I mentioned Saori weaving in my last post and thought it worth taking a little further as I was rather grumpy last week!
I did sit and use the two shaft loom and it is very light and free moving, in fact lovely to weave on though the shed wasn't very wide. Plus the loom closes up meaning storage is not a problem in small spaces. A four shaft loom has been manufactured but it wasn't available to try and I'm just presuming one could weave any four shaft pattern on it. I do admire the textural cloth, colour patterns including meet and separate and some of the fun things being woven.
My biggest bug bare was the selvedges. To be encouraging weaving with every thread sticking out from the cloth and calling it free and beautiful - well, no. And the second antsy was large areas of deliberate skipped threads making the cloth structurally unsound. As Doe said in a comment on the last post many weavers who have taken to Saori are experienced weavers. In a way this practise is subverting the skills and standards many of us have taken many years to develop and it will reflect on us in the long run.
Some years ago when we ran a motor camp I had my loom in the office/shop and a shelf of work for sale. I remember a lady from Europe asking 'is this the stuff that falls apart'. I was very quick to assure her it wasn't. At the time someone was marketing scarves by weaving wide cloth and cutting it apart into scarves etc with no finishing on the edges and word had got as far as Germany to avoid it.
I think from now on I'll just talk about my own work on this blog and, boy have I been in a pickle this week. More later.
I did sit and use the two shaft loom and it is very light and free moving, in fact lovely to weave on though the shed wasn't very wide. Plus the loom closes up meaning storage is not a problem in small spaces. A four shaft loom has been manufactured but it wasn't available to try and I'm just presuming one could weave any four shaft pattern on it. I do admire the textural cloth, colour patterns including meet and separate and some of the fun things being woven.
My biggest bug bare was the selvedges. To be encouraging weaving with every thread sticking out from the cloth and calling it free and beautiful - well, no. And the second antsy was large areas of deliberate skipped threads making the cloth structurally unsound. As Doe said in a comment on the last post many weavers who have taken to Saori are experienced weavers. In a way this practise is subverting the skills and standards many of us have taken many years to develop and it will reflect on us in the long run.
Some years ago when we ran a motor camp I had my loom in the office/shop and a shelf of work for sale. I remember a lady from Europe asking 'is this the stuff that falls apart'. I was very quick to assure her it wasn't. At the time someone was marketing scarves by weaving wide cloth and cutting it apart into scarves etc with no finishing on the edges and word had got as far as Germany to avoid it.
I think from now on I'll just talk about my own work on this blog and, boy have I been in a pickle this week. More later.
