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Casa dos Artesans Holiday Cottage and Craft Workshops – Encouraging a New Generation of Young Hand-Weavers and Basketmakers with Children´s Craft Activities and Holiday Workshops in Ourense Craft Fair 2010

anna champeney con una tejedora jovenIs craft education important for kids? At Casa dos Artesans, the holiday cottage in Galicia (north Spain) with craft activities and courses, we think it is.  I was writing an article, last week, about Lotte Dalgaard (the fine Danish fabric weaver and designer) who learned to weave when just 13 or 14 years old. She was just one Danish teenager to enjoy craft activities for kids and other extracurricular activities at the Danish “After Schools”. Lotte loved weaving as a kid so much that she rebelled against her parents´ wishes for her to pursue a more academic career – and went on to become one of Denmark´s finest weavers. I wonder, had Lotte not had the chance to weave as a child, perhaps she would never have become a professional weaver.

Later in the week, on Saturday 1 May 2010 – I spent the day doing interactive weaving demonstrations for children at Ourense Craft Fair (my local city in Galicia, north Spain, where I live), together with my partner, Lluis, who was offering a willow fish workshop!  Girls and boys – from just 3 years old upwards – flocked to our stand to have a go on my Louet 4-shaft table loom and convert skeins of hand-dyed yarn into balls, using a ball winder and umbrella swift.  Even the 3 year olds were able to pass the shuttle, and in amongst the many 6 – 8 year old boys and girls keen to have a go there were a few who quite exceptional, picking up the skills very quickly and working very well.   You can see in this blog post, from the photos,  just how engaged the children were, and how much they enjoyed themselves.  What I didn´t photograph were the proud parents relaxing in the background whilst watching their children!!!

As for me, I remember my first experience of hand-weaving well.  I was 8 or 9 years old and my art teacher showed me how to weave basic cloth out of a simple frame loom made out of 4 pieces of wood and some nails.  Although craft wasn´t considered (really) a real “career choice” at my school (I was funneled into following a more academic further education) I re-trained in my late twenties and early thirties, to become a hand-weaver.  I do wonder whether it was partly my positive experiences of craft as a child, which led me, eventually, to set up my hand-woven fabric studio here in north Spain.


Offering children the chance to experience craft first hand is important today, which is one reason why we offer activities for families with children who choose a holiday at our self-catering holiday cottage – Casa dos Artesans (Galicia, Spain). 


Whether you are a parent or teacher, and whether you see craft as developing children´s co-ordination, providing a more physical and creative alternative to video games and TV, or allowing them to follow their innate creativity, there is no doubt that craft work contributes to healthy development.  But, as parents or teachers, you may also be helping to create a new generation of professional craft makers in the future.  As the example of Lotte Dalgaad and many other makers today shows us;  enjoying craft as a child may open the door to becoming a professional craft maker in the future. 


So, well done to Pablo and Javier, Carlota, Eva, Irima, and all the children (and their parents) who had a go and we hope to see you again!


Weaving Assistant Kathleen McCormick on Learning To Weave in Spain

An intensive 3-week weave course or Textile Assistantship at Anna Champeney Textile Studio in Galicia, north Spain enabled Kathleen McCormick to turn weaving into a part-time career in Ireland.  Here she tells us about the experience .


