Wool Winder Madness

Georges Pierre Seurat introduced a more systematic and scientific technique into the world of painting, known as pointillism or divisionism, in which small dots of color are grouped to create a sense of vibrancy, tending to interact and fuse in the spectator's eye.

This "scientific technique" is the same technique that has been used for centuries in Tapestry weaving. In fact, if you look at most artists careers up until very recently, nearly all of them at some stage worked in the rag trade. Artists were employed to design tapestries, or copy the designs to scale for the weavers. The renaissance was funded by the Wool Merchants, but don't get me started on that subject, I'll rant for ever.


I love colour-blending. I think it adds depth to the wool. So, since the arrival of my wool winder, I have gone mad with colour-blending. The process is very simple. You just wind 2,3,4 or more strands of wool together. It can be as simple as that, or complicated, so you can try get a slow variation for one colour to the next.

This is the wool I'm using to make my Mad Hat, for the Sailors Society Mad Hat Competition, and Woolly Hat Campaign. I used 8 strands of wool in each ball but varied the amount of dark and light in each so it would go from white to a browny-red.




This is what it looks like when crocheted:




I love even the look of a ball of wound wool. The criss-cross pattern is obvious when you use variegated wool, like this mohair. The pink fluffy is worth being in a Coral Reef Exhibition as it stands.