Saturday was our workshop with Sarah Cooke, entitled Weaving with Waste. (https://www.sarahcooke.co/) We had a late start as Sarah was stuck in traffic on the journey but Sarah gave us extra time at the end so everyone was able to finish.
It was an inspirational day, with Sarah bringing everything we needed. She started by talking about how she came to be teaching this workshop. She became interested in using waste and was then asked by the Journal if she would like to write an article about her work. She was delighted  and this was printed in June 2020. After this her work became known and she began to teach and deliver workshops. 

She brought 12 simple frame looms with her so the workshop was accessible to everyone, experienced and non-weavers alike. She showed us some of her work, including art pieces beautifully framed, bags, hangings and table mats. She also brought boxes full of waste for us to use for weaving. This was the exciting part, with everyone itching to choose something. There were all kinds of plastic, cables, vegetable netting, plastic film from the back of printed photos (Asda rubbish which was destined for the bin!), ribbons, cords, beads and lots more. Sarah said it was all waste of some kind, some donated, some picked up from the street, some salvaged or begged from shops.

The actual weaving was very simple and everyone was able to warp the looms quickly following Sarah's clear instructions. The warp used any knitting yarn as there needs to be a stable warp on which to weave some of the more unusual waste yarns. We then were allowed to choose our waste to weave the weft. The width was around 30cm max, and the length  could be slightly longer, although we didn't have enough time to make more than a 30cm square. 
I thoroughly enjoyed the whole day and loved my final piece of weaving. The range of samples were all really different and I think everyone was happy with their final piece. Some were going to be hangings, some bags and one was a book cover. Actually I enjoyed it so much that I spent Sunday turning it into a bag! Its almost done now and a picture will soon be added. Some people bought a kit consisting of frame, pick up stick and shuttle so they could continue at home. Those with rigid heddle looms could do the same thing, a little quicker, at home.

An excellent workshop. Thank you Sarah.

​

There were 13 of us on Saturday for Sue Kimber's  Art Yarns Workshop. She had braved the snow and driven all the way from Kent with her husband. She told us she lives in a shepherd's hut without electricity and running water. There were lots of reactions to this from wanting to live there to being horrified. I was one of the latter. She has a small farm with sheep who are all named.

​ She taught us how to core spin, make boucle yarns, tail spin and more. It was a great workshop and Sue was a helpful and expert teacher. As you can see we all came away with various art yarns in lovely colours, especially Gemma who made loads!! Now we need to decide what to do with them.

There were more members who came to chat and just watch the workshop

Saturday 12th February brought the long awaited and several times cancelled talk from Dr. Anthea Harris-Fry from the Kidderminster Carpet Museum.

She explained that the museum had been set up 10 years ago with funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund. They were allowed enough money to run the museum for 3 years and since then they have been largely staffed by volunteers. Anthea has been there since 2019 and she came partly because of her keen interest in history.

We were treated to a short history of carpets with pictures shown to us on a screen. Surprisingly carpets were not meant to be walked upon in the past as they were much too precious. A painting by Holbein shows Henry V111 with a carpet draped over a table. It is a Persian carpet of vivid colours. Similarly a painting by Teerlinc shows Elizabeth 1 standing on a carpet of rush, so we know that only very wealthy and high status people would have carpets in those times.

From about 1735 there was a market for carpets in Kidderminster. At that time carpets would be hand made in flat weave, made in a similar way to how we weave on our hand looms at home today. Carpets were reversible and tufted soft carpets were not made until the 19th century. They would have been small, hard wearing and made in small geometric patterns, used for stairs and hallways.

From 1857 carpets were made on power looms after America brought a new steam loom to show at the Great Exhibition in 1851.

We learnt about William Morris and his company designing carpets in the late 19th century and onwards and then lots more about modern carpets and contract carpets. Contract carpets are big business now and we saw lots of examples with some very modern and spectacular designs. They are designed for a specific space such as cruise liners or hotels.

One fact I found interesting was that Wetherspoons have a different carpet in each of its pubs - each one is unique and is designed to reflect something local. Having been in the local Wetherspoons a few times at Kings Norton after one of the walks I lead, I was surprised that I had never noticed the carpet! I was told by Sarah that there are boats on the carpet so I will definitely look down next time I go there.

Sadly there are are only 2 carpet making factories left in Kidderminster now. One of them, Brockways, makes carpets from British Herdwick wool, which is good to know. 

Thank you Anthea for your very interesting talk, any mistakes above are mine, so I apologise in advance! I am inspired to go and visit the carpet museum now and see all these carpets. I know some members have already visited and found it fascinating.

Update:
I have now visited The Museum of Carpet - It was definitely worth it! I also had one of my train adventures and found it was very easy to get to Kidderminster. The best part of the visit was seeing and hearing the carpet machines in action and listening to Jed talking about the Axminster loom. A word about Jed- he worked on carpet machines in Kidderminster for all his working life and now he has returned as a volunteer at the museum. He is a mine of information and anecdotes about carpets and machines. I also watched the Wilton loom working. It was very loud and I would be surprised if the factory workers didn't have hearing loss as they were given no ear  protection until the 1970s. I watched how they worked and eventually worked out the difference between the 2 types of carpet. I won't attempt to explain as the best way to understand is to see for yourself. The 3rd kind of loom was the Dobby Loom and this makes flat weave carpet in a similar manner to my Louet 4 shaft at home. It was set up for double weave and this was interesting as I am going to try this myself - hopefully!
(https://museumofcarpet.org/)


​Wendy