High Peak Community Arts, Project eARTh at home:
This project is split into four weeks, two weeks creating a sampler to learn some different weaving techniques and two weeks to make your own design, using Blue John as a colour theme. (The two-week Easter break is ‘extra’ to this, so in reality you have more time). The aim is for the weaving to look like the cross-section of a Blue John mine.
We are weaving on cards for this project, as they are easier to post than looms! The vertical threads on a loom are called the warp and the horizontal threads are called the weft. The warp is wrapped around the cards and secured at the back with two pieces of tape.
We are making a sampler to practise techniques, then designing and making a final piece inspired by Blue John. Try to use roughly half of your wool yarn for each project. You can always use more of a colour in your sampler if you are not planning to use very much of it in your final piece (e.g. maybe you will use less yellow in your final piece, so can use more of it in the sampler.) Feel free to use some of your own yarn for your practise sampler. If you do not have any at home, it is available cheaply online or from Aldi. Please be sure to only use the yarns supplied in your High Peak Community Arts kit for the final woven Blue John piece, as everyone’s work must be made from the same wool and colour palette.
For the sampler, we are trying two new techniques each week, to be interspersed with plain weave, so you can practice your plain weave each week, too.
Please fill in the weekly evaluation forms as you go – it helps us with our monitoring and our planning – and do give us a call if you need any help.
If you run out of yarn, we have some spare , just call me on 0752 815 9283.
Week by week instructions can be viewed on the pdf sheet here – Blue John weaving instructions