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Creative craft collaborations between textiles, fashion and jewellery – Anna Champeney, American Perez, David Poston and Jonathan Cleaver (Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh)

Anna Champeney Estudio Textil will lead a creative design course for fine art and fashion students at the University of Vigo in Pontevedra (Galicia) in collaboration with Barcelona-based fashion duo American Perez.  The workshop takes place at ESDEMGA (Estudos Superiores en Deseño Textil e Moda da Galiza) in the fine arts faculty in Pontevedra between the – 4 – 6 July 2011.

The workshop aims to bring together the worlds of creative weaving and fashion, taking advantage of the new surge of interest in craft which has been a surprising side-effect of economic recession in Europe.  The workshop will give students, most of whom will never have used a loom in their lives before, an introduction to weave, with the ambitious challenge of creating small textile objects to incorporate into their fine art or fashion design work.  Anna Champeney, English-born weaver settled in Galicia, north Spain, is ideally placed to work with Spanish fashion designers.  For strange though it may seem, Galicia – best known for the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage route – is actually one of the fashion capitals in Spain and home to the creators of both Zara and Adolfo Dominguez.

American Perez are a young fashion duo, winners of the L’Oreal prize for fashion at Cibeles (the Spanish equivalent of London  Fashion Week) in 2010, whose inspiration is clearly American culture, from cheerleaders to hippies.

American Perezdseño de American Perez

www.americanperez.com

Expressive textile work from Anna Champeney Estudio Textil

Loom weaving is such a vast area to explore there are infinite possibilities for both functional and reflective and conceptual work.   Anna Champeney  Estudio Textil is working on a new series of pieces, some using unexpected materiales, such as cellophane bags, which use weave as a medium for expressing ideas as well as experimenting openly with traditional techniques to produce quite unexpected results.

Left – “Uncertainty” – installation piece, silk and wool with natural dyes, cellophane bags

Right – “Homage to Ikat” series in rep weave, 100% linen

pieza experimental Anna champeney homage to ikat I



Colour work at Anna Champeney Estudio Textil – Cochineal from Lanzarote

muestrario de tinte natural de cochinilla de lanzarote (Anna champeney Estudio textil)

The sheer range and quality of colour used in the textiles from the studio is clearly reflected in this latest series of colour samples.  Over 130 different tones have been achieved on silk and wool, giving a huge range of choice.  It is not the same to choose an orange-red or a pinky-red in an art textile and much depends on the weaver´s ability and skill to choose and mix particular tones.  Natural dyes give complex  colours which are unsually unmatched by synthetic dyes and all the yarns used at the textile studio are extracted by hand.

If you are in north Spain on 20 – 21 August you can learn to make your own sampler of cochineal in a course, or alternatively, you can order natural Lanzarote cochineal direct from us.  Contact us for details.


Casa y Campo – “House and Country” magazine– Feature on Lluis Grau, Spanish basketmaker

Casa y Campo Julio 2011Articulo sobre Lluis Grau en Casa y Campo

In the July 2011 edition of Spain´s equivalent to Country Living magazine, you can find an article featuring my partner, Lluis Grau´s basketry.

Lluis is a specialist in Spanish split wood and willow basketry forms  and he offers a one-week course for beginners in July.  Contact us for details.

Creative collaboration between British artist jeweller David Poston and art weaver (tapestry) Jonathan Cleaver (Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh)


david poston jeweller collect jonathan cleaver
jewellery and tapestry collaboration between david poston con jonathan cleaver


So you thought woven tapestry was flat???  This elegant work by David Poston and Jonathan Cleaver is subtle, rich and understated, and really shows how successful collaborations between very different areas of making can be.  The series of works was shown at Collect, London´s foremost show of contemporary applied arts.

Craft markets and events in Galicia north Spain – Next eco-art flea market at Monforte de Lemos (Galicia) – 10 July 2011

If you find yourself in Galicia, north Spain this summer then come to visit us at Monforte de Lemos.  Lluis Grau and Anna Champeney have a stall every second Sunday of the month.  The eco-art event is by the main tourist attraction of Monforte, the Colegio de los Escolapios (where you can park easily) next to the river.  As usual, you can see and buy our textiles and baskets as well as craft kits and materials.

