Woven Textile Designer, Handweaver
My pieces have now been hung in the Mall Galleries, London ready for the SDC show opening to the public on Friday, 12th August. I will be travelling up for the Private View tomorrow evening, 11th August.
For anyone who may be in London on Thursday 18th August, I would love to see you as I will be stewarding on that day.
Countdown to the Society Of Designer Craftsmen summer show at the Mall Galleries, London. Opens on 12 August. Exhibiting with them for the first time! More details here.
Work still in progress, winding wool warps destined for soft furnishing fabrics.
A full-on weekend leading and teaching on a special ‘Creative Weekend’ course to mark the 50th Anniversary of the Cotswolds AONB, which they titled: Weaving the Wonderful Cotswolds.
Day 1 was at Adam Henson’s Cotswold Farm Park, near Bourton-on-the-Water. I took the students on a farm walk to meet the rare breed sheep and be inspired by the colours and textures of their surrounds. They watched a shearing demo, then learnt the techniques of carding and spinning, turning white and coloured washed fleece into fabulous yarn with the Northleach Spinners and Weavers.
We then dyed wool yarn (which had been mordanted with Alum), using hand-spun from the Farm’s Cotswold sheep and commercially spun British Wool from Laxtons in Yorkshire. Using plant matter picked at the start of the day, we made dyes from Hawthorn, Cow Parsley and Nettle and produced a range of yellows which were over-dyed with colour from dried natural dyestuffs in blues, purples, reds, pinks and browns.
Day 2 we relocated to the Cotswolds AONB Discovery Centre at Northleach, where we got creative in the Old Victorian Court Room, weaving with the student’s fabulous hand-spun wool and the wool yarn they had dyed the previous day. Visual sources of inspiration were translated using card windings and paper weaving for colour and proportion into weave patterns using the rigid heddle and back-strap technique.
Amazingly creative beautiful pieces from these absolute beginners, don’t you think…
As a member of the Creative Forum, a group of multi-discipline creatives and artists in Gloucestershire, I was encouraged to do a presentation on ‘my textile practice’ at the last group meeting.
Not having done this before, I prepared 4 A4 sheets, headed: Background, Milestones, Current Practice and Future. The Milestones one was illustrated with samples which included my first weaving, my first exhibition piece, and my Bradford Textile Society competition successes.
One of my milestones, The Cambrian Mountains Wool Challenge, where I got to talk to HRH Prince Charles about me and my work!
My audience was very supportive and I really enjoyed (and found useful) the process of looking back and analysing my creative journey, and having to think about what I want moving forwards.
One of the lovely comments I had on Facebook:
Thank you Rebecca for a great talk about your weaving practice. It was really interesting and certainly you didn’t talk too long! Looking at all the different samples was a joy. Beautiful colours and textures! Seeing how other craftspeople and artists work and their experiences towards a creative line of work is, I think, very relevant to everyone even if they use a different approach or medium. Enjoyed it immensely!
Yes, I’m there! (well I will be there)
As a new Graduate Licentiate Member, I have been invited to exhibit at The Society of Designer Craftsmen’s show in the prestigious Mall Galleries in London.
The Society is undergoing some social media updating to give them a presence on Twitter and Facebook, so please follow.
Also the improved website will enable us members to promote our activities, show images of our work and to be contacted directly from the SDC web site, so watch this space as they say!
A very personal commission completed for the percussionist who has occupied the studio next to mine since I moved in last year. He will leaving shortly for a new job and travelling to exotic destinations! It has been truly magical to hear his music practice whilst I work. I designed this strap for a special Brazilian whistle he uses and hand-wove it on an Old English Inkle loom – I hope he will take pleasure in using it and telling the story of its origins.
The Cotswold AONB’s 2nd Sheep and Wool Day took place at their Visitors Centre in Northleach on Bank Holiday Monday. I was invited, along with my folding floor loom, to demonstrate the craft of weaving.
Local groups and businesses supported the event, bringing spinning wheels, home grown wool yarn and of course some Cotswold Sheep. To showcase local wools, I warped my loom with Lleyn from Abbey Home Farm’s flock and wove with Cotswold from Adam Henson’s Cotswold Farm
Always popular with children (and adults too), I brought a little loom so they could do some weaving which they could take home. The loom of choice for beginners, the rigid heddle and back-strap, was warped up ready to weave and many visitors had a go, amazing themselves at how good their weaving was!
I will be leading one of the Cotswold AONB’s 50th Anniversary Weekend Creative Courses in June, which will include weaving and natural dyeing.
I travelled up to Bradford with friend and fellow Bath Spa University Alumni, Rosie Smith, for the Bradford Textile Society Design Awards on 6th May. Entering the annual competition for the first time as Independent Designers, we both received a Commendation for our woven designs in British Wool.
In my designs I used wool from different sheep breeds in a range of thicknesses to weave fabric for ‘throws’ in two weights. The colours developed from working with a variety of natural yellow, red and grey dyes which I extracted from plant (or other) substances, layering one over another.
The samples were woven in my studio, by hand (and feet!) on my restored old wooden floor loom.
More information and images here
I was selected to show at New Designers, in June 2015, with fellow students from Bath Spa University’s BA (Hons) Textile Design course. The Journal for Weavers, Spinners and Dyers includes an article by Eve Alexander in their Winter 2015 edition, where she writes on the exhibits of 5 students, chosen on the strength of their weave collections which showcase designs in double-cloth.
The pieces of my work selected for New Designers were from my Degree Show, where I exhibited two collections: Natural Iceland and Urban Iceland.
See this page for more examples.
The four short-listed designers were all invited to the award ceremony not knowing who the actual winner would be. In the end, the winner was Wendy Kotenko from Cornwall and I was runner up!
It was a lovely event and many of the people I spoke to showed their appreciation for my design and how much they liked it.
The Bristol Cloth Award evening and Textile Mingle was hosted by Bristol Textile Quarter, with representatives from various collaborators including Botanical Inks, Dash and Miller and the newly established Bristol Weaving Mill. It was held at the Bristol harbour side ‘Lab Space’, as part of the events marking Bristol as European Green Capital 2015.
rebecca connolly design 