Making string

Hi I'm back; I haven't been away physically but have been working on ideas, plans and samples for an exhibition I am participating in next year so have not done any experimental work for a while.  I have now started taking part in a workshop at Pepper Street, with basketry and netting.  This first week we made string from plant material; this is a traditional skill world wide.  It is very simple; tie two strips together at the top; bend the right strip back up to the right, then return it to the straight position and bring over the left strip; repeat endlessly.  It is quick and easy, but I found after a while my fingers started to hurt, because I get arthritis in them, so it is something to do in between other tasks that don't affect the fingers so much.  Also you do get to find the natural way to hold and fold the plant material.

This is the coil of string I made, taking about half an hour.

©Christine Linton

You probably can work a lot quicker once you get into the swing of it.

Close up of the string 

©Christine Linton

We also did some coiling which I will show in my next post.  The workshop is run by Lizzie Emery.

Experimental crochet

A couple of years ago I learnt how to make spirals in crochet, and I used that technique to make a fringe on a scarf that I crocheted.  Last week, I used that knowledge in my experimenting.  I gathered up all the dyed string I could find and tied it together in a ball.  This is string that I used when I was pole-wrap shibori dyeing some fabric last year for my college assignment.  Most of it was a greenish colour but some was yellow and rust.  The dye was Procion dyes; these are chemical dyes but I have never had problems with them and I am careful about not inhaling the powder and wear gloves as well.

Anyway, this string had been waiting for me to use it.  I was making some spirals for another piece and tried the string.  The result was too bulky for the piece but I really liked the clunky look and thought I'd show it here.  The ends where I tied smaller pieces together add to the raggy effect I like to use in my work.

spiral crochet, dyed string

©Christine Linton

Naturally I did some blog surfing to find some more experimental crochet, and was blown away to find these wonderful works of extraordinary crochet art which I hope you will admire as much as I did.

Experimental weaving - a string page

One of the experiments I did recently was weaving with plain string.  I made a page for a book by using some old wire as an outline approx A4 size; then I did irregular weaving with string, making sure not to have a neat grid.  I left all the tied off ends loose.  Then I melted some encaustic wax paints, and brushed them over the weaving.  You can see it is sitting on foil I recycled from microwaving potatoes, this foil just becomes discoloured but is usually quite clean and peels off from the wax easily.  Once the wax was dry I sewed on some bread tag beads.

Woven string page, painted with encaustic, bread tag beads - irregular weaving

Now, I have spent ages searching for a link to extend this post for you, trying to find some experimental weaving or weaving with string that wasn't regular and wasn't on a loom.  Spirit Cloth has some very interesting weaving posts, this is one of them.  Apart from Spirit Cloth and Windthread , who also have fascinating philosophical slants to their artwork, I can't find blogs or websites with what I'm interested in which is something different, not weaving on a loom, not nice neat stuff.