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The Great Beds of Humphries – Part Three
Read moreIn this third installment we will be looking at some Royal beds, including the travelling bed of King George II
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The Great Beds of Humphries – Part Two
Read moreIn this second part we look at 4 beds including the Metropolitan Museum Bed in New York, and two ‘Angel’ style beds.
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The Great Beds of Humphries – Part One: Early Beds
Read moreAlmost from the beginning, Humphries Weaving has woven cloths for beds in important places which have required specialist weaving skills to restore them to their former glory. Here we bring together a vast array of cloths woven for Great Beds that can be seen in museum collections, palaces and houses.
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Beaming On – The art of the warp spreader
Read moreFor those of you involved in weaving cloth, purchasing your preferred warp yarn is just the start of the yarn manipulation process, as the quest begins for a perfect back beam. For small sample warps of up to approximately 3.2 yards, with the help of a friend pulling manually on the warp ends, you can manage to roll the threads in a fashion that at best, may be adequate and at worst result in broken ends and a bird’s nest!
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Hampton Court Palace Fire 1986
Read moreThe fire did give an opportunity for a full review of the restoration programme and the newly appointed Dr. Simon Thurley who was responsible for the massive rebuilding task. The spring of 1986 had seen the reweaving of crimson silk lustring’s in pure silk for Queen Mary’s Closet.
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Sericulture in the United Kingdom
Read moreKing James 1st dearly wanted a silk industry right across his kingdom and ordered his mulberry for every town and village in the land. Today when talking of Mulberries most will comment on the wonderful berries making excellent jam. Yet it is the humble leaves of the mulberry bush that are the very making of a silk industry, that in China today employs literately millions of people.
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The Quill, the Pirn and the Shuttle
Read moreA healthy goose in the 18th century was more than just for the table or the eiderdown. There was another important requirement for the silk weaver and his work as the quill, with the feather flights stripped off, was the ideal ready-made hollow tube for use in the shuttle.
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Lyon Textile Museum- A Lost Locket
Read moreThe home of silk weaving in France is the central city of LYON. Here for centuries the art and mystery of creating the most noble of fabrics has carried on, woven by hand on timber frame looms in the back alleys of the ancient city.
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Warping the Threads of Time
Read moreFor anyone involved in the art and mystery of weaving, they soon learn the need for perfection when it comes to preparing the threads which will form the warp in the loom. So how do you get those warp ends perfectly wound onto the back beam in the loom?
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The Flying Shuttle
Read moreFor many the word shuttle is more likely to be a way of transport, or even a space age vessel, as its action so accurately describes the repetitive toing and froing along a pre-planned route. Yet the flying shuttle is a world class invention, being created by a humble weaver in the rural Essex village of Coggashall in 1733
