Handloom
Much like knitting, a handloom is a compelling textile machine because it can go anywhere with you. Over the last five years of my life, my handloom has traveled everywhere with me, across the West, to the East Coast, and even to Dublin, Ireland. The freedom to quickly whip out a piece of fiber art with any material gives me much creative flexibility and pushes me to try new textile techniques.
Silk Highlights.
This small 3 x 3 inch square was done on my handloom to experiment with silk that I had extracted from frozen silkworm cocoons. The majority of the weft (grey) was constructed with very soft merino wool, while the colors (yellow, white, blue and red) were all extracted strands of silk.
Silkworm cocoons contain one true single strand of silk that is embedded in false silk coating. I found a bag full of silkworm cocoons in a freezer in the Colorado College fibers arts studio and decided to try and extract the silk. Although I don’t think I managed to isolate the true piece of silk from the cocoon, the process was a fun trial and error learning experience.
After using a detergent to break up the cocoons, I spun the silk into strands. I left some of the silk undyed (yellow and white) and did a hot water (blue) and cold water (red) dye process to obtain the two other colors. I finished the project by using my handloom to create a small handwoven sample embedded with strands of my silk.
Other Handloom Pieces
I take my handloom everywhere with me. Since it fits nicely in my backpack, I have traveled with it to Colorado, Montana, Washington, Maine, and even Dublin, Ireland. Here is a selection of images showing some of my pieces in the last few years.