l-r Kathleen with fellow assistant Tracey and Anna Champeney and final work produced during the assistantship
What made you choose to do the 3-week Textile Assistantship in Anna Champeney Estudio Textil in Spain, as opposed to a conventional beginners´ weave course? I wanted to become immersed in the whole process and world of hand-weaving.  Another factor which influenced me was knowing – from a previous visit – that the studio was in an attractive setting in Spain.  I had got to know Anna through a previous visit and I fell in love with Galician Felpa (loop-pile) weaving.  Also, I had met Anna´s partner, basketmaker Lluis Grau, and so I was able to combine weaving tuition with basketry. You have been a professional basketmaker in Ireland for many years.
What attracted you to weaving on a loom? I used to spin my home-grown fleece from my own sheep.  I hand-dyed it but could only use it by knitting it.  When I discovered that I could learn to weave this opened up a whole new world to me.  Now I could do something with the homespun fleece and dye wool to my requirements.  On the course we did some natural dyeing – which I already knew about, albeit in a somewhat haphazard way.  Anna taught us to chronicle what we did and how we came to get the resultant colour.  Anna also taught us to use other dyes.  I now dye Irish fleece in white, mid-grey and dark Jacob´s fleece.
What did you learn during the three-week assistantship course? What didn´t I learn is the question on the three weeks of the assistantship???  One of the really important things I learned, which is very personal, is that “no-one could take this from me” – meaning that I was actually there, I was actually doing this course and the value of it would always be with me, whatever life threw at me.  I learned discipline in work methods – Keeping time is essential (being up early and at the textile workshop is a very important thing), but then Tracey, my co-assistant, and I  both had a good work ethos.  I learned about the history of Spanish felpa weaving and some of the social structure of the women who not only wove the felpa bedcovers but also grew the flax for the linen yarn.  I learned about the structure of weaving.  Making a warp on the warping mill and the method of warping a loom (one of several methods), weaving various patterns which I found very difficult due to age and lack of ability to retain patterns in my memory beyond two minutes, and several different fabric finishing techniques.  Anna gave us tasks she would have done herself thus giving us a good view of the life of a professional weaver.  Tracey and I brought humour into the workshop, seriousness in our intention to learn.  We spent the mornings doing jobs for Anna as weaving assistants and the afternoon was spent doing and learning weaving.
Tell us about the most challenging part of learning to weave and use natural dyes. The biggest challenge for me in learning to weave was that I suffer from dyslexia for numbers and patterns – I do not know when my children were born nor in what year I got married or what year anything happened.  If I try to remember how to read a pattern I panic, really, but give me a job of weaving and I can do it, can read th at pattern, and work out what needs to be done to create one particular job.  I am actually quite a good weaver of rugs.

The asssistantship was fairly intense, but did you have the chance to explore the local area during the 3 weeks?  If so, what were your impressions of the Ribeira Sacra in Galicia, north Spain, where Anna Champeney Textile Studio is located? I did have some time to myself for walking.  The Ribeira Sacra is unbelievably beautiful, especially where Anna and Lluis live.  the birdlife was second-to-none and I was there in the area twice, so I heard the cuckoo and the hoopoe and several other birds whilst out walking in the vineyards. 


You now make and sell your own work from your craft studio in Ireland.  How did you make the leap from being a beginner to actually starting to sell your work? Well, I have always made and sold whatever I have made.  I think it´s just part of my character.  Perhaps I am a “Chancer” too!  Really, my friend Maire ni-Neachtain was a great help and encouraged me to sell and exhibit.  I have been part of two Crafts Council of Ireland exhibitions and hope to sell rugs to the public through going to a national sale in May.  Also, I sell my wares everywhere by talking about them to interested people, as well as getting the odd private commission. 


You used a Louet table loom during the textile assistantship in Spain. What is your opinion of these looms and what looms do you now use?  I think the Louet table looms that Anna has in her studio for courses are excellent to learn on or to use if you have limited space.  I prefer a floor loom – especially for my rug weaving.  I am using an old Glimakra floor loom but in the next few days I am to get a second loom which is Finnish.


What weave projects do you have planned for the future? I have in mind more rugs and I have the wool for them already.  I did a five-day course with Jason Collingwod, who is the son of famous weaver, Peter Collingwood.  Jason is an accomplished rug weaver, having learned fro mhis father, and he taught the technique of “Shaft Shifting”.  I would love to set up one of the looms I have as an experiment in “shaft shifting”.  It makes for a wonderful rug.  I would also like to explore the world of tapestry weaving but have ideas to try which require time and time-out.


Can you offer any advice to those thinking of learning to weave themselves? Go to Anna and learn the basics of weaving and enjoy every minute of the experience!


And for more information on your work? I have two websites – one for weaving and one for baskets www.basketbarn.ie.  Although the two crafts have things in common they are as different as glass blwoing and wood carving!!


Further Information about the Textile AssistantshipClick here



kathleen weaving pile fabric on a Louet table loom

kathleen weaving









a sample produced during the assistantship

Sample weaving







ribeira sacra in north spain

Ribeira sacra in north Spain


Learning to Weave – my personal experience by Anna Champeney of AC Estudio Textil in Galicia, Spain)

First Attempts - DIY loom weaving

British weaver Anna Champeney set up her weave studio as a in 2005 in a mountain village of north Spain.  Here´s how learned to weave as a second career.  

My background – I originally studied Ancient History and Archaeology at Bristol university in the UK and became a museum curator specialising in contemporary craft exhibitions.  So I came to woven texiles when in my late twenties, as part of a lifestyle and career change.  

So.  My pathway into weave has not been through the conventional route of doing a 3 year BA course at art school.  

There are pros and cons with both methods.  I learned more slowly but achieved a comparable level of technical and creative skills to a BA student in the end.  But I had to find suitably qualified teachers for different aspects of learning and sometimes had to go quite far afield and pay for one-to-one tuition, especially in design.   

