The Charm for Weaving

Speaking of weaving, what comes to my mind are the rope ladder, bamboo raft, shelters, and other survival tools created by Bear Grylls, which has made from all kinds of wild plants. It can be seen that weaving is an essential craft technique with a long history and culture. Dating back to ancient times, mankind made woven cloth, daily necessities, and accessories with branches, leaves, and stems of plants by weaving-related tools or their hands. They even tied the knots to record and memorize all the things that matter. With the increasing development of the era, this skill has finally formed into one of the oldest handicrafts of human beings.
说起编织，浮现我脑海的是贝爷制作的绳梯、竹筏、庇护所等利用一切野外植物组织成型予以生存的工具。可见，它是一项非常重要的技能，具有着源远流长的历史文化。从远古时期的人类，利用工具或双手将植物的枝条、叶、茎等互相交错、钩连成型，组织成为衣物、日用品、饰品，再到古人的“结绳记事”，随着时代的变迁，最后孕育成为了一种人类最古老的手工艺之一。

From now on, this craft technique is everywhere. Many woven handicrafts can be found in our daily life, especially in my grandmother’s home, or Xinchang Ancient Town, I think. Take straw sandals, vegetable basketry, fruit baskets, dustpan, bamboo storage bins, flowerpot cover, sleeping handmade mats, straw hats, etc. Meanwhile, weaving has helped modern home decoration take it up a notch. These woven handicrafts turn into some sort of handmade art decorations that bring nature to the home for their artistic characteristics filled with natural style in simplicity and naivety colors.
现在环顾四周，编织的手工艺品无处不在。尤其在我外婆家新场古镇更为习以为常。比如草鞋、菜篮、水果提篮、簸箕、储物竹筐、花盆套、卧席、草帽等等藏匿于生活起居的方方面面。又因在现代家居装饰之中，独具自然朴素、色泽简洁、造型大方的艺术特色，转化为了一种亲近大自然的手工艺术装饰品。

Except for weaving, knitting and felting are some of the common Textiles Arts as well. I used to interview a Japanese artist Terumi Ohta for her stunningly realistic handmade wool felt animals. Feel free to review my previous article if you are interested. In this article, I’d love to share some beautiful woven handicrafts made by Nancy Zheng, a weaving enthusiast. Her works are usually more of a modern style that based on characters or animals from films and animations, which woven into cute handmade dolls to meet the current personalized needs.
作为纺织艺术的其中之一，除了编织外，主要常见的还有针织和毛毡手工艺。此前，我曾采访过一位日本艺人Terumi Ohta，她的纯手工羊毛毡艺术可谓栩栩如生。感兴趣的童鞋欢迎回顾往期文章。那么在本期，我为大家带来了一位编织爱好者Nancy Zheng的手工编织工艺品，她的作品更多的为现代风格，即人物或动物卡通形象为主，编织成可爱的玩偶，以满足当下个性化的需求。

“As I was a child, I loved to knit sweaters like adults. My sisters and I each took two needles and a ball of wool to interlace it into shapes. In the university, I got the sparks from DIY Community, began by fooling around, and taught myself from basic-learning books to professional weaving videos. After that, I got on the non-stop journey of the master of weaving.” Nancy said, picking up a doll and handing it to me. “Weaving helps me unwind in my spare time after work. It’s very meditative that enables my thoughts and creative ideas to get into my mind. It wanders and follows my hearts till the work is born.” She continued.
“孩提时期，喜爱模仿大人织毛衣，我和姐妹几人各拿两根棒针和一团毛线，试着把毛线勾勒成型。到了大学，其手工社的加入彻底激发了DIY的乐趣。随后便一发不可收拾，从基础编制入门，到深度讲解视频，潜移默化的走上了编织的道路。编织让我工作后的闲暇之余放松心情，有助于冥想，将思绪和创造力在脑海中游荡，随后任由内心的感觉酝酿出想要表达的作品。” Nancy说着，拿起一旁的玩偶递给了我。

