Kitchen extension basketry
I’ve been a bit preoccupied recently because we are building a kitchen extension. Not building it ourselves, of course, but having teams of workmen knocking down walls, inserting steel beams, and building new walls. That’s as far as they’ve got in four weeks, which is pretty good going – partly because it hasn’t rained and […]
Product development for Lalo The Shop
While I enjoy creating and making my own work, I also really like collaborating with others to produce something new. So when Honey Simmonds of Lalo The Shop contacted me to ask if I’d be interested in helping out with developing a new bag I was very happy to talk to her. Lalo The Bag […]
Elements 4: Earth
It’s taken a while, but I’ve finally finished the final element of the four: Earth. To be honest, I found this the trickiest one to conceptualise. My first idea was of a snow-capped volcano (think Mount Fuji), but that didn’t seem very challenging in terms of coiling structure, though I could have added folds and […]
Elements 3: Fire
Of the elements I’ve made so far, Fire has had the most conventional start – a circular bowl starting from the centre. When I felt that the base was big enough I started creating protrusions that would become the flames. I wanted there to be further spaces in each flame on each round, so the […]
Elements 1: Water
This didn’t start out as a series. I just wanted to refire my making mojo after six weeks of lacking the energy even to read or watch TV, let alone make anything. I’d been looking at some of the wonderful Japanese wave and ripple designs published by the Public Domain Review. So I picked a […]
Pine needle baskets in Guatemala
Well, my last post turned out to be a little optimistic! After my bout of flu before Christmas I went down with another respiratory infection (possibly Covid, given how long it took to recover), followed by a urinary tract infection. But finally, after six weeks or so, I feel more like my normal self and […]
Staggered twining over double warp
In fact, according to Annemarie Seiler-Baldinger in her inestimable Textiles: A Classification of Techniques, the full name of this technique is (deep breath) staggered weft twining over a double transposed warp. In plain English, you are twining two separate warp layers alternately, at the same time as the warp threads pair alternately with the ones […]
5th World Wicker and Weaving Festival
Last week I attended the 5th World Wicker and Weaving Festival in Poznan, Poland. It was held in the cavernous Poznan Expo Centre over four scorchingly hot days, when the external temperature was above 30C. The main highlight was the live weaving competition, where over 130 competitors from around the world had 15 hours over […]
Inspired by Morigami Jin
Sometimes you end up in a completely different destination from where you intended. My idea was to further explore freestyle or irregular plaiting. After my first foray into this technique, I saw some lovely examples of it at the recent Eskenazi exhibition. So I went back to my photos and books on Japanese bamboo art […]
Bamboo masterworks from Japan at the Eskenazi
I’m guessing that last year’s exhibition of Japanese bamboo art at the Eskenazi was a great success, as the gallery is currently showing some more. As the name suggests, Bamboo Masterworks from Japan – Classical to Contemporary includes works by some older masters of the art alongside contemporary artists, some of whom featured in the […]
