April 2, 2025 • 51 mins
In this episode of the Sweet Georgia Show, Felicia explores the work of Radical Weavers, a community weaving studio in Stirling, Scotland. Founded by Mairi Breslin, the studio supports young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds through weaving workshops and inclusive teaching methods. Peter Dickie, Mairi’s son, runs the studio’s commercial offerings and community work, showcasing the transformative power of weaving.
The Radical Weavers organization, which started as a small hobby, has grown into a community hub that offers therapeutic weaving workshops and support for individuals facing challenges. Through inclusive and inspiring programs, the organization empowers people to overcome obstacles and achieve their goals. The Radical Weavers’ commitment to diversity and inclusion has earned them recognition and support from the community.
Takeaways:
- Radical Weavers focuses on building community through weaving.
- The studio supports young adults who are neurodivergent or LGBT.
- Weaving is used as a therapeutic tool for trauma recovery.
- Accessibility adaptations are made for individuals with disabilities.
- Tartan weaving is evolving with innovative designs and materials.
- The V&A Museum residency showcased the creativity of the studio.
- Personal stories highlight the transformative power of weaving.
- Future plans include opening a Tartan Centre in Scotland.
- The organization aims to be self-sufficient and community-driven.
- Inclusivity and support are at the core of Radical Weavers' mission.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:05):
Welcome to today's episode of The Sweet Georgia
Show, where we explore how thethrough her background in trauma
(00:39):
counseling, Mari has created aninclusive, inspiring and
wholehearted organizationfocused on helping young adults
from disadvantaged backgroundsto develop essential life skills
in a safe space.
This work is about more thanweaving fabric.
It's about bringing confidence,connections and new
opportunities for the communityof individuals who are often
(01:03):
socially isolated.
So you'll hear about howtraditional Scottish tartan
designs are being given new lifeand meaning and how inclusive
teaching methods are opening thedoors for those who were
previously excluded from craftspaces and very, very moving and
touching personal stories thatshowcase the healing powers of
(01:24):
creating with your own twohands.
This conversation reveals howthe simple act of weaving can
actually create profound ripplesof change through an entire
community.
But I really wanted to thank youboth, Mary and Peter, for being
here for this conversation.
Originally, this is like monthsand months ago, I've been
wanting to have thisconversation with you because I
(01:46):
noticed, you know, that Mary,you had joined the School of
Sweet Georgia.
And I was just kind of likelooking through the members who
had joined that day.
And then I saw your name andthen I saw your email address
pop up.
And it had the domain nameradicalweavers.org.
And I was immediately like, oh,this is interesting.
I wonder what And then I wentover to your website and then
(02:08):
discovered this whole world ofall of these things that you've
been working on and doing.
And I found it so fascinatingand wanted to have a chance to
chat with you about it and sortof explore that whole world of
all of the amazing charity workthat you have been doing.
And so thank you so much forbeing here and agreeing to do
this.
(02:29):
You're welcome.
SPEAKER_02 (02:30):
Thank you for inviting us.
We're delighted to have theopportunity to talk about the
work that we do.
SPEAKER_00 (02:35):
Fantastic.
So why don't we get started withjust if you could tell us a
little bit about yourselves,both of you, Mary and Peter.
And so, Mary, if you want tostart first and just sort of
talk about, you know, whereyou're from, where you sort of
got started with weaving and andyeah, what you're doing now.
SPEAKER_02 (02:53):
Okay, so my name is Mary, Mary Breslin, and we live
in central Scotland.
We run the Radical Weavers basedin Stilling.
So we started initially in 2019and I thought that it would be
nice to have something for thecommunity, somewhere for the
community to go and to dosomething lovely and creative
(03:16):
and I was a weaver for manyyears before that.
I was at the time a traumapsychologist working at the
local university but I had anidea that something in the
community would be nice so Ithought how am I going to do
this?
Will I do it part-time aroundwork or will I do it full-time?
So I decided to run acrowdfunder to see if anybody
(03:37):
was interested and that wouldhelp buy looms and stuff
initially.
