h.Art herefordshire art week approaches

 

We are making preparations, looking forward to welcoming folk, hoping for good weather so as we can use the garden for displays and demos.

We are thrilled to be chosen from over 400 artists to have a photo of my weaving on the official flyers this year!

We will be opening our studios here at Hillside Cottage

from 10.30am to 5pm each day

 from Saturday 6th September to Sunday 14th September.

Sue Wright | Herefordshire Art Week

Hope you can pop along.

A Visiting Loom - At Woollen Tree Weaving Workshops.

A visiting loom

It's been an exciting time at Hillside, there's plenty going on to keep us busy. Renovations continue on the outside of the cottage with the chimney repointed, rendering repaired and new guttering and facias fitted.

But most exciting of all is that I have been able to start my weaving workshops.

The two workshops this month have been working on 4 shaft looms. It has been great to welcome fellow weavers to my little studio and get stuck into making warps and weaving patterns together.

This dear vintage Dryad loom was warped up with 8/2 organic cotton to weave a set of T towels.

I love to see a loom dressed and ready to weave, it always looks so much happier, its character awakes, I feel it just wants to be used, to be creative and do what it has been designed for- in the same way a yacht looks so happy when it is all rigged ready to sail, waiting for you to take it on the next adventure! 

The next adventure happening here at Hillside is the building of a new studio to use for

Woollen Tree Workshops

I will blog more about this soon 

And of course must just round up this little post to show you the lambs which have arrived in the field next to our orchard. So cute! We love to watch them, very entertaining as they get up to mischief.

Spring is here!

 

Setting Up The Weaving Studio

We have been so busy! 

First we needed to paint inside and outside and lay a new floor in the Garden Studio. 

Exterior wood preservative in forest green, interior white with a splash of red to give the place a zing and energy. We kept the shabby chic look of the roof and windows. I chose a grey Oak laminate flooring which will be easy to clean and reflects plenty of light.

It has been so good to be unpacking all my craft equipment and arranging the studio so as I can work on the looms. I have added large scatter rugs for warmth and comfort. Everything is so easy to move around, I can bring my table looms to the grey desk or my sewing machines to the centre of the room- just adjust the room for how I wish to work. 

Since this photo, I have bought myself a little kettle to have on the grey ladder shelving, great for a cuppa!

Also since this photo I found some extra shelves for this corner to store all my colourful cotton cones.

I'm sure you will see these things as I take more photos of weaving in progress.

I love that I can now

view and select all my yarns stored on my "Wall Of Wool" and that the warping frame is set up for use. 

The natural light in here is really good. I have two windows which look out over the garden and the woods and fields beyond. 

My new studio will be an inspiring place to weave and spin.  

 

Saori Scarves- Rock Pool Inspired

This is what became of my "warp of possibility" from last month's blog post!

I thoroughly enjoyed dipping into my hand spun and hand dyed yarns to weave two scarves on the warp I had made and put on my Saori Loom.

My inspiration for these pieces was the magic and mystery of Rock Pools. The many colours and creatures you find at low tide tucked away in these little pools of wonder.

I shall be adding these scarves to our Etsy and Folksy shops for you to purchase.

Wood and Wool Naturally Hand Crafted by WoollenTree on Etsy

Sue Wright Handknits- SWH and WT at Woollen Tree on Folksy

I hope you will enjoy wearing them, they are so lovely and soft with a wonderful drape and with so many natural colours in the weave!

Although being hand woven over the same warp each scarf is subtly different and completely unique as I have woven them in a free style Saori way and used my own hand spun yarns along with wools, cotton and silk from my stash.

 

A Little Different This Year...

A View of Quarr Abbey Bell Tower and Lovely old Tree Stump

Usually a this time of year I am telling you all about our  Exhibition and Christmas Craft Show at Quarr Abbey, but unfortunately the dates we were due to be at the Gallery coincide with England being in a 2nd Lockdown (due to Covid 19). 

The good news is we are hoping to be there for 2 weeks in January 2021, so all being well we look forward to welcoming you at the beginning of the  New Year and hope you will enjoy viewing and hopefully purchasing 😊 some of our lovely new stock we have been busy making.

Hand Woven Colourful Plant Pot Mats

At the end Of the Day in my Loom Room.

My loom room is only small but I love it! I have set up things in there so as I can pull out a loom and start weaving. The Rigid Heddle looms hang on the wall, the Saori loom folds, my sewing machine  slides out on its small table and the David 2 loom is positioned so as I can work at the back and front easily with the warping frame on the back wall and my "Stash" stock stored in boxes on a shelf that goes all around the room, arranged as one big colour wheel of inspiration.

After a particularly busy day in there I sat in my little sofa chair where I also knit and spin and took this photo before I turned out the lights, yes its messy but its good happy mess from a creative day and it makes me smile.

 

 

Summer Colour in Cloth

                                               Our garden is full of colour and inspiration!

I am always influenced by the nature around me, summer colours start to feed into my woven cloth at this time of year.
This month I have been making vibrant cotton warps for the looms. It is a nice break from working in wool on the looms. (I'm busy spinning on the wheel in the garden, so there will be plenty of woolly projects later in the year).
However some people have allergies and do ask me if I weave and knit in cotton, so its always good to offer an alternative. Also in the summer months its great to work in cool cottons and linen.

