Future Textile

Translation of digital images into textile material:

When working at the textile lab at Audax/Textilemuseum/Tilburg one can seldom escape the digital media. The computer is essential in most of the production methods, whether it is embroidery, knit, laser cutting or weave. The general working method at the textile lab is that a designer/artist comes with a (visual) idea or computer file and in cooperation with the technician they develop the textile item. Whatever way one works, either directly digitally with images or analog as for eksample in pencil drawing it is necessary to translate this into information the computer programs the actual textile machines can understand. Every technique has its own programs, but one can generally use either Photoshop or illustrator as a starting point for any of them. This means one is not dependant on understanding the programs completely when working with them. Though with limited time it is an advantage to have good knowledge of its limitations and possibilities.

Yarns and thread plays a role with most industrial textile production and the collection they have is astonishing. Everything for the common cottons to the more recent bamboo yarns, horsehair, dog/sheep wool blends, swarovski crystals, linens, silk, metals, elastics, viscose, organic, crepe. One can find just about anything perfectly systemized in easy to access draws. If one finds something of interest they even have a designated person who can help with ordering what you need (make sure to plan six weeks in advance).

Knitting at the textile lab is passing my grannies complicated floral patterns with a horse’s head. The Stoll machine can knit double-layered fabric into shape (f. example seamless clothing). This isn’t new; still it’s open for any serious designer/artist to gain access to for small-scale production, which in itself is quite special. This goes for the textile lab in general. With knit one can work with image and import them into the program or design the pattern directly, drawing stitch by stitch. The choice between front or back stitches, several colored or textured yarns can create materials with such variation its hard to believe they where knitted on the same needles.

Grafixscan can either be used to engrave a material by lazering the surface, in that way burning away fibers or colour. Or one can cut directly through it. To engrave one can work with any JPEG file, but to laze cut one has to use Illustrator files. The laser beam is 0.4mm wide and one can make a 50cm x 50 cm piece in one go. With a bit of precision and planning one can easily use repeat patterns or other larger works.

Inkjet textile printing is pretty straightforward. It’s not much different from working with paper printers when coming to the preparation of files. (Remember to use Lab Colour mode, and 254dpi). Instead of ink it uses dyes that are steamed after printing, and after a quick rinse in some soapy hot water the textile is ready for use. I found that the colors were well translated and the width of 130cm means that one can work with fairly large scales. The lab has a choice between a silk or cotton satin that already has been prepared with necessary chemicals the dyes need to fixate under the steaming process.

Embroidery often means a lot of time spent on the embroidery program hand drawing every shape (luckily not every stitch) of ones pattern. If one does not take care in letting the machine know the most efficient embroidering sequence one can easily end up with a pattern where layers are not in the right order. This is the technique that requires the most know how on the actual program. It is possible to translate files through illustrator, but this limits the amazing amounts of choices of stitch and layering that this machine can offer.

Weave is the method with the longest history in Tilburg. The museum has a beautiful collection of old damask looms that are still in everyday production. The lab however has a Dornier digital jacquard and an Easy leno. The first offers unlimited pattering in the length of the cotton or linen warp (36 threads pr/cm, 169cm width, 6114 threads in all). The easy leno consists of two polyester warps that shift positions every other weft, enclosing the weft between the two warps. This gives a strong material even with a loose structure. It can at the moment only patters stripes, but the word is that an even more advanced machine is in development.

for more info on the textile lab:

www.textielmuseum.nl

This course was a really new experience to me. I haven’t weaved before with ts-1 loom, and also handweaved just couple of times.  I was surprised how demanding and difficult it is to make beautiful fabrics,and also how technical it is to make those bindings. But after that knowledge, only the sky is limit.

My goal for this course was learn to understand different kind of bindings and how to combine those, understand the possibilities of weaving. I’m myself more focused on design, but I think that it’s important to understand the background so that you can really make the desicions concerning of your design yourself.

It was difficult for me to understand, how to combine different bindings, especially when you are working with several layers. Even two layers made me confused. And we had only one and half week time to finish our designs before the trip to Innvik. That’s why I decided to work first just with one layer.

I was really fascinated to work with floats and create a three dimensional surface. I made several samples, or as many it was possible, to examine different lengths and directions of floats. I also tried to find that kind of binding for the ground, which would keep it steady and cover the warp. And of course  I explore as well different colours and yarns. At the same time I worked with my pattern and tried to find quite chaotic rhytm, which was related to our ETT- theme ”home and the other” -my struggle with other.

