Presenter: Janet Ducote

Anyone can start to design their own woven cloth, including newer weavers.  This talk will show you what you can do & how to go about it so that you can create cloth that is uniquely yours.

I will introduce various aspects of the design process, including collecting & using inspirations, understanding & applying the elements & principles of art & design, & more.  Working through design you get to see what offshoots you go for, what comes to a dead-end, & what becomes your way forward.  When coming up with a cloth about water I asked myself questions - what about water intrigued me?  what did I want to show in my cloth & how could I do that?  and, how did I want to cover my cloth (the weave structure/patterning, stripes, a figure, etc)?  As I went forward, I played in the materials I’d collected & used my training in elements & principles to help guide me.  As for the off-shoots & dead-ends?  They may make it into future pieces!

Documenting the process will also be covered.  It is vital for future reference.  More specially, it is a record of your creative journey, where your creative self was for those days.  My design notebooks are loaded with visuals, and I am happy to share them.

The take-away I want for all:  You don't need to be an advanced cloth weaver to want to put something you have seen or like into a shawl that you will wear or gift, and you do not have to only follow another's recipe for their shawl that they designed for their reasons.  Like other newer weavers, I am not a skilled master weaver (yet!), but I do learn more with every cloth I make and using design tools gives me cloth that I can truly call mine.  This is something everyone can do!