The Scenic Valley Handweavers 2019 Guild Challenge was to produce something woven but in 3D rather than just flat cloth. Needless to say the pandemic played havoc with the timing and the final ‘reveal’ was not until September 2021.

I had planned something to use the variegated tencel I had used to make scarves for a New Zealand couple – in colors that reminded me of the local Paua shell (known as Abalone here). Combining it with a copper wire in the warp and weft I hoped I might be able to form it into the shape of a Paua shell and then finish the outside with some needle felted wool to imitate the real outer shell.

I was able to order the wire (armature winding wire) in a similar thickness to the tencel – maybe a little more, but fairly flexible. The downside was, of course, the copper wire does not stretch in any way – so conventional weaving where the warp ‘stretches’ enough to form the shed was not going to be simple. The solution was to warp the table loom with alternating copper and tencel and every other copper wire connected to a completely independent warp bar directly behind and at the same level as the back beam. These two bars were then connected with a bungy cord that wrapped around another fixed bar. The tie-up allowed me to weave a tabby cloth that lifted one or the other sets of copper warp wires and when one lifted, the bungy stretched one way allowing half to lift. The opposite shed lifted the other wires.

I had one shuttle with copper wire and one with tencel. Needless to say the tencel behaved as normal – the copper could be pulled out by hand and carefully wrapped around the selvedge which didn’t end up as particularly neat but given that it would eventually be trimmed and then covered as the felt ‘wrapped around’ it wasn’t going to be to much of a problem.

It was fairly evident early on that the copper wire was the ‘controlling’ warp and weft and while behaving as woven cloth it would not allow beating up to the picks I expected – but this was pretty well flying by the seat of my pants. Should I ever use this technique again I’d add more tencel shots between each wire.

The first critical test was once I had woven ‘enough’ for the shell and removed it from the loom – I had to form a bowl and see whether it stayed in place and retained the relative spacing between wire and tencel in warp and weft. Luckily – it did

The next step was to trim the edge (to be more shell-like) and start applying washed wool locks and needle felt them together (and onto the woven surface). I used some ‘slightly’ washed locks to add a little bit of ‘roughness’. I also added some dark wool lines to add some character. The more needle felting the tighter the ‘shell’ got and I carried the outside around the shell edges into the inside – as I recall paua shells tend to do.

A one off effort that turned out pretty well as I expected, although the whole process was definitely learning as I went along. Needless to say a very enjoyable ‘challenge’ and gives me plenty of ideas for improvements for ‘Mk II’