Slow cloth and slow craft and the Peacock scarf

One year ago, my blog described the Slow Cloth Manifesto.  It is worthwhile to revisit the article by Elaine Lipson which is from a talk she gave to the Textiles Society of America in 2012.  Read her original thoughts about slow cloth  and the link to her article here.  http://elainelipsonart.com/tag/slow-cloth/

Treasuring quality and creativity is a vital part of her description of worthwhile craft.  Slow cloth is about taking time and finding the inspiration and joy in learning and making.

Elaine Lipsons description of Slow Cloth. reprinted with her permission. 

Thinking back over the past year, it is those projects which have taken time which I most treasure.

• Spending a week teaching at Summer School was tiring but also invigorating.  Having the time to spend with a group of interested and enthusiastic weavers and see the progress in skills and understanding was wonderful. The preparation for a whole week of teaching was huge but in doing so I also gained insights into the learning and teaching process.  Learning was also a two way process.  We learned a lot from each other.
• Preparing the talk for the Braid Society AGM was a wonderful way to bring together my thoughts about my travels around the Baltic and my understanding of why patterned belts were so important. The background reading for this talk taught me a lot about culture, history, archaeology, symbolism, and so many aspects of peasant life  - far more than I needed for the  talk but so enriching for me personally. 
• The relearning of the principles of collapse weave took a great deal of experimentation to get the effect that I wanted.  The Online Guild of Weavers Spinners and Dyers is a great forum for learning.
• The sudden flash of my imagination when told about a cloth embroidered with peacock feathers sparked a desire to try to create iridescence.  Thinking about how to achieve this and sampling took time but I was thrilled with the result.  
• Preparing materials for my workshop in Tacoma, USA in August 2016 has been an ongoing revision of ideas.  Writing an article for the conference proceedings has provided a focus for my work in analysing patterned bands and taken me into areas that have been quite surprising. Three months later it is finally ready to send off!

My New Year resolutions for 2016 is to spend more time on fewer projects.  It is exploring ideas and techniques in depth which for me brings most satisfaction (and sometimes frustration!).

The Peacock Silk Scarf.

As I mentioned in my last blog, the talk about Chinese Imperial textiles inspired me to think of a way of creating iridescence in a design for a silk scarf.

The three colours of silk yarn.

The Weaving Draft

Here is the weaving draft. It requires 16 shafts and a floating selvedge. This is the first time that I have used three strands of 2/60 silk together. I was not sure what sett to use so I allowed an extra length for the warp to weave practice pieces. I could try different setts and  weft threads to create the best effect.

Here is the tie up drawdown for those of you who are interested.

There are 54 picks in the pattern repeat.

First sample

I tried a sample at 30 epi using three strands of 2/60 silk for the weft.  I used two strands of black and one of green 60/2 silk.  The sample was very firm and not suitable for a scarf. The colours in the weft obscured the colours in the warp.

My first sample at 30 epi with three strands of 60/2 silk for the weft.

As you can see, the green strand in the weft detracts from the threads making the pattern. I realised that I would need to use a solid colour for the weft. This would create a background for the colours of the silk warp.

Second sample

I decided to try using a fine 3/45 dark navy cashmere and silk yarn for the weft. This was a 'bin end' so I cannot buy any more. I used two strands used together.  I changed the sett to 25 epi. 

This time the sample material felt lovely and soft and the leaf shape was outlined by the dark navy weft. 

However, I decided that the finishing of the scarf should also be luxurious.  For the twisted fringes, I separated out the three colours of the warp yarns.  This was a slow, laborious task but I thought that it would add a touch of mystery to the finished project.  It took a day and a half to complete the fringes but I think that the extra effort was worth it for the effect.

Twisting the fringes.

I twisted the three colours together.  The fringes are a lovely twisted rope of silk.

Here is the completed scarf.

The completed scarf

close up

It is difficult to get the full effect of iridescence in a static image.  The colours glow when the material moves when it is worn.

There was a wonderful series on BBC television recently about colour called 'Colour - the Spectrum of Science.'  Episode two explained how iridescence works. There are still clips about the programme available to watch on the BBC web site. This clip is about peacocks.   http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0371l2f  




I wish you all a happy and creative 2016.

Susan J Foulkes

Slow Cloth

permission to publish this chart given by Elaine Lipson

Just before Christmas I read an interesting article by Elaine Lipson about the concept of Slow Cloth. Her influential paper :The Slow Cloth Manifesto: an alternative to the politics of production is about treasuring quality and creativity in a world that seems to value mass production rather than craft.

Elaine explains how Slow Cloth has four aspects:

• exploring how we work,
• what we work with, 
• why we do it
• and where we do it in relation to other and ourselves.  

Slow cloth involves the concept of time - the time it takes to master skills, to practice and learn new skills and to work towards excellence. She makes the valid point that too many craft workshops are more concerned with selling new pieces of equipment rather than being geared for learners to develop a new skill in depth.  There is too often an emphasis on quick skills rather than making something of quality.

It is also about the continuation of cultural skills.  Skills such as weaving, are not familiar to many people and the connection to history and the meaning of these skills is sometimes not appreciated.
Our relationship to textiles has been altered by mass production and the availability of cheap clothes.

In a newspaper last year a reporter described the scene on a high street during the sales.  A woman dropped a bag of newly bought clothes but could not be bothered to pick it up as she was carrying so many other full shopping bags. The reporter found that it was full of t-shirts from a well known cut price department store.  Clothes are now considered disposable in ways that would have been unthinkable to our parents and grandparents.

The Personal Meaning of Textiles

The idea of Slow Cloth takes us back to the personal meaning of textiles.  The joy of creating something unique however small and however long it takes to make.

There is a wonderful quote in a book about Early Anglo-Saxon clothing, it is from an American re-enactor who had spent over 200 hours recreating her Anglo-Saxon cyrtel through spinning, dyeing, weaving and hand stitching,

- ' in the end it is a product of my hands, my heart and my mind and that is what really connects me to the spinners and weavers from a long time ago' (Walton Rogers, 2007, p 250).

The book finishes with the comment that we establish a direct connection between the past and the present by the pursuit of lost craft knowledge and the recreation of these forgotten skills.' (p. 251)

Slow cloth is not about a particular textile technique or a project - it is about taking time and finding the joy in learning and making.

What a good New Years resolution for 2015 - to use my heart, hands and mind to create something unique.


Happy New Year 

Susan J Foulkes 

[1] Walton Rogers, Penelope (2007) Cloth and Clothing in Early Anglo-Saxon England, AD 450 – 700, York: Council for British Archaeology.

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