Heddle release: March 3, 2022
All since November up until the middle of January I have been frantically carving little house heddles for an exhibition at Hemslöjden Östergötland (Linköping town, Sweden) which ran from the middle of January to the middle of February. This was my first ever solo exhibition and it was really exciting to see my little carvings in a gallery! However, now that the exhibition is over I am ready to offer the unsold heddles in my webshop. About one in four heddles were sold at the venue, but those that are left will be presented in this set!
While carving this set I started feeling a small pressure to move on from the farm houses I started carving last autumn. Sure, they are wonderful, but I felt like an exhibition there needs to have bit of variation. It would not have surprised me to find that this pressure would make me balk at the task, as I tend to do if I get requests to carve certain forms, but apparently the feeling was just vague enough to spur me on! I started to think about how the city looks at night and looked at pictures of old houses in the old town areas of Stockholm and Amsterdam, imagining a little street. It was really fun! All details are carved with the tip of my usual Morakniv (no. 120) and I find it an interesting challenge to see how far I can get without having to add more tools to the process (I know this sounds like bullshit but it is true!).
In this house block small cottages in the style of the 1700’s stand side by side with medieval warehouses (the one with the door up on the third floor) and early 1900’s apartment buildings. This is also (I think?) the widest heddle I’ve made so far. It has space for 59 threads all in all!
As usual all heddles are made from birch wood in this set, and the paint I have used is lins seed oil with prussian blue pigment added. This kind of paint takes a long time to set fully and because it is oil based there is no risk of it hardening into a surface that might chip or crack while cutting into it - It was scary enough to carve the windows of a full house block without being scared that the paint might chip!
I have also been looking at churches a lot, and this one has a small “bell“ made out of a little metal thing intended for jewelry. Tap/click the images to enlarge them! This heddle will probably need to be used upside down as I described in an old blog post, but I just couldn’t resist making it!
This set consists of 24 heddles that will be released on March 3, 21.00 Swedish time. The heddles will be for sale in the webshop, not here on the blog. If it is your first time buying a heddle from me you might want to read this blog post to know what to expect! Here is a preview for you guys, so you can have a look at the heddles before they hit the web shop. Click or tap the images to enhance them and see the heddle measurements!
