How to Make Cloth

As manufacturing becomes more sophisticated we lose that link between everyday items and how they were made.  There is barely a trace of the farm in food that is precooked, prepared, preportioned and packaged.  Clothing is not just manufactured for fashion.  It can be engineered to have special properties, whether that is heat retention, moisture control or even anti-bacterial effects.  The materials that went into the cloth and its structure are unrecognizable to a lot of us

How sad it would be to loose touch with the basic crafts that underly so much for what we have today.  So, plant a garden and harvest your own tomatoes or spin some yarn and make cloth.

      

plain weave rag rug

Making cloth is not just a utilitarian occupation.  It is also a form of expression whether that is making your mark on the cloth you weave or using weaving to tell a story.   

Basic weaving is simply interlacing horizontal and vertical threads to form a sheet that holds together.  The magic is in what you choose to use as threads and how you choose to interlace them.

plain weave mug rugs

The beginner's plain weave mug rugs all started with the same plain warp but they differ depending on what the weaver chose to use as weft and how they chose to weave each piece.

The fundamental principles of weaving on a loom are the same no matter how sophisticated the loom may be.  So the first step in understanding how cloth is made is to learning how dress and operate a simple loom.

students busy at their looms

Once you are the master (or mistress) of the loom then the sky is the limit.  You can play with colour, texture, and pattern.  You can make a piece of art or an artful tea towel.

Artful tea towels

If you think you would like to try your hand at weaving then we give beginner lessons in our studio in Qualicum Beach.  The next set of lessons takes place May 3 to 5th.  Class size is limited and classes book up quickly.  

For more information check Workshops on our web site  https://qwsg.ca/workshops/