Portfolio
Name: “Caveman Cable”
Project: “Kinship”
Dimensions: 110x180cm
Material: Donegal Yarns Galánta, Tweed & Soft Wool
Technique(s): Jacquard knit, Organic Cable knit, crochet
Purpose: Wall hanging/blanket
Concept & Details:
People gather around a fire for community, ceremony and warmth. This caveman symbolises the ancestors before us, who built fires for reasons that are still alive today.
The body of the jacquard caveman makes a lovely marled pattern on the reverse side. A bright blue strip of linking connects the caveman to the earthy brown of the elongated cable edges. All enclosed with a clean white crochet border. The weight of the fabric is really satisfyingly dense.
The organic circular cables along the edges of the piece are developed from imagery of the licking flames of a fire.
Name: “Fiach”
Project: Commission
Dimensions: 80×110cm
Material: 100% cotton
Technique(s): Organic Cabling, crochet
Purpose: Baby blanket
Concept & Details:
“Fiach” is the Irish word for raven.
Made for baby Fiach, the shape of a raven is made into the cloth with organic cabling. Using rough calculations for the layout, the cables were crossed spontaneously during the knitting to mimic feathers. The eye of the bird is created with an amber bead. Enclosed with a clean crochet border.
Testimonial:
“Our friends commissioned Clodagh to make a special blanket for us, for our new baby. She got in touch to see what we’d like. I gave her a very loose idea - just told her his name (Fiach) and what it means (Raven) and to work away! What she came up with was better than anything I could have even asked for. It’s so beautiful. The stitching is Celtic knotted style with a Raven pattern worked through it, in a gorgeous soft green cotton. We’re so impressed by it! Thank you so much Clodagh. We love the blanket and Fiach will for many years to come.”
Name: “Kinship”
Project: “Kinship”
Dimensions: 150x180cm
Material: 100% cotton
Technique(s): Filet crochet
Purpose: Wall hanging/blanket
Text:
“I see a wisp of your ancestor,
Dancing in this lighted pit
Between us.
Warmth crawling outwards of our fingertips,
Crafting.
A steady flame of kinship.
Deep embers of love and safety.“
Concept & Details:
“Kinship” self-written poem crochet blanket to encapsulate the entire concept behind the collection; the community and tradition that has existed around fires for several thousand years and the beauty of creating by hand & emotional durability.
This piece spanned the entirety of the project… taking 100 hours to hand crochet.
Name: “Blue Honeycomb”
Project: “Kinship”
Dimensions: 90x120cm
Material: Donegal Yarns Soft wool & Tweed, Bombo wool
Technique(s): 24-shaft honeycomb weave
Purpose: Wall hanging/throw
Concept & Details:
This piece is an observation into the diverse colours a burning fire emits. Light blue at the point where the flame is hottest. Red as the overall hue of burning embers. Contrasting blue and red make for some lovely optical mixing in this woven piece.
The honeycomb structure is derived from imagery of burning logs. The way they become soft and crackled as they burn in mimicked by the plush Bombo fibres.
Name: “A Wisp of your Ancestor”
Project: “Kinship”
Dimensions: 130x180cm
Material: Donegal Yarns Galánta Wool
Technique(s): Jacquard knit
Purpose: Wall hanging/blanket
Concept Details:
A quote extracted from my poem written for the “Kinship” collection. This handwritten sentence is visualised sitting next to a drawing of embers, putting words and imagery in conjunction to create a cohesive story.
The whole piece was knit in two parts and stitched together with a yellow strip to bring in a flash of what a licking flame contributes.
Name: “Wee Blue Flame”
Project: “Kinship”
Dimensions: 100x170cm
Material: Donegal Tweed, Bombo wool
Technique(s): Cable knit, crochet embellishment
Purpose: Wall hanging/blanket
Concept & Details:
Based off of the intense, hot flashes of blue in the fire’s hottest flames.
Using traditional Aran cabling, the lengths of the cable wells are elongated as they reach the edges. This makes for a more organic feeling to the traditional rigidity of Aran knit stitches.
Once knitted, it has been worked into by hand using 100% Bombo Wool. There was only a rough guide at this step in the process; It was layed out and determined where the white thread wanted to travel along the fabric/what flowed best from afar.
Name: “Embers”
Project: “Kinship”
Dimensions: 155x190cm
Material: 100% cotton
Technique(s): Jacquard knit
Purpose: Wall hanging/blanket
Concept & Details:
Primary photography tranlated into stitches. A blend of black, red, yellow and blue meld together to capture an image of burning embers into a cloth that drapes in a surreal way.
Name: “Mohair Bubble Flashes”
Project: “Kinship”
Dimensions: 140x165cm
Material: 100% Mohair
Technique(s): Knit bubbles
Purpose: Wall hanging/blanket
Concept & Details:
Lovely delicate mohair piece inspired by the tiny, hottest part at the base of a burning flame.
Knitted in three seperate panels and joined together with a hand-dyed strip of mohair.
Name: “Organic Cable Ripples”
Project: “Kinship”
Dimensions: 155x165cm
Material: Donegal Yarns Galánta, Tweed & Soft Wool, Cushedale bouclé wool
Technique(s): Organic Cable knit, knitted ripples, crochet
Purpose: Wall hanging/blanket
Concept & Details:
A technique I developed during the final year of my degree: Organic Cabling. Using only a rough sketch for composition, each cable is crossed at my discretion during the knitting. The same is done for the wooly red ripples. The result is a completely unique blanket that ties the designer in with the threads of the cloth.
The path the cables travel is derived from imagery of flames. Assigning certain cable knit stitches to pictures of burning fire in the design development process lays the foundation for this piece.
Donegal wool makes up the base of the cabling and knitted ripples. Crochet accents in electric blue Soft Donegal wool and Cushendale bouclé are attached to the ripples by hand at the very end.
Name: “Soft Log Honeycomb”
Project: “Kinship”
Dimensions: 90x210cm
Material: Space-dyed Donegal Yarns Soft Wool
Technique(s): 24-shaft honeycomb weave, space-dying
Purpose: Wall hanging/throw
Concept & Details:
Inspired by the cracking texture of the combusting log, this blanket is woven over 24 shafts using space-dyed Donegal wool.
It’s made up using three different sizes of honeycomb, which mimics the varying sizes/irregularities of the soft burning wood.
This is a piece I had in my head from the very start of my degree project. It layed out a sort of foundation for the tactile aspect of the collection; translating fire photography into the medium of textile and creating a cloth that mimics a different aspect of a flaming pit.
Name: “Ghost Song” Jim Morrison poem
Dimensions: 150×150cm
Material: 100% cotton
Technique(s): Filet crochet
Purpose: Wall hanging/blanket
Text:
A vast radiant beach and cooled jewelled moon
Couples naked race down by it’s quiet side
And we laugh like soft, mad children
Smug in the woolly cotton brains of infancy
The music and voices are all around us
Concept & Details:
Encapsulating my favourite stanza of Jim Morrison’s “Ghost Song” in textile.
