Monday, September 14, 2015

Ardalanish

This is the first of many many many overdue blog posts. Hopefully I'll actually write the others soon...

While on the Isle of Mull, I had the pleasure of visiting the Ardalanish weavers. I hopped on a bus in the morning, got off in the pouring rain, and walked a few miles down the road following the windblown signs. When I got there, I received a warm welcome. This was the first time I had ever seen a mechanized loom, and I was very excited about it. Especially about seeing the punch cards with the programs for the weft color changes. (If you haven't picked up on it yet, "Katie being excited" is one of the major themes of this year)

Just as interesting, however, were all the pieces of the process that I hadn't considered at all. In retrospect, you'd think that I would've wondered how they get the warps into the long rolls for the looms, but I'd never even thought about it. Maybe I thought they just came ready to go, the way the loom kit I had as a child did?


But no! There is this fascinating machine that allows them to string out the warp strands (in many different colors) and wind them onto a roll that will be attached to the loom. It was somewhat startling to me to suddenly consider the magnitude of weaving: several thousand strands of several hundred meters each adds up to a lot of wool. Even when it isn't as thick as the strands used for knitting, this still means using many cones of wool for each bolt of fabric. Then there is the process of pulling each strand through the loom itself. 


And even as I as impressed at how fast he was working (this was started when I arrived about an hour before the picture) I learned that there is a shortcut. Instead of pulling each strand through individually, you can tie them to the strands from an old pattern and pull the entire set through at once. While it doesn't sound like a big difference, even tying several hundred knots is much faster than locating each eyelet. Once the warp is all set, it's time to consider the weft. This is where programming comes in! A program is constructed out of a series of links to control which shuttle, and thus which color, is used for each row of the weft. 

Once it's all ready, you put on your headphones to protect against the noise and start weaving. As long as I stayed back ("see those holes in the wall? those are from a loose shuttle...we don't want one in your head") I could watch the loom chug along and the fabric wind around the roll. It seems almost like magic to me, even after seeing the whole process, that a few strands of color can produce such intricate designs. 


And beautiful too! I quite enjoyed looking through their shop at all the beautiful scarves and blankets. 

But perhaps the best thing about my entire visit to Ardalanish is that is has followed me around Scotland. It gave me the background to ask better questions when I arrive in the Outer Hebrides, and several times I have run into people who used to work there. Both in Skye and in Shetland I have described my interest in weaving, mentioned I visited Mull, and received wonderful stories about what it was like to live and work there. Indeed, when I mentioned that the kind gentleman who is threading the loom in the photo above had woken me up when I nearly missed my bus stop on the way home, the Skye weaver laughed and proceeded to show me his entire warping set up. It had been constructed from recycled materials (and a lot of ingenuity) mostly contributed by this same gentleman: the weaver who trained those working at Ardalanish. It seems that his kindness extends well beyond jet-lagged travelers wandering around the island. I was quite lucky to have a brief conversation with him before I fell asleep, about which places he would visit if he were to travel the world to study weaving. And while I won't be visiting the Navajo this year (maybe next?), I seem to have already landed on several of his top destinations! Good thing or I'd be considering switching up my itinerary...


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