Weaving

I began weaving and spinning when I was about 5 or 6 years old but I didn't take it very seriously until high school when I became interested in Tibetan Rug Weaving which is a specific form of rug weaving that allows a high level of detal. Latter I became interested in Overshots and Double Weaves which are done on a more traditional loom. Recently I have started exploring Transparent Weaving.


Transparent Weaving

A transparent weaving is simply a very thin weaving with extra strings inlayed to make a pattern. The weaver begins by creating a basic loose weave using thin yarns this produces a type of mesh. Then the weaver adds additional colors between the rows of the mesh as it is being woven. To the right you can see one of the weavings in progress. The colored balls of string are the different colors being inlayed.

Child's Fish Tank (2006)

I came up with the idea for this weaving while at the yarn store with a friend. She picked up a very bright and fuzzy yarn and commented how it would make the perfect muppet. I told her that would be a great idea and we wondered around the store picking up and examining all the crazy yarn we could find. We found long fuzzy yarn for sea weed (it sticks out from the weaving about an inch and can be waved back and forth), puffy slightly color changing yarn for the water, sparkly yarn for the bubbles, curly yarn for the eel, earthy wool for the turtle and a myriad of crazy types for the fish. Finally we even got a very light thin brown for the snail (upper right, he hides under the sea weed if you brush it right).

Progression of Seasons (2007)

When I moved my new bedroom had a street facing three part window with no curtains. I was thinking about what curtains to get when my mother suggested that I just weave myself some. I thought this was a great idea, transparent weaves are really meant to be hung in windows since the back light creates different effects. Additionally it gave me an opportunity to display my art to the passersby. At night when the light is on in my room the weaving light up and can be clearly seen from the street.

These weaving took me over a year to complete. I planned each one separately, my original intention was to create an outdoor scene that I could look at when I wanted the curtains closed. But as the seasons changed what I wanted to see outside my window changed with it. Each weaving was designed and woven during a different part of the year and that resulted in three completely different weaving.


Double Weave

A double weave is made by weaving two pieces of cloth at the same time one on top of the other. To make a pattern you simply switch the colors on the two sides. The dual sided effect of this weaving type can be most easily seen in the dragon weaving below.

Boat on the Water (2006)

When I started planning this piece I really wanted to do something with a boat on the ocean. I drew out many different sketches but they were all far to complex for this type of weaving. Finally I was watching a movie with a friend and a saw this shipwrecked person on a raft with the moon as a backdrop. I really liked the imagery so I designed an extremely simple boat and put the moon as a backdrop. I then added a mirror image of the boat being reflected in the water.

Dragon in Flight (2001)

This weaving was supposed to be an elegant example of a dragon in mid-flap. At the time I considered dragons to be very elegant creatures but I wanted to create one that also looked alive and therefore in motion. This one looked far more lively on paper than it did woven but it is still an impresive dragon sweaping over unknown lands. The two images to the left are the two sides of the weaving.

This weaving is four feet by six feet and four days to weave.

Eyes in the Dark (2001)

The inpsperation for this weaving came from the photograph of a sci-fi character that I had run several image effects on, including emboss and edge detection. The character had interesting eyes to begin with but after the changes their eyes appeared to be made from concentric semi-circles.

This weaving is four feet by six feet and took a week to weave.


Tibetan Weaving

Tibetan Weaving is a form of rug weaving that is done in Tibet. The rug is woven by tying a sequence of knots in rows onto a warp under high tension. The knots are then beaten in place and secured with a "tabby" weave. This method allows the weaver to control the color of each knot individually and create quite intricate patterns.

Dragon YingYang (1998)

This weaving was based off a small animated graphic I saw online. In the graphic a dragon sat atop a yin-yang and blew fire. I liked the way his head and tail spike formed the two dots of the yin-yang while the tail created the dividing line. The boarder is a solid line with four mazes at the corners. In some legends a rug like this would be woven to protect its owner from evil. The solid border creates a solid line of protection and the mazes confuse the enemy. The dragon at the center is the final protector.

This weaving is made from 100\% acrylic yarn which creates the bright colors. It took me roughly six months to complete.

Moon Eclipse(1999)

This weaving was based off a drawing made by a friend of mine. The moon behind the wizard was orriginally supposed to be a circle but stretched a bit in the final process.

This weaving is made from 100\% acrylic yarn which creates the bright colors. It took me roughly six months to complete.


Overshot

An overshot is a very simple type of weaving that can be found in any decent weaving book. Its called an overshot because some of the strings skip or overshoot the other strings creating a solid block of color instead of the normal mesh.

Overshot (1997)

This weaving was created out of the leftovers of one of my mother's weavings that she made as a wedding present. Since she had put too much warp on the loom she let me play with the rest. The striped colors come from the other weaving and the flower pattern came from a book on overshot patterns.