And we got a fantastic response.
So I decided to give up theacademic career and start a
charity, a community weavingstudio, initially for people who
had experienced trauma or loss.
But from there, we have evolvedinto quite a smaller niche.
(03:59):
And really, we support youngadults who are either
neurodivergent or LGBT and whohave become socially isolated.
And essentially, they've leftschool.
They didn't have a good time atschool, typically.
Bullied, probably left school,underqualified.
And then we encourage them tocome in and spend some time with
(04:21):
us.
And they discover the wonderfulworld of weaving and spend a bit
time with us and then we saywell you know what do you want
to do from here whether it's goand get some qualifications or
looking for a part-time job or afull-time job or just
volunteering with us or with oneof the other charities locally
and that's what we encouragethem to do and we've had some
(04:44):
great results.
So as I say I started in 2019and then when lockdown hit I
needed help because I was doingthings online and all sorts of
stuff.
So I turned to who was thenearest person who could help
me.
And my son, Peter, or this isPeter, I said, could you help me
(05:05):
please?
All these looms come flat packedand I'm hopeless at that.
Could you please help withbuilding the looms?
And he reluctantly agreed.
He'd finished his college courseand he was kind of hanging
around looking for something todo.
So he agreed to build the loomsand said, I'm not interested in
weaving.
I'm not going to learn to weave.
Not interested.
But he did come to the studioevery day when we were able to
(05:27):
go.
And over a period of time, Iwatched him working with the
other young adults and he wasvery good at supporting them.
And we ended up dragging himinto the weaving.
Kicking and
SPEAKER_01 (05:40):
screaming.
SPEAKER_02 (05:41):
And now he runs all the classes.
He does all the community workwith young adults and he runs
all our commercial offerings aswell.
And I very much take a backseat.
So Peter, do you want to talkabout what it's been like
learning to weave?
SPEAKER_01 (05:59):
Exhausting.
Hi, so I'm Peter Dickey.
I started at Radic Weavers aboutfive and a half years ago now,
give or take.
wove one thing then didn't weaveagain for about another two or
three years almost and then weneeded a new weaving instructor
and I already knew how to do allthe stuff so I've just kind of
fallen into that role stuck itin now they kind of get rid of
(06:23):
me
SPEAKER_00 (06:25):
Yeah, so I have so, so many questions.
Maybe first, I could ask about,Peter, how you go about teaching
somebody how to weave?
Like, where do you start?
Are you starting with yarn?
Are you starting with warp?
How are you going aboutteaching?
And are people coming in for,you know, week by week training?
(06:46):
Are they coming in every coupleof days?
Or is it just one session?
Or how many sessions?
What does that kind of all looklike?
SPEAKER_01 (06:53):
So for the community stuff, so all the charity work
that we do, what usually happensis I have a table loom or a
floor loom set up in advancewith just something on it,
usually just like four-plycotton.
And it's just something quickand easy.
And people come in and they'lljust have a shot and see if they
like it.
And usually what happens is it'sjust plain weave, so it goes
(07:15):
really quickly.
And they end up loving it andthey want to come in and they
just keep doing it.
more and more complicated thingsso they'll start doing like I
said plain weave and then moveon to like a straight draw twill
or then they'll do diamonds orzigzags something a bit more
complicated with levers andthings and the treadle pattern
or lift pattern tends to getmore and more complicated until
we get to a point where it's toodifficult and then we work
(07:37):
backwards to where they're mostcomfortable and then they
usually get a chance on settingup their own loom and just
trying out different thingsusually either me or mary will
find a pattern online or eventhey'll find a pattern online
and we'll set up a room inadvance or get them to set it up
depending how often they're inAnd then they start to do that
(07:57):
pattern and just trial and errorresearch things for us.
Just because we don't have timeto weave anymore, do
SPEAKER_02 (08:04):
we?
No, I can't remember the lasttime I actually wove anything at
the loom.
I think
SPEAKER_01 (08:08):
it's been about a month for me now.
