Presenting my new book Simple weave!
Ever since I started to carve heddles I have been receiving questions about how I make them and how to weave with them. I knew I needed to make some kind of written explanation but I wasn’t sure how extensive it should be or in which form. A blog post? A pdf? Or maybe… A book? In January this year I Emailed my publisher Maria to discuss my ideas on the subject and she gave me a go ahead! We both agreed that it would be ideal to publish the book in the 2021 autumn so there was no time to be wasted! The book is part of a series called “hantverka“, which roughly translates into “to craft“.
The book will be published in Swedish on September 24’th, 2021 and I hope for a swift translation to English so I can offer it to the international audience as well.
This is what the cover looks like at the moment.
Weirdly enough the book cover is one of the first pictures one takes for a book, in order to get it into the catalogues with upcoming books and also for marketing purposes. That means you’re describing the content before it is completely written which can feel a bit stressful but since this is my third book I’m getting used to the idea.
I’m not sure about the grey color of the cover though, so I have asked to see some alternatives for it! I’m thinking a light blue would look nice…
The book will contain three main chapters; the first is basic weaving theory, the second contains more weaving projects ranging from a 5 mm wide band to a 40 cm wide tea towel, and the third chapter is the “make your own tools“ section where I describe how to carve a heddle, make a backstrap loom and other useful tools. The pictures are all shot by Ellinor Hall, a Stockholm based photographer whom I got to know while working together on articles for Hemslöjd magazine. I highly recommend anyone looking for an easy going, efficient and professional photographer to look her up! The images below have very little or no editing, but I wanted to give you an idea of what the inside of the book will look like. Click the images to enlarge them!
For this book I have also made all the illustrations myself! This is the first time I draw for anything serious but I can tell you I am very thankful to have studied art in high school and also for every teacher who allowed me to draw during their lectures back then. I wanted the book to feel a bit like my own weaving journal, and the illustrations to be far from digitalised and perfect. This was very convenient, as my talents definitely do not lie in digital image creation! In the end I drew everything, scanned it and sent the illustrations over to Sebastian Wadsted, who is the books graphic designer. This meant that sometimes I had to draw the same thing over and over again until I got it just right, as I didn’t have any means of digitally editing the illustrations and erasers wouldn’t work!
Draw, then draw again!
I used three pencils; a fountain pen with liquid ink (Which I think may have not been so suitable since it kept drying up and clogging the nib all the time but it’s what I went with anyway), a dry watercolor pencil that gave beautiful, highly pigmented lines and a black ink pigment liner. With these pencils I got three different textures to work with, which I was very happy with as I think it gave great depth to the illustrations.
As I mentioned this is the third book with my name on it, which is something I never would have guessed would happen ten years ago. Well, life is strange and beautiful at the same time, and I am ever grateful to be able to share my ideas and inspiration this way. The book will be available in Swedish bookstores, on adlibris.com and I will have signed copies here on the website of course! If you want to buy books for your own store or company you can contact the publishers Natur och Kultur here.