Usually at this point we would be recapping a full year of Open Days and other events at The Weaver’s House.
The year started well with the announcement of ‘Moving Blue’ the City of Culture colour based on the famous ‘Coventry Blue.’ The Weaver’s House team were involved in the research process for the development of the colour and were excited to see the results come to life across the city.
Moving Blue on The Weaver’s House
With a #CelebrateNationalLottery25 funded community garden day kicking off activities in March, and the loom rewarped, all looked set for a memorable year of events.
As we know, 2020 would be memorable for very different reasons.
Throughout this challenging year The Weaver’s House and Weavers’ Workshop provided online resources for seasonal craft projects and reading including:
An interesting detail on a famous Coventry building, but do you recognise it?
Lockdown Rainbow
Touching the past
A sample of this year’s posts
We also carried out some essential site maintenance whilst we remained closed this year, we made costumes and revised our Family History book, amongst other things. So work has continued behind the scenes.
We hope to welcome visitors again soon, and will post our plans for 2021 in the New Year. And speaking of the New Year, perhaps it is time to revive the tradition of wassailing? Wassail comes from the Old English was hál, literally: be hale/healthy).
Traditionally it is a beverage of hot mulled cider, drunk as an integral part of the English Medieval Christmastide rituals, to bring a good apple harvest in the coming year. Perhaps some New Year wassailing will bring everyone better fortunes in 2021.
Wishing you a healthy and happy Christmas from all at The Weaver’s House.
If you have passed us recently you will have noticed our eye-catching blue window frame on the ground floor of our visitor centre, next to The Weaver’s House.
This is part of the 2021 Moving Blue story. You can find out more in our blog post here.
If you have an idea for something that could be painted Moving Blue, get in touch with the 2021 team by dropping them a message on social media, or emailing them – more details are here.
We’re delighted to be involved with the Moving Blue project, which sees the colour with a Coventry history going back hundreds of years revived ahead of the City of Culture year.
The project kicked off on New Year’s Day and will run throughout this year.
Our trustee Sara Maycock is an experienced dyer and weaver and was able to contribute her knowledge to the project, as well as some pieces of woad-dyed wool!
At The Weaver’s House we have long been fascinated by the history of the famous colour Coventry Blue. Sara explained: “We’re thrilled to be involved with this project as the subject of ‘Coventry Blue’ is very close to our hearts. In medieval times, when The Weaver’s House was built, Coventry was a centre for the weaving trade, when the city was best known for its fine Coventry Blue cloth.
“We grow the woad plant in the garden, and although the plant is green and related to cabbages, it produces a fantastic range of blues. We have experimented with this natural dyestuff to see what shades of blue it produces, so we have an idea what Coventry Blue might have been like.
The dye pot
Freshly dyed wool
The weaving on the loom
Weaving in progress
“We’ll never truly know what the medieval Coventry Blue looked like as the recipe was a closely guarded secret, but it’s wonderful to see the colour being revived as we head towards 2021.
“Blue is a thread that runs through Coventry’s history for hundreds of years and we’re excited that Moving Blue will be a connection to the weavers of old as well as looking to the future of the city.”
During our tenth anniversary year the Weavers’ Workshop created weaving inspired by Coventry Blue. If you would like to see more of this previous experimentation with natural woad dye and weaving, you can read more here.
During 2020 a different item will be painted in Moving Blue every day. You can read the full details on the 2021 website.
We enjoyed a sunny September for the first Heritage Open Days weekend of 2019, the 25th anniversary year of the festival.
On the Saturday we, and visitors, were treated to an extra slice of culture as The Weaver’s House hosted part of the Spon Spun Arts & Heritage Trail in the form of an exhibition by Karen-Rose-Textiles.
The Spon Spun exhibition featured artworks entitled ‘Scir Burna’ (Clear Stream in Old English) representing the river Sherbourne that flows through and under the city. The pieces representing the ‘life giving force’ of the river are made from naturally dyed felted wool and were accompanied by a soundscape during the installation.
The river itself would have been used for washing and dyeing in the time when the house was lived in by the medieval weaver and family. The artworks, created especially for display in The Weaver’s House, connects the river and the history of Coventry’s weaving, dyeing and spinning industry and the house’s previous residents. The pieces also pay homage to the dye colour Coventry Blue “as true as Coventry blue.”
Earlier in 2019 Karen was commissioned by Artspace Coventry and Spon Spun to plan and deliver a community based intergenerational project linking together The Weaver’s House and the pupils from neighbouring Spon Gate Primary School. The project introduced pupils from year 3 and 4 to the ancient craft of weaving and its strong links with medieval Coventry. They also visited The Weaver’s House and learnt some weaving techniques from the Weavers’ Workshop.