SPEAKER_02 (08:09):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (08:09):
And then for the commercial stuff, we usually run
a weave-a-tart scarf workshopwhere people come in for one day
from 9.30 until about 5-ish.
with an hour break in the middlefor lunch.
And we have this big IKEA unitfull of balls of knitting yarn.
And I just showed them one ofthe examples, say pick three
(08:30):
colours and then they just gofrom there.
And that's, as you'll know, thehardest part of weaving is
picking your colours.
So it takes, I think the longestI've had was about three hours
for one workshop.
Like an eight hour workshop,somebody spending three hours
picking their colours and I'mtrying to egg them on to hurry
up.
But then they just start warpingup.
It's just rigid heddles for thatone.
So it's nothing overlycomplicated.
(08:51):
So it's set up within half anhour.
It's warped up in half an hour,threaded up by the hour mark,
and then they're up and weavingin an hour and a half, usually.
And then it's just entertainingthem until the end of the
workshop and showing them allthe other things you can do with
weaving, like all the twills andall the fancy patterns and like
(09:13):
croak bright, overshot, andshadow weave and all that other
nonsense that's a bit morecomplicated.
SPEAKER_00 (09:18):
That's fantastic.
And you've been learning allthat sort of on your own or are
you learning that anywhere?
SPEAKER_01 (09:23):
More or less on my own.
So Mary taught me all thebasics.
I think the first thing was justplain weave on an Ashford table
and so with all the levers andit was just one, two, one, two,
one, two, the whole way up untilI was finished.
And then you showed me thebasics of foreshaft weaving and
I was like, no, it's toocomplicated.
And then went back to it yearslater and and everything after
(09:45):
your first four-shot pattern hasjust been on my own.
And you're self-taught as well,aren't you?
SPEAKER_02 (09:50):
Yeah, so I just learned from...
Initially learned from YouTube,trial and error, because there
wasn't any weavers or anythinglike that around where I lived.
And then I discovered JaneStafford's online guild, and
that was transformational.
So I love the way Jane teaches,and I have to say we follow a
lot of her examples in the wayshe teaches.
(10:11):
If something...
if something unexpectedly goeswrong, she doesn't try and cover
it up.
She just says, aha, this canhappen.
And this is how you fix it.
And I thought that wasfantastic.
So we did that as well.
But yeah, my weaving transformedwhen I saw how she taught,
really helped a lot.
(10:32):
And then as Peter says, hestarted, I showed him the basics
and then left him to it.
And then I would come back andfind that he was doing something
that there's no way I would beable to do.
And I think, oh my goodness,that's amazing.
The only downside of this isthat typically he'll send me
pictures of you know pieces ofwoven material or weaving drafts
(10:53):
and stuff like that in themiddle of the night I get the
bong on the phone and it's notan emergency it's oh look I
found this and it looks reallyinteresting how do you think
they did that you know so I'mnot
SPEAKER_01 (11:03):
sure how
SPEAKER_02 (11:05):
many young men his age would do that but he's
really taken the challenge andrun with it so we all have our
particular favourites andfavourite styles and things like
that so we weave verydifferently.
Yeah, we have differentpreferences in what we make.
Different tastes.
(11:26):
Very much.
SPEAKER_00 (11:27):
Yeah, it's very unique and individual, right?
I love that story about JaneStafford because Jane Stafford
is like around here, like aroundour area, Pacific Northwest
area.
She's in Salt Spring Island.
And so to go all the way fromlike education in Salt Spring
Island, making it all the way toStirling in Scotland, I think
it's just like really, reallycool.
So that's fantastic.
And then we'll be sure to pingher and let her know.
(11:49):
Thanks, dude.
Yeah.
Now, I know that you hadmentioned before, Mari, about
how the first sort ofcrowdfunding that you had done
to get started and to bring onlooms and things like that, and
you were working sort of aroundthe idea of your trauma
psychology and trauma counselingand everything.
And in that crowdfunder, you hadmentioned about taking those
(12:11):
looms and being able to modifythem so that wheelchair users
could use them, so that peoplewith limited mobility could use
them.