The trip to Innvik was something  what I  looked forward, and yeah, the landscapes were amazing. It was also interesting to see the ”end product” after all those samples, and saw the differences between ts-1 and industrial loom. I think that I learned a lot during these two weeks,and now when i have a little bit more background, it would be really nice to go back to Tillburg and concentrate more on design.

Pictures:

Digital loom close-up

Digital loom

Aoife and Jon

Woven piece

With a few pictures and words I would like to give you a summary of my experience here in Norway, participating at the ETT project. The concentrating work inside was nice balanced with the most beautiful natural environment outside.

My technical interests were already triggered because of the Electronic textil-workshop (see my other post)

For learning and understanding the weaving techniques, I share a similar enthusiasm. It makes me eager to explore and experiment.

I focused on working with layers and a way to translate my concept of home and the other:

Voyeurism  Home and the other and all others have their home as well.  we are black we are white The same and inverse we are each others’ mirror. through the glass we look at each other and we hide for each other. We hide our secrets and for those secrets we are looking for

behind all windows

I will rewrite this post later on, but I can not end without my special thanks to Jon Pettersen, Hilde Hauan and Kari Merete Paulsen Thank you, and see you next time in Holland, (or my next visit to Bergen?) best regards, Aoife Wullur

After this nice electronic textiles workshop, we have been participating to Jon Pettersen courses about digital weaving for two weeks. It was an intense and week of hard work to understand how the technics can manage to create your thought through the fabric. Learning the process of bindings in one or many layers has been rather complicated but also really helpfull for our furure creations. From an idea to photoshop and programming we could have build files and understand how a weaved fabric really works. Sometimes till midnight, i ve spent time with the digital loom. It was a long process to get the right effect and the feeling of what i wanted to achieve. And these slow hours were needed to understand the meaning of weaving.

After one week and a half trying, we get the chance to see how it looks like on an industial loom in Innvik. That was a great trip where we could see how beautifull is the landscape and the quietness of Norway. We arrived with the bus after six hours in a such a small and peaceful place called Innvik. Nobody around to disturb the silence of the sea. We stayed one night there and spend most of the time in the factory, trying to get a piece of fabric for each of us.

The fabric i designed is made out of the drawings i’m used to make as an expression of concept or an atmosphere i want to catch. The theme for our ETT program is Home and the others. Then i drew the ideas i had about it and how i saw it as a common and shared scene of life.

Concept:

The blanket wich keep warm when we are cold, the light coming througt the textile of a lamp, the morning wich wake up throught the curtains… We all think it is really special. The daily life wich is rather personal, is shared in a common thought. The home landscapeness is seen by the eyes of others. The sleeping room, corners, doors and closets are parts of these archetypes we all share with our own identity. The house we build, the one we rebuild when we had lost it, the one we never stops to build… Home, more than a landscape show your heart and these feelings are whared in mental pieces. These lines and feelings that we can all understand. The night lamp is standing over the little table next to the bed, a table clothe is covering the dinner table, the car is parked next to the house, the walls limit the space, the sofa next to the living room… We belong to these lines, surfaces and codes even if we also try to break it.

How can i create this common event of daily life ? How a fabric or an object can create these mental thoughts ?

So i drew the contour of these common lines. And i wanted to use the drawing as a stitch on a matress fabric where the lines become memories of house landscapeness. After many try outs, and the help of Yon and Kari we could have get this matress feeling with 3 times fillings between two layers. And the result in Innik was close to my wishes.

It was a great experience to strat from the beginning of the conception of a fabric and then to see it ending in a factory where the mistake is not allowed anymore…I did learn a lot through the bindings and get closer to the fabric by the technics. I guess now i can use it as a tool and try to bring it further into my work…

émilie pallard (from the Design Academy Eindhoven, at the KHIB for the ETT program)

Last week there was Helsinki Design Week . It was held for the 8^th time. The heart of the week is the Cable Factory, were most of the events are held. Like different shows, exhibitions, design marked, lectures and seminars. We started the week going to the Daniel Palillo’s Gardens Of O.D.P. show at the Cable Factory Saturday evening. Even though his design didn’t reach me it was interesting to see what’s going on in the fashion world, and he is suppose to be very popular in Helsinki right now. 

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