Thank you for joining us for our 2nd
installment of the "Woven Waves: The Jutland Tapestries Online Events"
programme Today with Katie Russell,
the artist who produced this beautiful exhibition and beautiful tapestry
weavings and she's going to tell us about the ins and outs of weaving, we're going to learn about basically a little bit about the history of
tapestry weaving and also tapestry weaving within the UK and
Scotland and also what isn't tapestry weaving,
because sometimes people can confuse that, so hi Katie,
thanks for joining us today tell us a little bit about
why you love tapestry weaving and why this is the focus of your art
and your passion! I love tapestry weaving because it's tactile it's colorful,
it's something that's very personal it's unique
you can weave as little or as much as you want
and you can use a multitude of materials to weave and so it's a very flexible thing to do and really, despite it being a very
ancient traditional craft,
it can be you know easily brought into - the modern age
- When do people start weaving? Can you even say that? Were the
Egyptians doing it? Well,funny you mentioned the
Egyptians When I was in Denmark as part of
my research I did see
pieces of woven work and those were 3000 years old Oh my goodness But you also had weavings
from the viking eras and people who were buried
with their boats would quite often have woven fabric
from clothing and also even hair pieces or jewellery
that were also woven from plant fibers from all kinds of things, obviously
medieval times lots of - very large scale tapestries were done
- They lined property walls castle walls - and things like that didn't they?
- Yes warmth but also there was a sort of grandeur you know if
you had the best tapestry and all that
for kings and queens and everything but
they were good in that they could be rolled up and transported
to the next residence Handy Handy yes, so yeah but the weaving has developed through the
time through centuries,
sometimes it's been for wall hangings other times it's been
for objects different cultures have used tapestry
weavings as purely decorative items other cultures have used tapestry weavings as quite
functional and household items, you know different
countries approach it differently sometimes as well
but over time you know the textile area,
textile field is huge and it's very wide and varied
so the tapestry weavings that I've done in the exhibition.
these are using traditional techniques traditional coptic techniques that would
have been used in medieval times - whereby all the warp is covered
- Could you tell us about what's - the vertical?
- Yeah that's the vertical line which is the base of the tapestry weaving - on the loom
- Yeah you have to with the tapestry weaving you form the base
and you form the surface effectively and you weave under and over
those warp that go - vertically
- A little bit like this? Yeah it's under over and you gradually build up what is
effectively becomes a fabric and so
and that's how things were woven these huge tapestries that you see in places
except there would have been teams of people working on these tapestries the word tapestry is very flexibly used.
Tapestry is also can be used, well is used for things like
embroidery but embroidery comes with already a fabric which has been woven as a cloth So like needlepoint? Yes, so all the person is doing
stitching and using various techniques because within embroidery itself there
are a multitude of techniques and so that is very different to actually tapestry weaving and same with you know cross stitch already you have a surface there
and then you're adding a surface to it Whereas with tapestry weaving everything
is from scratch you're doing You're starting from scratch
and it's the tapestry thing it's just been,
it's just been a word that has become sort of vague, murky changed over time so you will hear of -
a lot of people know obviously about The Great Tapestry of Scotland
that went - that has changed venues - from time to time
- What's depicted on there there again? Can you tell us a little bit about it Katie? The history it does have,
things about the likes of Mary Queen of Scots - leading historical figures - Yeah Buildings, palaces, all about the
history of Scotland basically throughout the ages Like a visual kind of historical account? yeah and it's
all made up of panels - It's incredibly impressive to see
- I take it you've seen it in the flesh? Yes I have seen it and it is worth seeing but
that that hasn't been woven No? That's been embroidered and
it was incredible to see because the amount of
work that went into that was just stunning, - I'm hoping that a lot
of - well actually I know a lot of people took up a lot crafts during lockdown
because they had more time on their hands and obviously tapestry weaving's a very good craft to take up because it is
quite time consuming but also - very rewarding I should think
- Well it depends entirely on what it is you're doing
and so it doesn't have to take up hours and hours and hours