I didn't even know that that wasreally possible.
Can you sort of describe whatneeds to be modified in order to
allow all different challenges,how you can access a loom if you
have all different kinds oflimitations?
SPEAKER_02 (12:32):
So mostly for people who need modifications, we use
the sorry weaving looms.
So they come with all sorts ofadditions that for people with
different abilities.
So there is a loom that you canuse when you're in a wheelchair.
There's one's that you can pushthe shuttle with a stick in your
(12:53):
mouth.
There's additional bars to holdonto for the beater that makes
that easier to do.
So really most of the work forpeople who have additional needs
is done in the soiree.
The only things we would reallydo otherwise is just things like
adjusting the height of theloom, maybe putting it on a
special table that you could geta wheelchair under if it's a
(13:15):
small table loom.
But we tend to try people, whenwe're teaching people, we tend
to build on strengths and we usethis psychological technique of
errorless learning in thebeginning.
So everything they do iscorrect.
And that's one of the sorryprinciples is there's no such
thing as mistakes.
And we always say that to peoplethat come to our studio.
(13:36):
Nobody ever makes mistakes.
mistakes in our studio.
There might be some unplanneddesign features that creep in to
the work that you're doing, butthey're absolutely not mistakes.
So when people are coming alongand they're learning and they're
developing their skills, we tryto have everybody doing the same
thing, regardless of whereyou've come from.
So we have people of all sortsof abilities working together in
(13:57):
the studio.
One of our regular weavers is ablind lady.
So she came along and said, Iwould love to do this.
How can I do it?
And, you know, I'd sort ofchatted to some people who said
that you can't, a blind personcan't be weaved.
Don't be ridiculous.
That's just can't be done.
So Joan has repeatedly provedthis wrong.
(14:18):
And Peter's taught her frombasic plain weave, where she,
she just you know, went with thetouch of the lumen and got the
feel of how that all works tothings like, well, she's done
twills, she's done...
SPEAKER_01 (14:34):
She can do tartan.
So one of the things we do quitea lot is we get tartan and then
try and do something differentwith it.
So instead of doing a regular2-2 twill, it's a diamond twill
or a herringbone or justsomething different.
So she ended up doing afour-shaft undulating twill as a
tartan.
So she would follow theundulating twill pattern and
just throw in the colours thatshe needed as she went.
(14:56):
And it's ridiculous.
She's a better weaver thanneither of us.
SPEAKER_02 (15:01):
The results are incredible.
So she has a very limited amountof vision and she can see high
contrast.
But she almost does it, youknow, by intuition now.
She's so familiar with the loomand how she weaves and what she
produces is incredible.
And she's often saying to us,you know, there's not much
creativity activities that as ablind person I could do.
(15:23):
Yes, I could do pottery, perhapsa bit of mosaic, but mostly you
need a decent amount of vision.
But this, because of the tactilenature of the yarns and the high
contrast colours, the fact thatyour loom is self-contained and
you're working within a boxalmost.
Yeah, and she absolutely lovesit.
So, yes, and we often wheel herout if we're doing
(15:47):
demonstrations and displays andshe'll stand and show the work
and talk about the looms.
And then I'll say, and of courseyou realise that Joan is blind.
And people are sort of like,what?
SPEAKER_01 (15:57):
They think we're joking.
And then she gets out He usedthe white
SPEAKER_02 (16:00):
stick and said, no, really, I am blind, but I do
this.
So it's remarkable and it'sgiven us so much joy.
So we have, typically we haveblind weavers.
We've had very frail elderlypeople in.
I'll never forget one of thefirst elderly people that we had
was an older man and he wantedto weave tartan, a specific
(16:22):
tartan.
But, you know, we were lookingat the warping board and
thinking, well, how can we makethis work?
So So we decided that he wouldfollow the draft and he would
shout out the colours to Peterand how many threads.
So it was like, right, Peter,four reds.
So Peter winds the four reds andeight black, eight black.
So the gentleman was in chargeof what was happening and Peter
(16:45):
was just being his arms andlegs.