It was, also, the only option open to me in my life at the time, as I was re-settling in Spain and doing a further degree in textile desing was out of the question.  I am  now quite happy with that option as I think it´s given me the chance to develop my own individual style and story.  Studying, particularly at a well-known, London Art School, would have given me more instant credibility and inspired confidence, however.  In that respect I have had to work very hard and that is definitely a disadvantage, as was the lack of contacts.

It must be said that before starting to re-train as a weaver I already had a fairly good understanding of how the world of professional craft worked in the UK at the time through my previous career as contemporary craft exhibitions curator in museums and galleries and specialist organisations in the UK.   

Early Experiences with Weave

I had my first taste of loom weaving when about 10 years old at school.  I was very lucky to have excellent art teachers, particularly Jean Lane, a trained artist with a love of textiles and colour, whom I found very inspiring.  My first loom was very simple, made at home by my father as part of a school project.  I loved the experience but never even knew that it was possible to weave as one´s “day job”. 

When in my late twenties I embarked on the journey of changing my life and career, I was determined to learn to weave and reach professional level.  I was too impatient to wait for a weave course of course, so I cobbled together a very basic frame loom using bits of wood and nails, household string and other bits and bobs of yarns.  The actual result you can see in the photo.  

Had I been aged 9 I might have been really pleased, but at 30 I could only think “that’s really horrible, I’m not going to make my living with this”.  But I just had the urge to do something with my hands as well as my head.  Having said that, I was really pleased to have been able to weave anything at all – and at least I had made a start!

2000 – Introductory weave course.  A couple of months on, in late summer 2000, I did a short introductory weave course with rug weaver Luke Atkinson in Cumbria.  I will always be grateful to Luke for teaching me the basics.  I couldn’t believe it when she presented me with a basket of natural-dyed yarns to use in my sample piece, they seemed just too precious.  I’m sure that, in part, it was the chance to use some of her gorgeous natural-dyed yarns which influenced me in my choice to dye my own yarns naturally in my own work.

Sample made on first weave course

I was so pleased with the sample I wove under Luke’s guidance – which you can see here / although it was full of classic beginner’s “errors” such as uneven edges or “selvedges”.  It´s the kind of textile any beginner will make on a first course.   

Felpa towel sample made on my 1st weave course in Spain

I remember being disappointed that, however much I tried to design the fantastic textiles I had in my head- the results were not quite as I intended.  No, that’s wrong, they were nothing like what I intended!   I didn’t realise – and how could I – that woven textile design is complex and depends on many different factors which I, as a complete beginner, just wasn’t even aware of.  The interaction of different kinds of fibres, the spacing of the yarns on the loom, the way you beat the fabric, the interaction of the colours, the individual intersections of warp and weft to create pattern … and even how you wash the textile after cutting it from the loom – all these were working together in ways I was quite oblivious of – creating fabrics with quite different characteristics to those I was intending.   As such, stripey tea towels turned out to be as stiff as sacking, and scarves were so rigid that they were more like neck carpets.   On the other hand, other unexpected results were interesting and intreaguing.   But I didn’t have the educational tools to really be able to understand or interpret these either. 2001 – Introduction to textile analysis and drafting It was only when I did a week’s textile drafting course with Barcelona-based weaver and textile artist Francisca Pellisca, that I began to find out about how woven textiles really work.   In her course, which was something like a revelation to me, I learned how to analyse woven cloth by looking at it up close and representing its structure on squared paper and to start to relate cloth to the mechanics of the loom.  Francisca was adamant that every weaving project should involve sampling, draw-downs, and a meticulous recording of how you weave each different sample.  Her course gave me the tools I had been lacking to then go away and really start to progress – and begin to find out how to learn and improve on my own.  Francisca’s approach to cloth design works for me and it is one I now teach in weave courses at my studio in Spain.  Woollen scarves with natural dyes 2003 - 2006

