Joanne Fay

The silver in my inspiration piece made me think of the copper wire from the large pile of unwanted EU power cables that my partner has been stripping in order to recycle the copper. 

Copper and cotton hanging

I’ve woven this piece using two variations of the weave used by the inspiration fabric, separated by an unwoven section, so that the shininess of the copper contrasts with the matt white cotton yarn.

3D Copper and Cotton Hanging

For this piece I used the copper as the warp, and used a netting shuttle to weave the cotton weft yarn over and under the copper strands as if weaving on a tapestry frame.

I have used 3 different weave patterns and also varied how the cotton weft is spaced so that some parts of the weaving are more shiny than other parts. After weaving I re-tied the end of the warp, varying the tension so that the final hanging contains curves that help to catch the light.

Curvy Copper Weavings

Two sample pieces using copper wire recycled from unwanted EU power cables.

One piece is my initial proof of concept piece so it is using a simple weave structure.  The copper wire is made up of individual strands, separating those strands neatly is near impossible, so I used the wire as it was which made my piece very stiff. This stiffness means that this piece can be manipulated into a 3D shape.  I have bent it into bumps and ridges that cause different parts of the textile to catch and reflect the light. The other piece was woven to test the weave pattern for the main piece.  I like the contrast between the copper wire and the long wool tassels.

Materials

Recycled copper cable from EU computer power cables.

Cotton yarn

Wool yarn

Inspiration

I was inspired by a fabric sample in a book of cottons from India. This fabric had actual silver as the weft yarn with a white warp yarn.  Now rather grey, the silver would originally have been very shiny.

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