how long does it take to set up your loom?

Before I begin to weave I first have to dress my loom with a warp (the lengths of yarn that go up and down in a piece of woven cloth). These warp threads are wound by hand round the wooden pegs on my warping frame to the desired length, which can be anywhere from 2m for a short test warp up to 10m+ for a small batch production warp. This then gets tied up and carefully applied to the back beam of my loom, where it is spread to the correct width, with careful tension it is then wound onto the beam. Each individual warp end is then thread through a series of heddles and dents to pass to the front of the loom, where it is again carefully tensioned to make the base for the woven cloth nice and taught and even and ready for weaving. Once tied onto the front beam, I am now ready to begin weaving. This process usually takes me about 1-2 days altogether, and depends on the length of the warp, the width of the warp and the weight/thickness of the yarn.

A labour of love, this setting up process used to be my biggest hurdle, I now find however, that this stage is extremely meditative and best done bare foot with the windows open, to hear the birdsong in my surrounding garden.

how long does it take to weave a scarf?

Each handwoven scarf is approximately 2m long on the loom when woven, allowing for some natural shrinkage when washing and hand finishing before it’s ready to go to its new home. I can usually weave this in one full day, however my set up is very domestic, and I weave from my workshop at the bottom of my beautiful garden, and weave whenever I can which is not usually a full working day but split into many hours around my family and the running of my small business.

This is one of the reasons I prefer to combine handweaving with mill woven small batch production in my work, to offer more possibilities to create beautiful woven textiles, and why I like to upload small batches of handwoven works to my web-shop when I have produced a small collection of works, instead of drip-feeding irregularly throughout the year.

what materials do you use?

I use lambswool, merino and cashmere fibres and yarns across my mill and hand woven textiles work. I also enjoy sourcing and using ‘dead-stock’ yarns leftover from large scale industrial production for some of my hand-weaving; sustainability and environmentally conscious design are deeply rooted in my practice. It’s important to me that the work I make uses soft, natural materials which are fully biodegradable. I have very little waste product within my workshop, which I am able to then carefully compost in my gardens’ ecosystem, closing the loop.

The mill that I work with for small batch production has a high standard of sourcing sustainable natural fibres which they process, spin and dye in house at their mill site.

where do you get your inspiration from?

I’m inspired by finding balance and harmony in both colour and pattern, as well as the manual and meditative act and effects of hand weaving. Our brains are wired to look for and find patterns, in nature, environment, behavior, mathematics and language. Making patterns and repeating them calms me and it’s where I find equilibrium and connection within my process and work. I am drawn to modernist architecture, brutalist buildings, cubist artworks and vintage fashion and textiles. I also find the tension of working out of my beautiful garden workshop within the otherwise urban environement of South-East London encourages me to weave both nature and construction, past and present, warmth and humanity into my woven textiles.

how do you read the morse code in your designs?

Morse code, invented in the 1800’s by Samuel F. B. Morse uses combinations of small dots and longer dashes with spaces in-between to communicate over sound waves, radio waves and visible light. It can also be written and read as patterns of these dots, dashes and spaces combined to build words and send messages. My Morse-code pieces are made using a doublecloth weaving technique where two layers of cloth are woven together on the loom, interacting and passing through each other to produce clear graphic forms of dots and dashes, repeated throughout the cloths woven structure. These weavings have a front and a back, and a readable from the front if you know what you’re looking for!

For example the word LOVE from my original LOVE blanket first produced in 2010 is depicted like this in Morse-code:

._.. _ _ _ ..._ .

why do you refer to your work as domestically produced/manufactured?

I currently work as a one woman band, based from my home. It is a domestic setup, which allows me to work around the needs of my home and family. Textiles has traditionally been viewed as ‘womens work’ and has a long history of fitting into the small moments of time within traditional domestic labour. I am both fascinated and inspired by a long line of women artists and makers whose homes became a part of their process and whose work thrived in this domestic space. My mill woven pieces are also produced within the UK at a historic weaving mill which is also considered ‘domestic production’ as it’s within the UK. This way of working allows me to carefully consider the scale of my production and the availability of my designs, leading to a naturally slow and sustainable practice, which rejects cheap labour, unnecessary air miles and seasonal waste. I value the ability to design, sample, weave and sell my work from my own space and connect with my process, product and customer in a meaningful and thoughtful manner.

I hope to welcome you into my garden workshop at my next open studio event, where you can see first hand where my weaving is conceived and created. To stay informed on my next open studio event please sign up to my seasonal newsletter here.

what do you mean by the term ‘cottage industry’

“The Textile industry evolved from being a domestic small-scale industry to the status of supremacy it currently holds. The cottage stage was the first stage in its history where textiles were produced on a domestic basis.” textilesschool.com

When I use the term ‘Cottage Industry’ I am noting that the work is designed, manufactured and sold from the home, my home. Obviously my mill woven items are not part of this style of working, they are woven in small batch - limited runs at a UK weaving mill.

why is your web-shop only open at certain times?

I weave in small batches and therefore produce micro-collections and one-off hand-woven works throughout the year, alongside my small batch mill woven pieces. As stated above, this domestic scale production allows me to work around my home and family needs in a meaningful and connected way, instead of subscribing to the over commercialised systems of seasonal styles and over-production which often renders what comes before as obsolete. My woven textiles are treasures to make and a conscious investment in craft for the wearer or user, the very nature of weaving is slow, considered and methodically sustainable in design and manufacture. The fact that they are available to purchase at chosen moments allows a deeper and less impulsive investment for my bold and spirited customers.

do you sell your weaving drafts and patterns?

I do not sell my weaving patterns or drafts for other weavers to reproduce, as these are my intellectual property, and how I make a living. I am a designer-maker and work by designing, hand sampling and then producing my work as tangible pieces of woven textiles for sale. As a result I am unable to provide my patterns or technical details for ones own reproduction.

SHOP HOLLY BERRY WOVEN TEXTILES

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