And then we put the warp on andhe wove away with that.
So it's always about trying tofind...
what people can do so thateverybody in the studio is
treated the same regardless ofwhere they are.
And often we get a realsurprise.
We've done a lot of work withautistic young adults who are
(17:08):
autistic who are told that theycan't do things.
When they come to us, they'reoften referred from a sort of
social work situation and we'llbe told This person can't do
this and can't do that.
Here's all the adjustmentsyou'll need to make.
And we're right.
OK, so we'll take all that intoaccount.
And then you see what theyproduce.
(17:29):
And after they've had a go andproduce something, they're
shocked that, oh, my goodness,I've made a tartan scarf.
You know, that's incredible.
And so next time, well, you pickthe colours and pick the pattern
and off they go.
And then next time you set thisbit up.
and off they go and it justbuilds on their skills and what
they produce is incredible.
SPEAKER_00 (17:51):
Yeah, their confidence must be going up so,
so much just to be able toproduce something and to be
excited about what they'vecreated.
I think that that's, I mean,there's life skills built into
all of this and then confidenceboosting for everyone in all of
this.
So Peter, you actually mentionedsomething about the tartan that
I thought was really interestingbecause you were talking about,
oh, maybe not doing itnecessarily as a tutu twill or
(18:13):
as a plain weave, but just liketrying different weave
structures.
And we're going to do a diamondand we're going to do undulating
twill.
We're going to do all thesedifferent things.
And I think, Mari, I had alsoread that.
you had done an exhibition atthe V&A in Dundee.
And as part of that, you weretalking about, you know, using
different materials, using maybelike repurposing waste
materials, maybe using recycledyarns, all sorts of things like
(18:36):
that.
And so this past year, I'd beenexploring and reading and
researching a lot about tartanand the history of tartan and
all these kinds of things.
And initially, when I came intothis whole sort of field of
weaving, I thought it was verylike disciplined and almost very
rigid and it has to be two totwill it has to be set at 24
(18:56):
ends per inch it has to be thiskind of yarn it has to be this
kind of colors and then the moreand more i looked into it i was
like oh actually tartan weavingand tartan design is very open
it's very inclusive it's veryyou know um there's lots of
innovation happening constantlypeople coming up with new
designs all the time usingdifferent materials trying
different things um and so iwanted a chance to like speak to
(19:18):
you guys about this as well likehow how do you how do you see
tartan weaving now is it likehistorically always I mean it's
it's changing I think from fromwhat you're showing me
SPEAKER_02 (19:29):
yeah so we do a design and weave your own tartan
workshop which takes six hoursso people come along no previous
experience we sit with them andhelp them design the tartan and
it's actually it's maybebuilding on my psychology
background but it's more of acounseling session than a design
session so we we try and findout we have a set of prompt I'm
(19:51):
giving away all our secretthat's here.
But we have a set of cards thathelps them decide on what's
important to them in theirworld.
And then we match that withcolours.
And then we work out a divisionof space, as Jane would say, how
the colours are going to fit.
We do yarn wraps and we docolouring pencils and all this
stuff.
And in the end, we just set up alittle rigid heddle loom.
(20:14):
They set up the rigid heddleloom and weave a little piece,
just about an A4 size.
And at the end of it, they'represented with a booklet that
shows the journey of the designthat they've done.
And it's a lovely thing to do.
It's all woven in cotton becausethe colours of the cotton are
much broader than the wool.
It's also more beginner friendlybecause it tends not to snap
(20:36):
quite so easily when it's on theloom.
But we had a lovely experiencewith a group of refugees who had
resettled in Stirling and theycame along to do the design and
weave their own tartan becauseobviously they came from
countries where they don't havefamily terms.
I'll never forget, it was themost moving thing.
(20:57):
There was a gentleman who wasfrom Ukraine who had come to
settle with us and he hadbrought his daughter and they
were working away and of coursewere practicing English as well.
But at the end of it, we got towhere the colours were that he
had chosen and he chose red,Ferrari red, because he liked
motor racing.
