Weaving Experiments

The Weaving Studio

The weaving studio is housed in a small building in the design center at the Kokrobitey Institute. Materials are sourced from the Kantamanto market to create repurposed woven designs. Recently, they have been making open-weave sweaters from men's dress shirts by cutting them into strips, folding, and sewing to create a wide thread. The threads are woven together on a simple floor loom and the 'fabric' is then assembled into a sweater shape. Bias tape is sewn to the bottom hem to keep it from unraveling.

Esi, who runs the weaving studio, created this technique called the 'Esi Sweater' and has been working with local women to teach them how to make these garments on looms they are given as part of the program. The long term goal is to buy the sweaters back to create a steady income stream for economically vulnerable women while repurposing textile waste.

Materials Wall

The studio also has a materials wall that is used to sort miscellaneous objects, both natural and manmade. There are plastic water bottles filled with various materials such as shells, rocks, cow horns sliced into rings, plastic bottle caps, and metal bottle caps. These items can be used in weaving or other designs.

I was particularly fascinated with the cow horns, which were in a range of brown and cream tones and different thicknesses. In Ghana, most cow horns are discarded after a cow has been slaughtered for meat, and local artists sometimes collect them to use in their work, saving them from being discarded or burned.

The Esi Sweater Project

Esi, the head of the fashion studio, launched the Esi Sweater Project, a fabrication model that trains women around Ghana to create the Esi Sweater out of recycled men's shirts on simple looms that they use in their own homes. This allows for a large-scale production cycle that forgoes the traditional factory system in favor of promoting autonomy and economic stability for Ghanian women and their families.

The Esi Sweater is made with recycled men's shirts that have been turned into ribbon.

Esi Sweaters being constructed on standing looms.

Esi and me

It was truly a pleasure getting to know Esi and learn from her in her weaving studio! She is soft spoken, kind, and eternally patient when teaching techniques. I was impressed by seeing her many projects displayed around the studio, and I was inspired to try experimenting with different materials myself.

Weaving Experiments

I spent many days in the weaving studio, playing with post-consumer waste materials such as tshirts and men's collared shirts. I was particularly drawn to turning tshirts into yarn, because this is something very accessible to my students that we can do in my classroom. Depending on how thick you cut the strips from the tshirt and its fiber content, you can create a variety of "yarns" that can be used for weaving. I was surprised to learn that the weft, the vertical strands, can also be made from tshirts so that the entire product can be 100% post-consumer waste.

We also were able to play with other types of materials such as cow horn and sisal, and it was interesting to see how to combine both elements into a single piece.

First Experiment

Tshirt yarn

My first experiment evolved organically as I played with the materials and began to learn how to control them.

PVC pipes

I was interested to see what I could do with pieces of PVC pipes.

Textures

I learned that the tshirts produced an interesting texture when added as tassels to the weaving.

Final work

My finished piece highlights the different techniques I learned.

Second Experiment

Crocheted Jewelry

I was fascinated by the rings of cow horn that were on the materials wall, and I wanted to see if I would be able to crochet around them using the tshirt yarn. Through trial and error I created this piece, and I used a strip of rubber from a tire to turn it into a necklace.

Third Experiment

Playing with crochet and the cow horns led me to this final experiment that combined the techniques I had learned. I crocheted around PVC pipes to create the center and then strung it from a tabletop loom so that I could weave. I also wanted to see if I could add sisal, a natural fiber from the agave plant, to my work, which was challenging to control but provided an interesting natural element.

Sisal

Fiber from the agave plant

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse