Nordic and World Braids and Bands 2022

 Busy Hands  (and feet)

The conference was a wonderful experience.  Do think about the next conference in 2025 in the USA.  The skills taught in the week ranged from beginners classes to extending the more experienced.  The participants learned from their tutors but also from each other. I always find that I learn from my classes as well as teaching them. 

Busy Hands

Here are a selection of images showing working hands (and feet). This is only a selection of the classes. I am sure that you will identify the skills being displayed.  

The conference was amazing.  There were two lectures in the morning before classes commenced and generally one lecture afterwards, before the evening meal.

The conference proceedings are now on sale. 

The Proceedings are now for sale at £38 plus postage and packing on the website, www.braidsociety.com under books.   This book which is 234 pages with 45 contributing authors is a fabulous book and worth every penny.   If you don't purchase it now, why don't you put it on your Christmas list.

Alternatively, you can  email booksales@braidsociety.com  stating:

Which book(s) you require

Where in the world the package should be sent

Whether you will pay by Paypal (preferred) or alternatively by cheque or direct bank transfer.

Overview of contents

Lectures

Bente Skogass – A glimpse into tablet weaving from early Viking times

Ulla Mannering & Charlotte Rimstad – The Danish Prehistoric Cord and Band Tradition

Randi Stoltz – Band weaving in Norway over 2000 years

Ragnheidur Thorsdottir – Table weaving in Iceland

Sonja Berlin – Why choose Tablet weaving?

Anna Sjursen – Sami weaving, traditions and techniques

Noomi I Dali – Faroese cords bands, braids and garters

Katia Johansen – After the Vikings: The decline of hands in Denmark

Techniques 

Kumihimo – articles by Shirley Berlin (Canada), Makiko Tada & Masumi Tada (Japan), Diane Watanabe (Japan), Bob Galivan (USA), Yuko Yoshida (Japan)

Kuteuchi, Loop Braiding – articles by Masumi Tada (Japan), Jacqui Carey (UK),  Jean Leader (UK), Joy Boutrup (Denmark)

Cords, Whipcording, Lucet – articles by Annette Herbst, Ziggy Rytka (UK), Georgia Olsen (USA)

Ply Split Braiding – articles by Julie Hedges (UK), Katoko Kitade (Japan), Erroll Pires (India)

Rigid Heddle, Inkle – articles by Shahla Amini (Iran), Susan Foulkes (UK), Ane Rasmussen (Denmark), Dee Sayce (UK), Tamaki Takagi (Japan), Laura Thode (USA), Marieke Kranenberg (Netherlands)

Sprang – articles by Carol James (Canada), Bodil Dago (Norway)

Tablet weaving – articles by Inge Dam (Canada), Bente Skogass (Norway), Rasmus Jorgensen (Denmark), Cathy Smith (UK), Randi Stoltz (Norway), Louise Strom (Sweden), Keiko Kusakabe (Japan), John Mullarkey (USA)

Other techniques – articles by Anna Sparr (Denmark), Ilta Hamari (Finland), Gil Dye (UK), Lena Bjerresgard (Denmark)

national exhibition of Weavers Spinners and Dyers

 The National Exhibition of the Association of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers was held at Leigh Spinning Mill in September.        https://www.facebook.com/Leighspinnersmill/

Here are some photographs about the exhibition.

The unprepossessing entrance

The heritage lift was over 100 years old

Entrance to the exhibition space

Leigh Mill is undergoing a transformation.  The renovation project is very ambitious and will provide a wonderful outlet for creative talent. It is very much a work in progress.

Alison from the Lancs and Lakes Guild welcomed visitors. Alison's wonderful bed spread is next to her. The whole exhibition was set up by five volunteers. 

Two general views

A wall of discs - the fascinating interpretations using a disc.

Unfortunately exhibitors had asked that images of their work are not shared on social media so I cannot add the rest of the photographs that I took.  However, one member from Durham Guild had a disc on the wall display. Anne is one of our oldest members and a founder member of the Durham Guild of Spinners Weavers and Dyers. 

Anne Evans

 After viewing the exhibition we walked along the canal to Leigh town centre. 

It was an interesting walk and we passed two boat yards and some canal boats. 

A great day out from Manchester.

Susan J Foulkes September 2022

The Red Thread

 My piece for the exhibitors exhibition was entitled The Red Thread.

All the sayings are from different Nordic countries.  The border for each saying is in the colours of the national flag. The motifs at each end of the band were chosen to link to the particular country. 

  The red thread seemed a suitable idea that underpinned the conference in Denmark bringing together crafts people from around the world with a common love of creating narrow wares. 

The red thread around the sayings is a lucetted woollen cord. 

On the display is a Sami belt woven with the Sigga heddle, a tasuki cord in red silk, a handfasting band woven in red and gold silk and a marriage band from Sweden.  

The Sami belt woven with the Sigga heddle

A Japanese tasuki cord woven in red and gold silk

A tasuki cord is used in Japan to tie up the sleeves of a kimono or wide sleeved jacket. It is used by men and women.  

A handfasting band in red and gold silk with the eternal knot symbol

The Swedish marriage band with 101 different motifs. My initials and date are woven at one end. It is over 4 metres in length.

The Japanese lotus bag with two woven filled tubular silk cords. 

Exhibitors displays

There was an exhibition of work by all the workshop providers.  Here are some

of the displays.