Admiring her work, I continued, “What do you know about weaving? What are the difficulties and challenges?” Tracing the doll through her fingers, Nancy explained:” Weaving is a kind of recombination for three-dimensional elements, which’s beyond composition, I think. It turns the existing raw materials into simple ones and transforms the 2D into 3D. Such as sculpture and pottery, which create three-dimensional artworks. However, how to handmade a doll with milk cotton, and make it look like it has a soul, is really a killer. Especially the facial features of a doll. As for woven crafts, weaving needles and crochet hooks are the two main tools. The needle is used for making clothes and hats while the crochet hook is applied to create more detailed work, like a doll. The completion of a work is often a mixture of multiple stitches skills, including double cast-on, interlocking, double knits, purl knit, warp knit, I-cord, garter stitch, interloping, plain stitch, pick-up-and-knit, needle dropping, yarn over, etc.”
欣赏着她的作品，我继续问道：”以你的理解，何为编织？它的难点和挑战的地方是什么？“ 抚摸着手中的玩偶，Nancy诠释：”个人觉得编织是一种超越构图的三维空间元素的重组，将现有原材料化繁为简，平面到立体的成型过程。有点像是雕塑和陶艺，创造三维立体的作品。然而，如何用手中的毛线，相互交错创造出有血有肉的玩偶，尤其五官要让其变得传神，则是一大难点。棒针和钩针是编织手工艺中主要运用的两种工具，棒针一般用来织衣服和帽子。玩偶类我常用的是钩针，其中包括短针、中长针、长针、锁针、引拔针、空针等编织工具。一件作品的完成，往往是多种针法混合。“

“For weaving a doll, I usually picked out a character I loved the most in a movie or animation at first. Then I put lots of thoughts into the early conception by fooling around with milk cotton to make shapes. Once the design plan was created, I’d go to the materials collecting part, including yarn color, yarn thickness, textures, and suitable weaving tools. After that, I started to weave with great patience and perseverance, because you had to take out the stitches you weaved again and again until the satisfying work was finally done.” Nancy continued.
”对于玩偶的制作，除了挑选出个人喜欢的某个电影、动漫中的人物或者动物外，前期的构思也是需要非常的严谨，通过毛线一根一根的反复揣摩，画出图解。然后搜集与罗列出所需的创作材料，如毛线颜色、粗细、材质和合适的编织工具。最后才真正步入主题，而这一编织过程需要有极大的耐心和毅力，因为很多时候，你可能会织好了又拆线的情况，而这种情形将会是反反复复一直到勾勒出最终满意的作品。“ Nancy继续说道。

“From prototype to completion, it normally takes pretty long enough to form into a handwoven artifact. It involves hours of hours thinking about the complexity of the color, size, tools, and what kind of skills will apply to the work. For starters, I suggest they learn various basic stitches first and then try to go for an easy target for practice, such as a doll with simple color and figure. Once the beginners get the hands-on basic woven handicrafts, they could move on to difficult ones to boost their skills.”, Nancy paused and added, “Weaving is a time-consuming creation process. Be calm and patient as well as be tender with work, you might weave something great, something will be delicate later.”
”一个手工编织工艺品的雏形到完稿，需要花费很长的时间来完成，尤其对于编织作品的颜色复杂度、成品的大小、工具的运用，以及技法等尤为考究。新手建议先学好各种基础针法，然后试着编织颜色单一、形态简易的玩偶来入门。随着编织的作品越来越多，技法熟能生巧后，便可慢慢的去编织更复杂的作品。”，Nancy顿了顿，补充道：“编织是一个耗时的过程，想要更好的完成作品，一定要静下心、耐心地去刻画细节，精雕细琢才能让手工编织工艺品栩栩如生。”

To my mind, weaving is a way of expression of art, which has a certain shared feature in design, photography, and painting. There’s a mixture of vision, touch, and feelings under a variety of dimensions that engages more senses into the artwork, which makes an artwork alive to boost the readers’ feelings. Or, weaving is a structural element that has beyond traditional composition. As the work is threaded on the needles, there’s variability in the tension that triggers distortion in the textile. It’s multifaceted.
依我看来，编织是艺术的表现方式一种，与设计、摄影、绘画又有着某一方面的共性，在多种维度下，融入了视觉、触觉等感官，以及情感的渗透，使之有魂，让读者产生共鸣；亦或，是一种超越了传统构图的结构元素，通过线与针相交融，实现织物张力的可变性。因为，它是包罗万象的。

Woven handicrafts by Nancy Zheng
编织手工艺品：Nancy Zheng

Interview/Writings/Art Edited & Translated by BubbleSwan
采访/撰写/美编/翻译：BubbleSwan

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