Selected Work

2020

This collection was inspired by a trip to Chennai, India to attend a friends wedding, where I was transfixed by the colour, texture and vibrancy of the place and the occasion. This is my response to what I experienced.

This collection, titled “Indian Days” was woven in a fibre that mixes cotton and linen in the same fibre, cottolin. Cottolin weaves up beautifully and is the perfect fibre to wear for those who have issues wearing wool, its light, soft and drapes really well. These pieces were woven at 22 ends per inch and each piece was woven at 2.20m in length by 0.30cm.

2019

This collection, titled “MQ19” again used the same “X” motif from last years collection, with some refinement and the colour-ways utilised were based of the colours used by the British designer Mary Quant in her collections throughout the 60’s and the 70’s.

The collection came in two differing sizes, a large square and an extra large blanket scarf.

2018

After a period of extended research I produced two very different collections utilising the same “X” motif. This motif was self generated and hand woven in a durable Cheviot yarn to produce a limited edition range of mid-century modern styled footstools. For this collection I worked collaboratively with Edinburgh based Wee Collective to upholster the footstools and local wood-turner Tony King to commission the hand turned the beech legs for each piece.

The wearable collection of hand woven snoods utilising the same “X” weave structure, with a 2/2 twill selvedge was woven in two differing sizes in merino lambs wool at 16 e/p/i giving a lovely drape to the handle of the finished pieces.

2017

For the years collection, titled “Decadance” I choose to revisit earlier weave structures where I was looking at floats in the warp and the weft to give texture and coupling it with the idea of playing with fringing on the selvedge from the collection woven in 2017.

2015

This collection further investigated the idea of having two or three patterns in the one cloth in both the warp and the weft. These included 2/2 and 1/3 twills as well as simple over shots pattern. This collection consisted of large ombre wraps as well as two sizes of scarves, which were very block like in their appearance. I also began to explore how to fringe the long selvedges of the pieces.

Following on from the idea of having two patterns within the same cloth I also produced a collection of snoods, which were woven as a double cloth snood using the same 1/3 twill and over shots pattern in the scarf pieces.

All collections were hand woven in merino lambs wool and finished in a light hand wash.

2014

In this collection I explored getting additional pattern into my pieces whilst still working with floats to give texture in the warp and the weft, through this process I went on to look at differing overshot patterns and how one could combine two or three patterns to produce combinations off.

Both collections were hand woven in merino lambs wool.

2008

Enjoying the felt like finish that was achieved in the previous collection, this collection goes on to explore this further with a series of, again super long scarfs utilising merino lambs wool in the both the warp and the weft. This collection also looks at how the use of differing sized blocks along with the shrink qualities of the woven yarn effected/altered the structure of the cloth as evidenced in the ripple like sections of the selvedge.

2007

For the 2007 collection of super long scarfs, I opted for using a merino lambs wool in the warp and weft, with a small amount of mercerised cotton in the warp in a contrasting colour. I enjoyed the properties of differential shrinkage in the previous years collection and felt that there was milage in exploiting this further further and this collection is the result of this exploration. Pieces were finished at a higher temperature to exacerbate the differing shrink qualities of the yarns used.

2006

For this collection I again opted to play with floating blocks in both the warp and the weft, however a radical change in materials resulted in a very different and dramatic visual look to the finished fabrics.

The warp for these scarf pieces was made up of a merino lambs wool and mercerised cotton and the weft of a plied mercerised cotton and a heat reactive polyester yarn which created a delightful “scribble” when floated across the warp.

2005

This collection takes it lead from previous collections, but differs with the introduction of new yarn choices in the warp, dip dyed silk linen, linen and cotton. Shetland yarn was again used throughout as a weft to great effect in playing with differential shrinkage in the finishing process.

This collection was represented through a series of large scale scarf pieces.

2004

Building on the success of the previous years collection, this collection further developed the idea of layering through the use of large blocks over 24 shafts in Shetland Yarns in a differing colour palette of rusty browns and indigo blues.

2003

Handwoven in a variety of Shetland Yarns, this collection looked at large blocks and how they could be utilised through having floats in the warp and weft to describe shape, form and layering. This collection contained large scale wraps as well as scarf pieces.