The Weaving is very slow but...

I am finally back at the loom but the pace of weaving is glacial! My biggest problem is one I always have when I've had a break.  I simply loose the ability to concentrate long enough to sit at the loom and weave for extended periods.  As well, there has been heaps to take care of in terms of the Handweavers Guild (I am still President), and that adds to my distractibility.

Nevertheless, I do have a double weave warp on the loom and am 3 mats in to a set of 6 placemats for my own dining table.  The neat thing about double weave is that you can have so much fun switching the layers as you weave.  in fact, that's such a part of the enjoyment that I am weaving each mat differently.

The bad thing about double weave is that you essentially warp up twice and then have to weave both layers so that to weave 2 rows, you've actually had to do 4 rows worth of lifts.  For this reason, these would not be suitable as a commercial product; I just couldn't charge enough for the time spent, but they're worth doing as a personal project, or maybe an exhibition piece.

 So here are detail shots of the first three mats.  As you can see, I'm just having fun playing.

Coming up at the end of this week is the opening, at the Wallace gallery in Morrinsville, of the Professional Weavers Network "Cloak" exhibition.  This is it's third and final showing, having started in June at Pataka Gallery in Porirua, and then at Oxford, just out of Christchurch, and now its northernmost showing.  I have a cloak in the show and I promise I'll take photos at the opening and post them next week.