Update from David Fox University of Leeds student placement in the Archive

Hello again it’s David, there have been lots going on since the first post, lots of weaving. Also hope you had a lovely Christmas and a great start to the new year; I have been deep into the oral history records within the archive and looking at boxes of past down objects and tools from past workers at the mill. From tools to design books, inspiration, and stories recorded. Then take it to the loom.

For the last couple of weeks, it has been weaving patterns based on hand-crafted warpers tools, to figure out how the text would work within the face of the cloth. Lots of sampling, and it’s just the start. The new warp is going to be a sage green, due to some of the cloth within the archive containing reds, greens, blues, and even sparkly yarn.

Now after Christmas, I will be putting on a double warp on the loom down the line, fingers crossed. I’ve been designing patterns onto graph paper, then taking it to the dobby loom and the lags and pegs. Hammering in the pegs into the lags based on the pattern drawn out, attaching it to the loom, and then away weaving. I’ve been mostly using wool within my samples linking to the mill’s history of wool and merino. Whilst also introducing paper yarns linking back to papers and the guard books that were used to record the goings on. The designs have been mostly figurative weft designs creating a visible motif across the face of the fabric, trapping the motif in with plain weave using two colours in the weft.

From now on every blog post, I’m going to do Object of the Month, choosing one of the objects within the archive that has inspiration. This month is a warp twisters box alongside his oral history recording, the box is full of his handmade tools, letter, work apron, and more. He was a warper here between 1964 – the 1970s, starting off as an apprentice going to Bradford Technical College at the time. I found it fascinating that he and the workers at the mill made their own tools, within the box was a reed heddle with yarn still wrapped around it and his workbooks during his apprenticeship.

The next plan of action is to focus on the telegram book and look at coding and how to translate this into cloth. Thinking about text and how to translate names and text into the cloth. So that will be an interesting task for the start of the new year. The last warp ended just before Christmas so now a new warp is being put on a green warp, to keep sampling on.

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