Introducing... Nic
Today sees the first of a series of posts introducing you to the members of the Common Threads Textile Group. I'm Nic, the weaver behind Nicola Rudd Textiles and my path to here has been a varied one. From as long as I can remember I've needed to make things, whether it was a cross stitch embroidery, a hand-made card or a holey scarf for my teddy bear. Around 10 years ago I returned to knitting and crochet after a long break and that became my gateway drug into the glorious world of real wool. Given a spinning wheel for my 40th birthday, I got sucked into the spinning rabbit hole, which led in turn to dyeing my own fibre and a second hand rigid heddle loom. In 2014, after 20 years in the primary education sector, I left to set up my hand dyeing yarn and fibre business and develop my weaving skills through the part time HNC at Bradford. The dyeing part of my life now satisfies the scientist in me whilst the mechanics of the loom appeals to my inner engineer that was unleashed in the early 1990s when I worked in the nuclear industry. I am a total maths geek and weaving allows me to explore pattern, regularity and repetition to my heart's content. However, I know that if left to my own devices I would happily weave twill scarves in fine yarns for the rest of my weaving life, so with the intention of challenging myself to continue to grow as a weaver, I am currently actively looking for ways to introduce irregularity into my work. I have an on-going love affair with British wool but can be persuaded to flirt outrageously with fine linen and silk yarns (even if I regularly curse the time it takes to dress the loom with fine yarns!)
Over the last two years I have been amazed by the creativity of these and they produce some truly beautiful products - my weaving is mainly focused on producing the samples for college so I am very excited to be finalising the designs for my final collection at the moment - it is a requirement to produce a collection of items, not just sample swatches!