 Hand weaving the Saori Way along with more tradition weaves of stripes and squares in gorgeous colourways.

 New cloth fresh from the loom.

Beautiful Summer Wraps/Shawls in soft cotton. The perfect "go to" accessory for the Season.

Weaving on the David 2 Loom

 My first blog post for 2020 is the very first weaving I made on my new David 2 Loom.
It was hand woven back in October last year, now as promised you can see the loom all dressed and producing cloth.

I used a linen cotton blend from Rowan for this first weaving something that is easy to warp up with. I wanted to avoid any problems such as broken warps or sticky threads so this was a perfect choice while I got to know my lovely new loom. I dressed the loom with a 5 metre warp a pattern of 3 wide stripes 120 ends.

 On the warping frame, then chained off ready to use

 The David 2 Loom is dressed from the back to the front, using lease sticks and the built in raddle.
So simple and very satisfying to do, it was easy to load 5 metres of warp on to the loom without assistance.

 In these two photos you can see the raddle at the top separating the warp threads and spreading them out to the correct width. In the bottom photo you can see the lease sticks holding the cross for ease of heddle threading in the correct order.

  The warp is rolled onto the back roller of the loom, I use strong paper to wind it up with, this keeps the warp threads neat and tight.

 I thread the heddles

 I sley the reed

 Then I was ready to weave, the David 2 Loom offers a beautiful wide shed to throw the shuttle and weave the weft.

 I wove this project in Plain Weave or Tabby, the tie up only uses two treadles.
I wanted to just understand and get the feel for the loom as well as produce something beautifully simple from the exercise. Having three colours of equal width across the warp and weaving a border at either end of the runner gave me an interest of design I was looking for.

 The grand first cutting the cloth off the loom was so special! Once washed my new table runner and two mats look and feel pretty good for a first project off the loom.

The whole process was brilliant, I know I made the right decision in choosing this particular make of loom. David and I are going to get on very well indeed.

My New David 2 Loom From Louet

 I'm so thrilled and excited, my brand new loom has arrived and it is absolutely beautiful, superb quality and a dream to weave with.
It is a David 2 Loom from Louet. It is a 90cms 8 shaft loom, if you would like to look up more details on this loom view this link to website of the supplier I chose to purchase mine from or go to Louet's own website.

https://www.georgeweil.com/home

My loom arrived direct from Holland on a pallet and was very well packaged. The Castle of the loom was already assembled as this loom operates a CAM system, also the shafts and heddles were in place which meant it was just a matter of following the instructions to complete the loom's construction.

Skipper was quickly on the case and together we enjoyed an afternoon of building the loom in situ.

 The Texsolv heddles surrounded by packaging all needed cutting apart ready to weave.

 The front legs fitted in place along with the 10 treadles.

 An easy to follow instruction book with photos makes life easy.

 Here we are all ready to weave, the warp beam, cloth beam, brake, beater, reed and so on all awaiting the first warp.

I'm using a linen cotton blend from Rowan for my first weaving. something that is easy to warp up with. I dressed the loom with a 5 metre warp a pattern of 3 wide stripes 120 ends.

I will let you know how the first weaving on my David 2 Loom goes!

Absorbing Nature and Her Colours

This September I spent a lovely day with WSD Guild Isle of Wight naturally dyeing our wools. Brewing up wonderful colours from Nature working outdoors on an open fire. It always feels magical when an old madder root or some dry old leaves and stalks give up some beautiful colours! 

absorbing Nature in the wool

Skipper and I also made our way to Devon for a most relaxing week in the hills.

I took my water colour paints and tried to capture the ever changing moods and colours of Nature,

quite impossible!! but I had a great time doing something different from my wool spinning, weaving and hand knitting.

However we were still in our element as we stayed on a working sheep farm in really lovely accommodation and we had the exclusive use of the summer house and fishing lake with a boat!

The sheep would come down to the lake to drink.

The water reflecting, the colours amazing. The Lake was buzzing with wildlife. water boat men, dragon flies of many colours, mayflies, kingfishers and swallows ever busy.

In the lake were so many different fish ranging from the tiniest minnow, small trout to big carp. 

We both managed to catch a few and admired their most detailed colourful scales and tails, simmering and full of life.

Absorbing Nature all around us

Putting them back in the lake gently saying "thank you" for the privilege. with a flick of their tails they dive back down to the depths of the water.

It is so good to "just be"

Taking some time to recharge, relax and be absorbed in Nature. no need to watch the clock, the Sun will tell you when to rise and sleep, your body will tell you when to eat.

I feel my colour senses have been  re-awakened. My energy levels topped up and I just can't wait to get the Saori Loom warped up to start a colourful weave using my newly dyed yarns.

Autumn Winter is the busiest time for my business, with craft events booked and supply of new stock for shops to organise. Projects to knit and weave and with my weaving workshops now up and running I shall enjoy being absorbed snug and warm in all the woolly colours of nature!

At the summer house

The link to where we stayed 

https://www.independentcottages.co.uk/devon/oakwood-farm-ref1371