Collapse Weave video link from Anna Champeney Textile Studio

New video link of collapse weave!  Pleated, crinkled and specially-textured fabics are all possible with the exciting technique of collapse weave, promoted in the wonderful book for hand-weavers, Magical Materials by Danish master weaver Lotte Dalgaard as well as in the the publication Collapse Weave by Anne Field.

collapse weave scarf by Anna Champeney

Collapse weave technique using active and stable yarns (scarf by Anna Champeney Textile Studio)

Here you can follow a video link to a video on YouTube showing Spanish-based weaver Anna Champeney, pupil of Lotte Dalgaard, demonstrating the technique and yarns used, to show you the kind of textiles that are possible.  In the video clip Anna uses supertwisted wool yarn available from Handweavers´ Studio and the Danish Yarn Purchasing Association, in conjunction with 12/2nm linen as warp and an incredibly fine 100/1nm line (100,000m/k) as weft.  A limited stock of this unusually fine linen weaving yarn is currently available directly from Anna Champeney textile studio (26,50€ for approx. 260g).

Buy 100/1 nm linen yarn online.

Collapse weave video with Anna Champeney

Buy Magical Materials book by Lotte Dalgaard

Additional information about collapse weave textiles by Lotte Dalgaard, Danish master weaver

Other linen yarns available from ACEstudio Textil

Exclusive collapse textiles from ACEstudio Textil

Many thanks to Diana and James Jackson who who  visited the Textile Studio from the UK and recorded this impromptu video – in just one take – of Anna at work in her studio and uploaded the video to Youtube

100% pure lambswool with natural dyes – yarns for hand-weavers – new course dates for natural dyeing and loom weaving – holidays in Spain with a difference

New – natural-dyed lambswool yarn for weaving

naturally dyed yarns for sale for hand-weaversWe are now starting to sell naturally-dyed lambswool yarns for weaving.  The yarns are the same as we use in our own hand-woven textile range and also in our weaving and dyeing courses and are available in 3 different thicknesses.  All are suitable as warp and weft for weaving projects but can also be used in other textile crafts.  The 4/14nm is the chunkiest and the 2/14nm the finest (makes wonderfully soft scarves).  The current stock is dyed with Lanzarote cochineal but we are also able to dye to order with other natural dyes for larger quantities.  Dyed yarns are sold in large skeins of around 85 – 100g each.  We will be launching our natural-dyed yarns this month in our local fleamarket or rastro in Monforte de Lemos (Lugo province, Galicia, north Spain) (Sunday 12 June) but keep looking at our online shop as we hope to have the yarns featured there  in due course.  In the meantime, if you would like to purchase any of the yarn, contact us by email.  If you would like to try natural dyeing yourself then we also sell the yarn undyed, on cones, and as ready-wound skeins, complete with ready-weighed fixer (alum mordant) and instructions (in Spanish – but let us know if you need them in English too so we can prepare them for you).

pack of 5 lambswool skeins for dyeing with natural dyes


New dates for summer natural dyeing course for beginners on 20 and 21 August 2011 (course given in Spanish but we can always help out by translating terms if you don´t understand everything  )

Several people asked if there could be another introduction to natural dyeing course – in the summer – so here it is.   More information on the Spanish version of the blog here.  Intermediate level Spanish is sufficient to be able to participate.

Results of our short, intensive scarf weaving course for complete beginners – 5/6 June 2011 in Anna Champeney Textile Studio, north Spain

fi and maria weavemaria´s scarffi weavesJust have a look at these lovely soft scarves designed and hand-woven by weave pupils Fiona and Maria on their first weave course last weekend here at the textile studio.  You can see that there is no need to copy anyone elses design when you follow your instincts:  Fiona´s and Maria´s personalities and individual tastes have automatically transfered themselves onto the woven cloth they created.    Both scarves used our new 2/14nm natural dyed lambswool yarn as warp and apart from the fact that one warp had just one pink and the other had two pinks they were identical.  But the two scarves are very different in feel.

Fiona created a subtle, light-weight scarf by using  tussah silk singles dyed with indigo (light blue) and liquen (mauve) as weft in her light checked scarf.  The result was cool and understated and went well with her paler skin tone.  Maria´s scarf was woven with mainly lambswool in the weft, for a warmer scarf.  She combined the raspberry pink warp dyed with cochineal with another tone of cochineal – a bright saturated orangey-red as warp, plus details of a cool mauve, to create a scarf with a zingy spicey colourway which worked well against her different, olive skin.

Weaving your own linen fabric – ideal for lace makers, crocheters

linen fabric for lace makersMonica, a pupil of mine, sent me this photo of the linen fabric she wove in her first weave course at Anna Champeney Estudio Textil, north Spain, using linen, which she then embellished beautifully with her own hand-made lace edging.  Weaving with linen is not that difficult – this 5-day course has been run successfully with complete beginners for over 5 years now without any problems.  So if you would like to learn to weave with linen – to make your own towels, cushions, clothing or table runners then there are still places in our 5-day intensive course in July.  Weaving your own linen table runner or scarf to embellish with lace or crochet is far more fun than buying it.  As with our other courses, Spanish is the main course language but we can always provide language support in English.  For more information (in Spanish) click here.