SARAH MACDERMOTT

Sarah’s deep love of textiles and cloth combined with the satisfaction of making is what drives her exploration of weaving. She works with natural fibres, mainly wool, silk, linen and paper yarns enjoying the tactile qualities of the yarn and how that translates into beautiful cloth and ultimately into garments. Further inspiration is drawn from Sarah’s travels, particularly in Japan where she fell in love with Japanese architecture and the way that buildings are designed to interact with nature. In addition, the Japanese concepts of yo-no-bi (the beauty of everyday things) and shibui (the beauty that emerges with time and through use) inform her work.

 

Sarah has been making with yarns and fabrics ever since she can remember. Her eyes were opened to weaving when she saw a table loom being demonstrated at Unravel in Farnham Maltings. She subsequently booked on a weekend workshop with Margo Selby in her Whitstable studio, was hooked, and went out and bought a table loom for herself. Her collection of looms expanded as she came up against the limitations of each loom. She now mainly weaves on a 16 shaft table loom and a 32 shaft compudobby. Sarah loves weaving with fine threads, thinking about the qualities of drape and how a cloth she weaves can be used in a garment. She also enjoys using high twist yarns and exploiting their properties to create different textures within a cloth. She particularly enjoys weaving double cloth and experimenting with different weave structures in the layers to create interesting effects. Although mainly weaving with natural coloured and indigo dyed yarns Sarah also enjoys making warps with multiple colours to create ombre effects.

 

Undertaking the Handweavers Diploma, which she completed in 2024, was instrumental for Sarah, encouraging her to open up and experiment with her weaving. She also found that working with other students was invaluable for her own creative practice. Now that she has retired from the NHS and has more time, she wants to continue to explore and learn as she embarks on a textile degree.