‘Feather & Hay has always been about creating small runs of one off designs on a floor loom in the North East of Scotland. The textiles are made with British, Irish, and local Scottish yarns & fibres, I chose mills that are open about their sourcing and manufacturing.

The heart of any design comes from traditional patterns and natural, earthy colours so using natural fibres has always complimented this. 

Using materials such as wool, hemp, cotton and linen create beautiful, heirloom fabrics. This way I know the pieces I make are of a high quality and are from sustainable sources that are better for people and the planet.

My designs have always built on traditional patterns, keeping the root of the pieces simple, using twills, plain weave and plaid patterns. I love the history and quality of these patterns, they are the structure I work from to share a story of natural beauty and culture from the British Isles. 

When Andrew came to me with his idea I felt a traditional diamond pattern that was rooted in medieval textiles was the perfect design to build on. The fabric needed to use natural fibres and have a black side and white side. 

There was much discussion about the end use of the fabric with Andrew: that it needed to fold around a large book and needed to be easy to unwrap and fit within a compartment. All this was taken into consideration when deciding how many threads per inch of fabric, the yarns used and the pattern it was to be woven in. If you weave fabric too densely it will not fold well. Too loosely and the fabric will not hold the book securely.  

The textile was created from scratch. Woven from a combination of linen and cotton fibres. Each thread was hand measured and wound onto a floor loom. This entailed approximately 1000 threads being placed through 1000 individual eyelets in a set pattern to create a gentle and subtle diamond weave pattern to the finished fabric. 

Each thread was then pulled through and tied onto the loom one at a time.

Once all the threads were aligned and tensioned weaving could then take place. This is where the shuttle is thrown, by hand, from side to side. Pushing the weft yarns against the tensioned warp. This can look smooth and easy to an untrained eye but it takes many hours of practise to get the threads to lay tidily against each other. To balance the warp and weft. Creating a fabric that looks smooth and the pattern balanced. After many years of practise I can now throw the shuttle without conscious thought – it is a therapeutic process and I believe this calm translates into the finished fabric. 

This is the way fabric was woven long before machines were invented. The floor loom I used to weave this fabric is very similar to the looms used hundreds of years ago here in Scotland. It is a methodical but structured process that creates fabric full of life and character. As I work I imagine I am pulling together threads of a story. I put more than time and effort into the textiles I have made. Each piece is a devotion to natural beauty and the acceptance of a slow and precise process: that special something a hand made, artisan work provides. 

Unfortunately I have had to give up creating and making textiles, not from my own choosing but from what can only be described as an unfair world. It isn’t something I can go into for personal reasons but I can say that society isn’t always kind to artisans and certainly not kind to women. Thankfully I know that my skill as a weaver will stay with me – one day, once I am able  – I hope to return to creating textiles once again. I live now, with hope in my heart knowing that little pieces of my woven journey are out there, including the textile I wove for this project initiated by Andrew. ‘

– Georgina Clackworthy