it can be quite simple and effective depending on what you weave So I mean, you know
all you need is a small frame and you don't need to acquire tonnes
and tonnes of yarns So it's not like -
you don't need to acquire a specialized studio and lots of
tools and equipment for You can make a loom out of paper can't
you? Yep, I recall learning tapestry weaving using a shoebox in primary school
- Oh, that's amazing! Yeah or frames, picture frames and so there are different ways you know they're different forms of
weaving different ways of weaving and there's a whole host of things that
you can find online tips and hints and because a lot of
people have been obviously taking up crafts and
tapestry weaving is well like a lot of creative things,
it's good for the mind - and it's very good for mental health as well
- Yeah, well-being I remember you saying to me when we were putting the exhibition together that
at one point tapestry weaving was at risk in the UK, could you explain
a little bit about that? Yeah, a few years ago, a number of
years ago tapestry weaving was one of the crafts
that came up on the Heritage Crafts Endangered List. The organization
heritage crafts compiles lists of crafts that are
at risk and where there are very few people who can teach
that craft and and they have also lists of ones that have been taken
off the red, really at risk because there are
more people teaching So they are literally,
basically at risk of dying out with the people who are teaching that craft? If the numbers of people who
teach the crafts declines in the future then tapestry weaving
would be in the at-risk category and it's slightly well not ironic is the word
but there are a lot of heritage crafts that are actually linked in
with the maritime field Yeah, we've got the Boatbuilding School Yeah, very specialist crafts specialist techniques
and some of these are at risk so tapestry even thankfully
in Britain, we've managed to acquire - more people who are teaching
- Yeah there seems to be a bit of a resurgence isn't there?
I know someone who is actually - she's built her own vertical tapestry weaving loom she built her own loom and she's used scaffolding so there's this
kind of modern feel to this old craft so it's really interesting to see these new
takes on a very like, like you said thousands of years old craft Yeah, I had a scaffold loom before I got the wooden loom and I've still got a scaffold loom in the garage so I'll be bringing that out when I need to do a longer weaving Oh brilliant, brilliant Yeah so it's always it's usually handy to have a couple
of wee a couple of frames or wee looms on
the go but I mean you know the
weaving can be done in many ways and it doesn't need to be an incredibly expensive hobby to take on really Hello what i'm going to do here is to
do a woven sampler using colours
from the multibeam scans I'm making a start to brilliant blue
and it's like a kingfisher blue almost I have tied a basic knot first of all
and then I'm going to do a half hitch so pull that down firmly
then I'm going to do a second half hitch here and then one again
so two half hitches on each warp now the warp is cotton
and the warp basically is vertical but also you can see
that I've taken the warp horizontally and that is to help form
a base in which the weft will sit on all the weft
which is wool that I'm using will be packed down onto that
to secure it. Without doing these knots then the weaving will fall away, it would just sort of unravel Now all we do is, we do under over, under
over. Just take the weft under
a few warps at a time don't go all the way along,
sometimes that leads you to perhaps pulling too much if you pull too much on the sides then sometimes you get a bit of a curve
to the side and so it's important just to relax your
hands and arms when you're weaving. Initially you can see the warp showing through that's normal to start off with but as you work your way up the weaving
then the warp disappears Here I'm introducing one strand of
blue a lighter blue again, just tucking that under. Now making it a bit lighter
two strands of blue light blue and one dark firmly packing down some weavers use a bobbin. I'm just using
a wooden bobbin it's got a brass tip to it I'll just do a bit of plain blue. So I've tucked that under again
under over and over but what i'm going to do is do a few rows of some knotting just to help break this up and make it look a bit more interesting so I'm doing, I've just done one half hitch i'm just doing one half inch on each knot, on each weft or warp rather That's just a bit of texture to it. And what I'll do is then, i'll just do
under over. The knotting that I've been doing there
that's referred to Soumak knotting. Now i'm going to bring in green, because I feel a green a highly suitable colour to go with blue. As I work my way up, I am going to be
getting warmer in color. With the numbers
of strands of weft you can see the beading is very
much raised here in contrast now I've deliberately made it that way
because I want it to stand out so that the colour blending can be seen, the different colours. Now to finish off the knotting is just exactly the same
