Shielagh Tacey Handwoven

A Christmas treat for your eyeballs, enjoy! See you all in 2012…

Animation by David Shrigley

I enjoy looking at the Guardian galleries for incredible photographs of current events. Recently I saw these photographs of weaving in Egypt related to this article and thought I should share them here. These photos are part of this Guardian Gallery, photographs by El-Dakhakhny/UNICEF UK.

Yarn bombing makes me smile! Here are some of my favourite yarn bombs on another one of my favourite things, bicycles.

Photos from Yarn Bombing on Facebook.

I’m away to London this week and very excited to finally be visiting my pal Rebecca Davies and Eva’s project at the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre.

LOOK HERE! for more information.

Lots of exciting events and workshops have been taking place including Saskia Pomeroy’s screen printing this week and this Saturday 16th April Plats will be working their magic. See you there…

Photos thanks to Rebecca and Eva.

I like well designed chairs and when I saw this chair design by alvidesign I was amazed by its beauty. Perhaps because it reminds me of my loom with the solid wooden structure and intricate threads crossing through it.

Below is another chair that is linked to weaving. It is designed by Richard Liddle who set up Cohda Design in 2006.

This chair is designed to be sustainable and is made by hand-weaving domestic plastic waste around a wooden structure. This also reminded me of my own kind of weaving, specifically winding thread around a warping board.

For more information visit Cohda Design or read an interview Richard Liddle did for embody3d here.

Handwoven magazine now have a page on Facebook – Look here! They have just posted up some old magazine covers from when Handwoven was called Interweave (Interweave now publishes a range of magazines). The one above is my favourite – idyllic bliss.

Currently I only have one copy of Handwoven and I am looking to source more – the old copies in particular. If you can help please get in touch here! Below is another intriguing cover:

I’ve been listening to a lot of Adam and Joe recently and then found this little video made by Nick White. There is even a snowman in it so I thought I’d use it to say Merry Christmas to you all and have a Happy New Year!

My shop is closed for the next few days but don’t fear it’ll be up and running again once I’m bored of mince pies and Christmas cheer.

I was just sent a link to this (thanks Paul) and needed to share it. These elaborate pigeons made by Laurel Roth are simply amazing:

See more here!

I’ve just been looking at my Aunt Fran Curran’s  Hartford Artisans Weaving Center website. Here’s a photo of the weaving centre I took when I was visiting, as you can see it is a fantastic place packed full of looms.

I found this page explaining the weaving process. I thought I’d post it up for those who are interested in finding out what is involved in weaving from winding the warp to beating the weft.

I am also going to use my blog to document my own weaving process from the start to finish of a project. To start with here’s a picture of a baby wolf loom with all the parts labelled. This is the sort of loom I have although mine does not have the castle shelf.

Marguerite Porter Davison‘s A Handweaver’s Pattern Book is a must have for all weavers.

I used this book endlessly when I was learning to weave and still use it as a reference when I begin projects. I also like the fact that due to the age of the book the patterns are in black and white and so it is up to the weaver to imagine colour effects. There are similar modern books but I don’t think anything else comes close.

A Handweaver’s Pattern Book is currently out of print, but can be bought second hand from Amazon.