A Long History

 

Ars Textrina is a publication very few people knew about but I collected as many as I could.  During a purge of my library a few years ago, I sold off all of them - except for these two.

Patricia Hilts had obtained some weaving books from the 1600s or so, from Germany, translated them and provided updated weaving drafts.  I use them for inspiration, and a jumping off place to transfer my intentions into the cloth I want to make.

And that's the thing.  Almost nothing is 'brand new' when it comes to cloth (apart from the new technology fibres and cloth for medical and industrial purposes).  There are only so many ways a weaver can thread the loom and then tie the shafts up to create functional cloth.  It is *how* we apply those things to our own designs/intentions that make them 'new'.

Of course I could start from 'scratch' every single time I design a warp, buy why should I?  Our ancestors did exactly the same thing - they might see a textile from a different country/culture and then apply their creativity and make something 'unique'.

The fact is that humans have been creating string/thread/yarn since the beginning of time.  The archeologists now recognize that there are things that can be learned by studying those bits of string that might be left on a body or tools.  They recognize that sculptures depict the use of 'string' adornments (the Venus goddesses and their 'string skirts' being a prime example), and there can be traces of textiles left in things like pottery.

We stand on the shoulders of giants.

As I near the end of the current warp I am paging through the Ars Textrina books.  I've noted a couple designs that I find interesting but I also need to adapt them to what I will make.  Borders, sides and ends, how large (how many repeats across/down) and, of course, the colours I will use.  Since I want to weave up more of the fine singles linen, I need to use a density appropriate to the yarn I will use and the function the cloth is to serve.

So yes, I will 'copy' a draft that was published originally in the 1600s or so, but then I will adapt it to my purpose.

And all the while I will thank the two German weavers who so faithfully recorded what they did so that I could reference their work and bring it into the 21st century along with Patricia Hilts to brought it to light.  And feel part of the same creativity that also drove them.  A long thread of knowledge and skill, still in use now.