Michelle Storey - Creating with Natural Yarns

I’ve been a member of Creative Gunning since 2016, when my husband and I moved from Sydney to a rural property near Gunning. We enjoy rehabilitating the bush around us, growing some of our own food and welcoming family and friends to come and stay.

I love to create woven scarves and shawls, often using my own handspun yarn from local fleece. Spinning and weaving are deeply grounding, mindful rituals that require total presence. I love watching the intricate patterns in the cloth emerge as the weaving progresses, with each pass of the weaving shuttle revealing more of the colours and texture of the finished project.

My wooden table loom involves an entirely manual process. The lengthwise threads (the warp threads) need to first be threaded by hand onto the loom in a complex sequence, different for the different weaving patterns. Then the rows of thread (the weft threads) are passed through the warp threads by hand in a different sequence each row to make the final complex interwoven pattern.

While I sometimes use commercial yarns for projects, I particularly like using my own handspun yarns. I live in a region that produces very high quality fleece from both sheep and alpaca and it is very grounding to be using local materials, watching the textured and coloured yarn emerge as I spin, and how the yarn blends with the weaving patterns as I weave. The process is slow and peaceful and rhythmic.

Whatever yarn I use, and whether it is through weaving or crochet, I hope, when people touch and wear the items that I make, that they can sense the slow mindful pace of handmade craftsmanship.