Twined Pod Forms with Spiral Patterns - Mary Crabb

My finished pod forms

 

Recently I went on a course, led by Mary Crabb, to learn how to create twined pod forms with spiral patterns.  It was one of West Dean College's short courses at their Bloomsbury Campus in London.

Mary Crabb

Mary Crabb's pod forms with spiral patterns

Mary is a skilled basketmaker. Having started out working in willow, Mary now makes small woven creations using both natural and man-made materials to create detailed, decorative forms using twining, looping and coiling techniques.

Mary Crabb's pod forms with some more complicated spiral patterns

We were here to learn how to make twined forms with a spiral pattern which Mary demonstrated for us and also provided notes as an aide memoire.  We worked with paper yarn in a range of colours using thicker yarn for the warp and thinner yarn for the weft.

Thick paper yarn (used for the warp) and thin paper yarn (used for the weft)

We started by making a small simple sample to get the hang of the process.  Here's mine...

My sample

After that we moved on to our main piece of the day which had a spiral pattern.  I opted to do a simple spiral but other participants were more adventurous and went for wider 4 colour spirals which Mary explained.

My simple spiral pod form

We also began another piece which I finished at home with a slightly more adventurous two row spiral...

My pod form with a deeper spiral

At the end of the day we put our pod forms out so everyone could have a look...

Everyone's pod forms

It was a super day and although progress was slow as it often is with handmade craft, it was very enjoyable.  Thank you, Mary and West Dean.

My initial sample finished as a small pod form with a simple spiral

Cordage & Structures with Alice Fox at West Dean College, Bloomsbury Campus, London

 

Alice Fox's Cordage Structures

I recently went on a short course at West Dean College's Bloomsbury Campus in London which is quite near Kings Cross Station (handy for me).  The workshop was led by textile artist, Alice Fox and we were taught to make cordage from repurposed materials.  Once we had made some cordage, we were also taught how to make some simple structures.  It was great fun although very time consuming.

Here is some of the cordage I made from recycled fabric, a plastic bag and some newspaper....

Cordage from fabric, newspaper and a plastic bag

I also made some cordage from tissue paper which is easier to make than cordage from newspaper...

Tissue paper cordage

These are my newspaper pots...

Coiled and stitched newspaper pot

Looped newspaper pot

And these are my woven structures...

Flat woven fabric cordage

Woven pocket from fabric cordage

We also had a go at some random weaving which I did with some detritus from the beach...

Random weaving with synthetic rope from  the beach

I'm looking forward to making more!