Dutch Houses

Over the holidays this past year, we visited Amsterdam. I especially like to travel to Europe during winter because the cold weather is a pleasant reminder of growing up in Washington state. I’m always on the look out for inspiration, and in Amsterdam I was particularly enthralled by the houses along the canals, tall and skinny houses leaning this way and that way.

As soon as I was back in the studio, I set out to design a weaving pattern that reflected these Dutch houses. Coincidentally, the theme of my weaving guild’s Weave Structures group for this year is block weave. Designing houses using blocks seemed ideal, so I got to work in my weaving software to see what I could come up with. It took some time and some experimentation, but I managed to develop a pattern that I thought would work. I warped the loom using eight colors of Venne 8/2 organic cotton. The weft was Venne organic cottolin in natural. Venne is a Dutch yarn company, so it seemed appropriate to use their wonderful yarns for this project.

The pictures below show the inspirational Dutch houses, the partial weaving draft, the fabric on the loom, and a finished tea towel. I know I will use the draft again and again.