Where: Weavers Works, Walthamstow, London E17 7BH
When: 25 to 30 October, 10am to 4pm each day with a lunch break (lunch provided)
Cost: £300 (three free bursary places available for those from under-represented communities or facing financial hardship – subject to availability)
Join the Tassel Queen of Bethnal Green for a 5 day intensive course on passementerie aimed at intermediate textile practitioners.
With over three decades of experience in the trade, a well-established authority on the historic techniques and one of only a few contemporary practitioners, Jessica Light is a leading figure in the endangered craft of passementerie.
Passementerie is the art and craft of cord spinning, weaving, braiding, and tassel-making first introduced to the UK with the arrival of the Huguenots. With a myriad of applications spanning fashion, costume, interiors, film industries, passementerie is an extremely versatile medium.
From fringing the Buckingham Palace balcony drape to creating macrame belts for Vivienne Westwood, Jessica Light's trims and tassels have adorned the worlds of interiors, fashion and film. The last working passementerie weaver left in East London, Jessica hand-weaves and hand-makes trims and tassels using techniques dating back to the 16th century. She brings a design-led contemporary aesthetic with an 'anarchic sensibility' to this endangered heritage craft. Her client list includes Burberry, Harrods, and The Royal Collections Trust and has written a book 'Passementerie', published by The Crowood Press, the most comprehensive book on woven and non-woven passementerie techniques.
Jessica trained under Wendy Cushing and has been working in the passementerie industry for over 30 years. She has a large cannon of techniques, extensive experience in producing one-off pieces to hundreds of tassels and metres of trim, all of a high end quality. This is a unique opportunity to spend a considerable amount of time with her gaining hands-on experience, close tuition on a range of weaving and table work techniques, guidance on materials and colour, and a look at passementerie notation.
At the end of the course, trainees will be able to create highly ornamental or pared-back embellishments for furniture, lighting, clothes, and costumes through a rich interplay of materials, techniques, patterns, colours, and textures.
The course will cover an overview of passementerie weaving and technical notation, how to set up a passementerie warp and some of the main passementerie trim structures, off the loom skills such as cord winding, covering wooden moulds and how to embellish trims.
Notation
A technique specific to Passementerie and completely different to normal weaving in that it’s written in a form of shorthand rather than drawn. Each Passementerie factory developed its own form of notation and passed it from weaver to weaver, ensuring designs could be recorded, stored and reproduced, even without samples. Jessica will teach the system she learnt and will cover how to notate the warp, reed and weft. A key element of the history of passementerie that’s at extreme risk of being lost.
Woven Trim Structures
Cut fringes
Weaving with dummy warps to create looped structures
This set of trims include lattices and picot braids.
Table Work [off the loom skills]
Twisting a cord
Choosing the yarn / hand twisting a two-warp cord.
Covering Moulds
Both rolling and yarn covering methods will be covered.
Embellishments
Ruffs, tassel hangers, how to create lattices
Course Structure
Day 1.
Introduction to Passementerie Weaving
Learning Outcomes
- Technical Notation and Terminology
- Learn the best materials for passementerie trim warps
- Learn how to draft a passementerie trim
- Learn the terminology used in passementerie weaving
- Learn best ways to translate a design into a trim.
- Learn how to make warp.
- Learn how to dress the loom.
- Learn how to weave a cut fringe.
- Learn how to draft and set up a cut-away warp.
- Practical weaving of a cut-fringe
- Learn how to finish a cut fringe.
Day 2.
Loop and picot braids
Learning Outcomes
- What is a dummy warp.
- Learn the principals of using a dummy warp.
- Learn how to weave a looped braid.
- Practical weaving of a loop braid.
- Learn how to weave a lattice with a dummy warp
- Learn how to weave a picot braid.
- Practical weaving of a picot braid.
Day 3.
Gimp Braids
Learning Outcomes
- Introduction to gimp braids
- Materials that can be used in gimp braids.
- Gimp braid shuttles and weaving with multiple cords.
- Learn how to weave a gimp braid with a spilt warp.
- Practical weaving of a gimp braid.
Day 4.
Table Work [off the loom passementerie techniques]
Cords.
Learning Outcomes
- Learn the equipment and materials used to make cords
- Learn the terminology
- How to make a cord warp.
- Learn how to make twisted cords.
- Learn how to make a two-twist cord [barley twist]
Covering wooden moulds
Learning outcomes.
- Learn 2 methods of covering tassel moulds
- Rolling
- Yarn covering [satin wrapped]
Day 5.
Trim Embellishments.
Learning outcomes:
- Learn how to make and attach ruffs.
- Learn how to make and attach hanger tassels.
- Learn how to make tassel bindings.
- Learn how to lattice trims.
- Combining embellishments.
How to get to Weavers Works by public transport
- 3 minute walk from Walthamstow Central Station which is serviced by the Victoria and Weaver(!) lines
- 3 minute walk from Walthamstow Bus Station which is serviced by many bus routes, check TfL for more information
.
If you have any further questions feel free to email Finn Arschavir at finn@heritagecrafts.org.uk.