Weaving

Our weaving workshop was one that greatly excited me and perfectly fit my interests. We started by learning about how weaving patterns are drafted, how patterns are created and followed, and how the floor loom is operated. Using a floor loom was something I’ve wanted to do for a while, and I was impressed by how simple it was to operate yet entirely mind-consuming to focus on the correct order.

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We then moved onto digital weaving using grasshopper. Rather than working one row at a time and weaving over and under every strand, the grasshopper script subdivided the “warp” into evenly spaced points, horizontally (along the “weft”) spaced the points above or below the “warp” alternatingly, then connected the points to create the “woven” “weft.” By altering the input lists, we were able to experiment with different variations of the twill weave.

Last year I already experimented with this weaving script to create the respective pavilion and bus shelter shown below. Although I was unaware of the pattern variations I could input, I did do my own slight variation in which I made both “warp” and “weft” weave above and below each other.

Following these two projects I created a lifesize woven structure using reed, creating a more organic form and surface pattern. I really enjoyed these projects and therefor found this workshop extremely helpful in my process. It was a great refresher on how weaving scripts work and an expansion upon what I already knew.