We’re still reeling (or spinning) from the fact that the sun actually came out on Saturday after what’s been a dismal few weeks, weather-wise. We had lots of visitors, for this, our first Open Day of 2018.
We were able to get outside for displays of spinning and weaving.
Signs of life in the garden!
Lots of naturally dyed textiles on show including last year’s big project, Coventry Blue.
We had visitors of all ages, we were pleased to welcome both first-timers and familiar faces – thank you all for coming!
Thank you to everyone who visited us, we appreciate your lovely comments and are so pleased to hear you had a good time!
As we can’t get enough of weaving, afterwards we headed to the CET Pop Up to see Permutations by Theo Wright. It’s on until April 21, so still time to catch it along with much more.
Our next Open Day is our Heritage Crafts Day on Sunday 6 May.
Our trustee Dr Nat. Alcock made a recent visit to Mexico and during his stay he visited a traditional weaver in the village of Teotitlán del Valle in the south of the country, near the town of Oaxaca. This was fascinating, as the methods and equipment were very similar to ours, as you will find:
Nat watches a demonstration by the weaver, Faustino, on the main loom.
Another familiar sight, this time it’s woad dye from a plant growing on the coast. It was used for patterns of varied hues of blue, the depth of colour depending on the dyeing – first, second or third batch.
More natural dye, here a grinder is being used to crush cochineal, with the resulting red dye shown on the wool hanks. The famous cochineal beetle [grana] which is found only on a particular cactus it produces varied hues, depending on the pH. Cochineal is commonly used as a food dye.
Other natural dyes used were:
Yellow, either from marigold or a lichen
Deep black from a mimosa seed pod
Brown from pecan shells
Some of the hanks of wool dyed with natural dyes.
A finished carpet.
A finished carpet in shades of natural blue, using similar dye to Coventry Blue!
An old loom, dating from around 1900. It belonged to Faustino’s great-grandfather, and has been restored.
2017 was a massively successful and memorable year at The Weaver’s House, so without ado, here’s a whistle-stop tour of the highlights. From a sunny start in April with a day of fun and Tudor Games we enjoyed consistently good visitor numbers and fantastic feedback. The ‘Old May Day and Crafts’ Open Day featured guest stalls throughout the house and garden, welcoming craftspeople from Warwickshire Craft Circle, Quite Contrary Baskets and Byatt’s Brewery. The June Open Day coincided with World Wide Knit in Public Day, so knitters convened in the garden for sociable crafting.
Heritage Open Days in September is always a big weekend for us and on the Sunday we had the finale of our tenth anniversary weaving project Coventry Blue. Throughout this year, visitors to The Weaver’s House contributed to this hands-on project, run by the Weavers’ Workshop and on the Sunday it was finally finished. Coventry Blue then took second prize on the Spon Spun Art Trail, even though it wasn’t on the official voting list!
Coventry Blue
Godiva Festival
Volunteers’ Celebration
What a fantastic year! Last night we convened on a misty and mysterious looking evening to discuss plans for the upcoming year… there are a few plans in the works that we will be revealing soon!
The Weaver’s House
The ruined chapel a few minutes walk away
This year sees us offering some Sunday dates in response to demand from people who would like to visit but work or have other commitments on a Saturday. We do hope that if this is you, you will be able to join us this year, whether it’s for a tour or tea and cake!
Dates for the 2018 Open Days are: Saturday 14 April, Sunday 6 May Heritage Crafts Day, Saturday 16 June, Sunday 22 July Tudor Games Day, Saturday 18 August (all 11am – 4pm) and Heritage Open Days, provisionally scheduled for Saturday 15 September and Sunday 16 September.
We had a fantastic Heritage Open Days weekend with lots of visitors. People were not put off by the rain and enjoyed visiting us and our neighbours including St John’s Church, Coventry Watch Museum, CET Building and Priory Visitor Centre. So much heritage to enjoy and that’s just those within a short walk — there were over 50 places to visit in Coventry during the festival.
HODs saw our final Open Days this year. If you’ve been along to one of our Open Days at The Weaver’s House, or have been following us online, you will have spotted our 10 year anniversary weaving project, to create a new version of the famous ‘Coventry Blue’ woven cloth.
Throughout this year, visitors to The Weaver’s House have contributed to this hands-on weaving project, run by the Weavers’ Workshop. Finally, during Heritage Open Days, the cloth that was woven by so many people during this year was cut from the loom.
As the cloth unfurled, it was the very first opportunity for anybody to see how it turned out!
Scissors ready!