 I knew I wasn’t interested in beginners’  “how-to” books, with recipes for projects.  I was interested in developing my own weave style and preferences and coming up with my own original designs.  A tall order for a beginner, but even at the start, when I was using pattern books and magazines with recipes for weaving projects, I resolved that I would, out of principle, always adapt a design in some way, in order to avoid simply copying designs or formulas – learn something new.  By then I was beginning to make work like these twill scarves.  And I was beginning to sell my work which was very exciting.   Every year I add a few new designs and push the boundaries of what I know a little further back.  Every now and again I come across a really good weaving book which opens my eyes to new possibilities and teaches me more.    The challenges of weaving in rural Spain – Living in rural north Spain, where I am the only weaver for miles around, and where there is a complete absence of any weaving guild, association or club, learning on my own – with the occasional course – has really the only option.  I felt this was a distinct disadvantage for me, although I now realise that this isolation is also true for professional weavers in the UK, where only 1.9% of all professional craftspeople are weavers. Being a native English speaker I had one huge advantage over my Spanish counterparts, though, and this was the access I had to a whole range of excellent weaving books in published in English.  Ann Sutton’s The Structure of Weaving and Ideas in Weaving were – and are – my bibles.  It’s a slow process but incredibly rewarding.  I know there is so much more to explore out there and I am just scratching the surface.   Having to struggle – to learn from books – also taught me to persevere and resolve problems on my own.  This was a tough – but very valuable experience.   Being a member of the UK Online Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers in my first years of learning was also comforting when I was starting out as a weaver although it wasn´t the useful networking tool I neeed once I became a professional.  In the absence of experienced weavers locally in Spain there was always someone in the guild who could answer a query or help me out with a problem, or just give words of encouragement.  It was a very friendly environment. 2004/5 – Going professional – By this time I was setting up my own professional weave studio, Anna Champeney Estudio Textil, in Galicia, north Spain, with a setting-up grant from the Dept. of Industry.   From then on I started organising courses and selling work direct from the studio.   9 years on – These are some of my designs from 2009…  all made with linen, wool, silk and natural dyes.  linen, wool & silk scarf

"Spots and Squares" cushions from wool and natural linen

 

tubular double weave scarf

Double weave collapse scarf

13 years on – 2013

Water Loves Rock 450water loves rock proceso de diseño 450

13 years on and 2013 finds me creating work on 8-12 shaft looms and developing original designs using specialist computer software.  I specialise in double weave and collapse weave textile design but still use natural fibres and dyes for the quality of fibre and colour.

Over the past few years I have worked hard to acquire new skills, particularly design and business skills.  As such I have learned design skills at the Massana Art School in Barcelona, and from international tutors in Denmark and the UK.

It has been fundamental to learn more business skills and learn about online commerce and promotion using the social networks – none of which really existed when I started in 2000.

b 300 pix vert with text copiaI continue to teach intensive courses from my studio and start to attract international students.  I sometimes take on textile students on work placements.  I also teach textile techniques to first year fashion students at the ESEDEMA School of Fashion and Textiles in Vigo University.

As for selling my work, I still produce small-scale limited edition textiles but now commercialise my designs at international design fairs and selected shops as well as online, instead of selling direct from the studio to the tourist market.

Another initiative has been to set up an online shop and resource web-site (currently aimed more at the Spanish-speaking market than the English market), where I sell Louet loom products as well as my textiles and my partner´s  baskets.  This is a useful complement to the teaching work.

tejidosAC 450 x 450 pix

I´m still as committed and enthusiastic as when I first started in 2000 but my perspectives have changed as my knowledge and sense of context have deepened and widened through experience.

I have the satisfaction of looking back and seeing how I have been able to create my own pathway into weave, become proficient and more professional.  I feel enormous sense of satisfaction that I have been able to do this – and earn my living – especially from from the tiny mountain hamlet in northwest Spain where I live and work!

2013 – 2019

The past few years have been very hectic.  Challenges have included dealing with Brexit uncertainties and trying to prepare for  this, my online shop being hacked and my main Anna Champeney Facebook account paralysed.  I´ve juggled designing, production, exhibitions, international trade shows and teaching with both new / unusually demanding family commitments  including an unexpected 5 month break to care for my mother during terminal illness, in the UK, in 2017, and dealing with complex paperwork to ensure my qualifications in the UK are still valid for Spain if the UK leaves the EU.   My partner has been a wonderful source of support in this difficult time.

Despite these challenges these years have been marked by considerable investment in research and development in all ways.  I created my first commercial collection of merino throws woven in collaboration with industry, which launched at Top Drawer trade fair in London in 2017 and exhibited with Artesanía de Galicia at Formex (Sweden), London Design Fair (Tent) and Made London.  Offering placements to UK weave design students, mainly from Loughborough University, enabled me to devote time to projects and production I wouldn´t normally be able to.  As I entered a new digital age of social media and influencers (unheard of really in 2013)  I update my marketing skills with the Design Trust and get on Instagram.  International students come from as far afield as Chile and South Africa to learn at the studio and Canle Ribeira Sacra create a wonderful documentary video  “Behind the Scenes” at the studio.

Most exciting of all are the developments in designing freeform curved designs on the Louet Megado 32 shaft compu dobby loom and discovering deflected double weave.