as you did at the beginning just one knot and then a half hitch
at the top and you can push down with your fingers. Although this is a very small sampler not all samplers have to be like this samplers can be different
shapes, sizes it's a play around with ideas experimenting and it's good, a visual diary in a way and what quite often do is just tie a
luggage tag sometimes to it and just make a date, write a date on it
just to remind myself of when I actually wove this piece because it's useful to go back and
think when you wolf this. So that's us nearly at the end and finally the two half hitches onto there and that's
a woven sampler just using plain color and blended there's some knotting obviously at the start but also central and at the end the knotting is chunkier here because
I've added more strands in there but it still gives quite an interesting technique. The raised surfaces sometimes can appear more raised if you
have used lots of different colors but it's a
really interesting way of just exploration of color. So thank you for watching this and I'll tidy this up
and then show you the back of the weaving. Right, that is the
woven sampler cut off that's the front of it and
you can see the warp here sticking out no evidence of that actually in the
weaving if I turn over what I've done
is I've trimmed and cut the weft and the sides
although they're sticking out just now they can be stitched back
and no problem for samplers I tend to just leave them sort of a bit
straggly at the back because it means I can go back
and then get an idea of the colours that I was using so that's always useful. Samplers are weavings in their own right so they can be stand-alone pieces the warp you can either
pleat back, knot you know you can finish it off in a
number of ways usually I put masking tape or knot it on to other warp on the loom when i'm doing a weaving so it depends on the project
that I'm working on but a fantastic wee exploration,
samplers give so many ideas and this one I've just created
from looking at colors from the scans some of these ideas I will take into
looking at underwater and some of these i'll take into looking
at water above the surface So I hope this has been
interesting I've enjoyed it and I hope
it maybe gives you ideas or you're maybe tempted
to have a go yourself, please do. So thank you for talking to us today
about weaving tapestry weaving actually and how you
how you produce your work . I was just wondering
if you want to tell people who are watching this video, If they were interested in doing tapestry weaving where online would you direct them to learn more about it? If anybody is interested in tapestry weaving and pursuing that
investigating it just you know wanting to find out that wee
bit more the main British organization and that
specialises is the British Tapestry Group
and they have a website They're on social media, they're on twitter,
instagram, facebook and they have a huge variety of tapestry weavers of tapestry weavers and who have been
weaving for different lengths of time. On the website there's a showcase where you can have a look at different weavings, it also gives you links to tapestry waivers who give lessons who teach and and they will also give
you links to places maybe in your region
or wherever you are to people who may be willing to teach locally
and obviously currently things are a bit strange so next year would be more appropriate but there are a lot of weavers
who can be found online and through the social media
sites of the British Tapestry Groups who will
do lessons online - Amazing
- That's a good port of call to start off with Fantastic, well once again Katie thank you so much for joining us today
it's been really interesting and I hope whoever's
watched this, they either get to come to the museum in Irvine and see your work,
see "Woven Waves: The Jutland Tapestries" or maybe catch it at our Dumbarton site
or if not, they can just make their own loom out of a shoebox and get
started! Make their own exhibition! Well, erm, I don't know about a shoebox! But no, I hope people enjoy the exhibition
and learn a bit more about the Battle of Jutland
really and you know learn a bit more about the craft of
weaving and the importance of creativity
and education and what i've tried to do is to get an
exhibition for all ages so it's not just children but adults as
well Yeah, I really think the exhibition
incorporates history, art and science so there
really is something for everyone. This is one
of the series of 3 videos so we've talked to nautical archaeologist Dr Innes McCartney about the multibeam scans of the shipwrecks from the Battle of Jutland and then also we will be interviewing you
about the exhibition as a whole so that will be really great if people want to watch that and learn more about not just tapestry weaving but in the context of the exhibition and the Battle of Jutland and "Woven Waves" so we'll see you then Katie, thanks very much for joining
us today Ok, thank you very much Nicola