Prepping the cloth
Here it comes…
It was cut free of the loom by Margaret, one of the lead weavers on the project who revealed the completed cloth to be approximately five metres in length.
Action… and – cut!
Visitors help to unfurl the woven cloth
Coventry Blue then took second prize on the Spon Spun Art Trail, even though it wasn’t on the official voting list! It is currently displayed as part of the City Arcadia exhibition until 30 September. The opening times are Tuesday – Friday 12 – 4pm and Saturday 10am – 1pm.
If you’ve been along to one of our Open Days this year, or follow us online, you will have spotted our 10 year anniversary weaving project, to create a new version of the famous ‘Coventry Blue’ woven cloth.
Throughout this year, visitors to The Weaver’s House have contributed to this hands-on weaving project, run by the Weavers’ Workshop. We’re excited that the cloth that has been woven by many people during this year will be cut from the loom at 11am on Sunday 10 September during Heritage Open Days. As we unfurl the cloth, it will be the very first opportunity to see how it turned out – so if you’ve had a go, pop along and see the completed cloth that you have been part of!
The weaving on the loom
Sara from the Weavers’ Workshop explained the background to the project:
“In medieval times, when the house was built, Coventry was a centre for the weaving trade and the city was best known for its fine blue cloth, “Coventry Blue”. Our project used Coventry Blue as a starting point and was intended to give visitors an opportunity to see the magic of the woad dyeing process and have a go at ‘hands on’ loom weaving, to see for themselves what weaving entails.”
The dye pot
Freshly dyed wool
The table loom
“We began with woad dyeing the wool on the first Weaver’s House Open Day of the year. The wool was then put on a warping mill to create the correct lengths of yarn needed to warp up a portable table loom, all this before cloth weaving could start. The Weavers’ Workshop wonder whether this is the first sample of “Coventry Blue” cloth woven in the city in 450 years. As no one really knows what the original Coventry Blue looked like or the processes involved in its making, it’s our very own 21st century interpretation!”
The loom has also been out and about at events including the Lunt Roman Festival to give even more people an opportunity to weave a little bit of The Weaver’s House history. After the cutting ceremony, the piece of cloth will be displayed at the house as part of the Spon Spun Art Trail which runs from 12 – 4pm on Sunday 10 September. There will be further opportunities to see the cloth in the future.
Five facts about the famous historical ‘Coventry Blue’:
The fine blue cloth was dyed and woven in Coventry and exported to the continent.
The blue colour was derived from woad, an unpromising looking green plant related to the cabbage family. Woad is a vat dye and requires a complex chemical process to create the conditions in which cloth can be dyed blue.
No one knows what colour the historical Coventry Blue looked like as no samples have ever been identified or dye recipe discovered.
The woad dye was imported from the south of France as the sunny climate ensured a higher concentration of blue dyestuff in the plant.
Coventry Blue cloth was highly sought after due to the non-fading quality of its blue colour and is believed to be the basis of the phrase True as Coventry Blue or True Blue meaning steadfastness.
The completion of the weaving project rounds off a highly successful year for us – we’ve had large numbers of visitors enjoying our Open Days season including memorable days celebrating Easter, May Day and our 10th anniversary – but it’s not over yet!
For the first time ever, we’ll be open on the Friday of Heritage Open Days with a ‘Reduced’ Open Day on 8 September (there’s no refreshments or demonstrations, but a great opportunity to have a quieter look around the house and talk to guides).
Then we have Open Days on Saturday 9 and Sunday 10 September with refreshments supplied by The Heritage Pantry (formerly The Heritage Cake Company) alongside spinning and weaving. Please note that the solar (upstairs room containing the loom) will not be open for Heritage Open Days.
Opening times are 10am – 4pm. Admission is free and no booking is necessary. These are our last Open Days this year, so we hope to see you there!
Have you tried making Coventry Blue cloth? Get in touch!
There are little references to weaving and textiles dotted around Coventry, for example in public art and architecture. Here are a few to begin with (do you recognise them all?)
This one is called Thread Through Time and is located in the Bull Yard.
The blue arches on this bridge are reminiscent of ribbons… in the shade of Coventry Blue?
This incised carving of a loom is on a pillar in the Precinct, but do you know whereabouts?
Does this looping strip of blue path represent a ribbon, or is it the Sherbourne? Both play a role in Coventry’s textile heritage.
There are more of course and doubtless some that we haven’t seen – please do share your pics (all images will be credited) and help us build a picture of where and when Coventry’s weaving heritage has been celebrated! Public art, buildings, street names… a wander around on the upcoming Heritage Open Days would be the ideal place to start…
