Getting creative with the leftovers!

Getting creative with the leftovers!

I’m often in awe of how other companies make the process of weaving wraps seem so glamorous, when my experience seems far more mundane and hard work… Tonight however, I actually get to enjoy one of the more exciting aspects of the job and so I’m recording it for posterity!!

Weaving is such an organic process that it is hard to fully predict how much warp will be used for any particular run, so we have some Twilight warp left over on the beam. It needs to be used up so that the loom can be re-threaded, and so tonight I have to decide what else to weave on the remaining length. I can only use wefts that we already have leftover in the mill (there are always odd cones of yarn left unused from previous weaves) and designs that are already completed, but other than that I have free reign!

leftovers

It’s a bit of a logic puzzle because we only have finite quantities and particular fibres/colours, but sometimes those limits force us to be more imaginative and think creatively. The fact that we can only weave small amounts of any one thing means I can be bold and experimental, exploring ideas that we might one day recreate on a larger scale.

Left-overs are often turned into unique and precious things in their own rights. Rugs, rag dolls and quilts created from the limited palette of the remainders of something else often have the most character. Cobbled together meals can be the heartiest; my Mum always made the most delicious, jam filled treats from what was left of the pastry after the pie was made.

So tonight I’m hopefully inventing some small but tasty morsels! Some may become testers to trial new ideas, others may become small releases or raffle prizes.

Already on my list is a tighter weave version of the seafoam design, an alternating weft of sky blue linen and shocking pink cotton (although I haven’t decided which design to weave this in yet) and maybe a chunky wooly starmap with possibly a gamma coloured weft?

leftovers2

Wonderfully tricky decisions!

 

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