Akira Minagawa

Did you know that fairies live in Holland? I received a precious gift from one of them: a booklet from the exhibition at the Audax Textiel Museum in Tilburg - which gives you a glimpse into the world of Akira Minagawa.

"Indeed, Minagawa considers many industrial products unattractive because they lack the feeling of handicraft and workmanship. He believes that a product should have emotional value in addition to its functionality. A product and a design can only have emotional value if it has been paid loving attention and hence 'time' taken in its realisation.
For Minagawa this means that the hand of the designer or the fine, irregular, natural form is given expression in the fabric.
Only in this way can a product 'come to life', gain character and so contain 'a story'. According to Minagawa these elements are essential if a client is to build up an affectionate bond with the product."
from "mina perhonen fashion" by José Teunissen

This is an excerpt from one of the chapters - these words are so true when it comes to handweaving! - I know I am obviously partial to it, but Minagawa's vision sums up the beautiful process of weaving, from the time spent designing on a sketchbook to the hours of solitary concentration on warp and weft, until the moment you part from the finished object and the latter starts a new life in somebody else's hands.

Let's not talk about products. Let's talk about treasures.

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Today it took ages to thread the dummy warp...it's one of those days...
les contours du silence - lovely photos!

my lovely Halloween

Last Saturday it was also my birthday - and the first of a series of cookery lessons by my friend Nadia who is a chef and a great teacher and also a fellow weaver and spinner. After all the necessary explanations and cooking time we literally devoured the rice timballo and the croque monsieurs - this is always the best part of the course: when we get to eat the result of the recipes!
Also, thank you Margreet for the best birthday card ever!

spectrum

On a grey day like this I need colours - and possibly a whole lot of them!
The book below was from a great exhibition a few years ago at the Crafts Council in London.
I'm always amazed at Ann Sutton's work -

these days

I'm a distracted passenger on the Vespa with the hubby - there's a warm air and I'm taking blurry photos.

Love this necklace from Spinthread (via Field & Sea)

^__^

I am not very happy with the proportions of my prototype - I still need to adjust it: you don't want to look like you're wearing a bag of potatoes! And the colour of the fabric is not helping either - I'd love to have it dyed like these samples by Eva over at Tinctory

It's nice to be near the loom and all the little friends that inhabit the room with it - but there's a huge mess (that I'm obviously hiding to you) and I reckon a big clean up is on its way. Auf!

enjoying...

...these last days with my friend in town - next week she'll go back to Germany...
In the meantime we've been making prototypes for a woven shawl - pics coming soon!