Exquisite work

I love these colourful bands.

The cushion cover is beautiful.

I loved the participants who wore something that they had made.

Carol's sprang trousers

Steve's inkle woven braces

Ziggy's colourful laces made with a lucet.

The next International Conference will be held in the USA in 2025.  I hope to see you there. Perhaps we should all try to make something to wear. 

Susan J Foulkes September 2022

Band patterns from Nordic countries

I wove items for my display of work at the  5th International Conference on Braiding:   Nordic and World Braids and Bands 2022, August 14-19, Svendborg, Denmark.

I enjoy weaving sentences so I have found sayings/proverbs from each of the Nordic countries. I asked a number of people for their suggestions for sayings/proverbs that had some connection to weaving or craft. Each band has a particular motif. Each saying has a border of the colours of the flag for that country.

For Sweden I chose the lovely Leksand pattern which looks like two fish.

The Sámi pattern is found in many areas but I saw it first on a long band in the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.  They have a fascinating collection of Sámi artefacts and plenty of bands on display.

From Norway I chose this pattern with a heart. Norway and Sweden have many variations of heart patterns.  

From Finland I found this pattern on one of the many bands that I have examined in museums around the country.

From Denmark I found this wavy pattern which evokes water.

From Iceland I found this motif which originally came from a complex band I saw in a small museum in the north of the country.

Of course, all these six patterns are shared in many countries. The geometrical nature of weaving means that there is a set of patterns which are ideal for weaving on patterned bands. Some cultures favour some types of motifs over others. It has been great fun looking at photographs that I have taken around the region. There are strong connections amongst all the countries which I hope will be reflected in in final piece. 

Here are the first four motifs.

The final motifs are for Greenland and the Faroe islands.  

For the Faroe Islands I found a photograph of the folk costume.  One girl was wearing a lovely belt with a distinctive buckle.  I used this design for the band with the saying from the Faroe Islands.

Here is the graph for the woven band.  

           

Greenland was settled by Norwegian and Icelandic explorers during the 10th century CE. There were two Viking settlements on the island. One imaginative story about the Viking voyage from Greenland to the New World was written by Nevil Shute in 1940: The Old Captivity.  He is an excellent storyteller but this book is unlike his previous stories as it deals with a mystical dream experience of a young pilot whilst recovering from an illness in Greenland. It is a haunting tale. I was reminded of it whilst I was weaving and I have started to reread the book after many years. 

I thought about what motif would be suitable for the beginning and end of the band.  When analysing motifs, I found that I would give some of them names.  When weaving, this naming is useful as it places the design in my mind and fingers.  One such design is one I have always called the 'Viking boat.' There are a few coins with Viking boat designs such as this one.

Viking coin

Here is the weave chart. 

Here is the final woven design.

This has been a fascinating project.  Here are the sayings:

den röda tråden

gennem livet går der en usynlig tråd.  

øving gjør mester  

vuosttaš maid meašttir dahká, lea oahppat   

að komast í álnir

mestariksi tuleminen vaatii kaikkien virheiden tekemistä     

altíð bagir illum barni okkurt  

uppertunut ajornartoqanngilag

I am intending to display the bands with a lucetted red cord which joins them together.  The red thread is a well used metaphor in Scandinavian countries.  It means the heart of the matter or the fundamental issue. It joins friends and communities together and is the link between Nordic countries. The red thread connects us all. 

My display of woven sayings.

I will give the translations next month. 

Susan J Foulkes August 2022

Handtowel in M's and O's

Handtowels on the loom

I wove some of these handtowels in 2017 ( see my blog for 15th June 2017)  I decided to weave another set and used the same pattern. However, I realised that I had not threaded the coloured warp ends correctly. I wove one handtowel and then corrected the threading. I had not realised this mistake when I wove the previous set so it was interesting to see if a revised threading would make a noticeable difference. 

The warp sett is 24 epi.  It is important to weave each block as a square.

M and O pattern with stripes - corrected threading

Mistake

Previously I had not recorded the pattern colours correctly for threading and I made an error.  M & O is a block pattern with two blocks. Each block had 8 warp threads. One block is threaded: 4,3 - 4,3 - 2,1 - 2,1 and the second block is threaded: 4,2 - 4,2 - 3,1 - 3,1 . The threading has three blocks with a stripe of 2 warp ends dividing the the pattern for the next three blocks. My threading mistake was to have the two coloured threads as the first two warp ends of a block.  

Threading error for the two coloured warp ends

Corrected mistake

I think that the correct colour order should have one coloured thread as the final warp end of one block and the first warp end of the next. Here is the correct warp plan.

Corrected warp colour error. 

I wove the first towel before I realised that this could be a mistake. Fortunately I did not have to rethreaded the entire warp. I rethreaded the two coloured warp ends and one of the background warp ends. 

Does this make a difference? The dividing warp ends form a wavy line down the cloth when it is washed. In the first handtowel when the two coloured ends are in one block the stripe is flattened although when washed it does appear wavy. 

Here I have overlaid two handtowels.  In the pictures, the towels on the right have the corrected threading.  The towel on the left has the incorrect threading.

Two handtowels: incorrect and correct warp threading for the coloured ends.

The warp line of blue threads has some wavy qualities in both threadings but I prefer the corrected version. 

There is always something to learn.

Susan J Foulkes  July 1st 2022