flags were a stunning sight.

The second exhibition was an interesting cross-cultural comparison of shibori and ikat techniques from around the world. While I know something of the Japanese and Indian traditions, I was less familiar with jaspe, the Mexican equivalent of ikat.

Ikat is the process where (usually) sections of the warp threads are bound with threads before dyeing, forming a pattern that will show after weaving. Sometimes the weft threads are dyed, and sometimes both warp and weft – this is known as double ikat (or patola in India).

It’s immensely disciplined because you have to know exactly where the dyed threads will end up in the final piece – no changing your mind (or pattern) once you start! The resulting designs tend to look a little “fuzzy” around the edges.

Shibori pieces on display ranged from a Japanese kanoko shibori jacket to raffia- stitched fabric from Africa.

Finally, there was a fascinating exhibition on the plumed weavings of Mexico. In the 1980s, a fragment of fabric woven with a mixture of cotton and duck down was found in a flea market in Puebla. The technique seems to have been unique to Mexico, and the exhibition displayed work by modern weavers incorporating duck down.

 

There is a website here explaining the process, but it is all in Spanish.

If you have any questions, please feel free to comment and Kim will answer you. Thanks for the post Kim!