(21:19):
and he chose black for the roadbecause he'd spent a lot of time
on the road.
Blue and yellow to represent hishome of Ukraine and this lovely
bottle green colour.
And I said, well, what does thebottle green represent?
And he said, for me, itrepresents trust.
He said, I have come to Scotlandwith my disabled daughter and
(21:40):
we've trusted in completestrangers who have taken us into
their home and given ussomewhere safe.
But also the people who took usin trusted us because we're
strangers from another countryand we don't speak your
language.
And he said, I just thought thisgreen to me represented trust.
And, you know, it was the mostmoving thing I'd heard was his
(22:01):
description.
And he wove out this beautiful,designed and moved this
beautiful little piece of tartanthat demonstrates what his life
in Scotland was like now.
Really a lovely, lovelyexperience.
But when we did the residency atthe V&A, Peter did this for
eight weeks with one of ourvolunteer weavers.
(22:22):
And we'd been given the brief ofpushing the boundaries of
Tartan.
And I think we definitely didthat.
So you want to talk about someof the projects?
SPEAKER_01 (22:32):
So it was me and one of our volunteers.
So we just We went up to Dundee,which is about an hour and a
half by car from Stirling.
So we took the train up everyday, ran into the studio because
the train got in like twominutes before the studio opened
every day.
And just spent, I think it wasabout a part of 10 weeks, give
or take, designing and makingtartans and trying to do
(22:53):
different things.
So while we were up there, Ihadn't actually decided what I
was going to do.
But the volunteer had.
He decided he was going todesign his own tartan.
He was going to make it look alittle bit funky and make a
waistcoat out of it.
And he had only really wovenabout five or six things at this
point.
I just needed an extra hand upat the museum.
(23:14):
And what he ended up doing wasusually when you weave tartans,
you have a set of warp threadsand then your weft threads is
your warp sideways.
So you do four weft passes onfour warp threads, gives you a
square, That's what Harten does.
But for these white and blackhoundsteeth sections they
wanted, instead of doing fourwhite, four black, four white,
(23:36):
four black, as you usually do,he did four different shades of
white and four different shadesof black and grey.
So that way you get striationsas you go.
And it was just one weft thewhole way up.
Or sorry, one weft for...
that whole tooth.
And that means you get all theseweird 3D effects almost
happening with the teeth.
(23:56):
And he sat and wove about fourmetres of tartan on a wee
lever-operated table loom inabout a week.
He took to it like a fish towater and just...
pounded out meterages of thisstuff.
It was insane.
And then all the othervolunteers, not volunteers,
sorry, all of our othercolleagues came up and had a go,
because it was a once in alifetime opportunity thing,
really, being the design andresidence at the V&A.
(24:19):
So we had somebody who designeda goth tartan, so it was all
black.
So it was all different shadesof black and it came together
quite well.
I think we used latex, latexthreads at one point, which is
almost as fine as silk andnowhere near as strong.
So it just started todisintegrate after a while.
But then when we finished it, itkind of melted into itself and
(24:41):
made this weird 3D bubblingtexture and various other
things.
We had somebody who...
decided i can't do foreshaftweaving confuses me too much so
they wove a plain weave sheet offabric on a rigid heddle and
then took the readout reattachedthe sheet fabric and used it as
like an embroidery frame almost.
Embroidered a warp on top oftheir fabric and then wove with
(25:04):
a needle a 2-2-12 tartan in acircle on top of this piece of
fabric.
It was insane.
Absolutely ridiculous.
And then a few other peoplecoming up trying just different
things or just designing theirown tartans.
And what was your piece?
My one...
was a rainbow gradient tartan.
So it starts off with red in onecorner, ends on violet in the
(25:26):
next, and the pattern for it was10 red, 1 orange, 9 red, 2
orange, and it slowly, slowlytransformed into...
more and more purple.
So, from red into orange intoyellow, the whole way through
the visible light spectrum,finishing at violet, with a
little grid going over it, soabout six vertical lines across
every repeat, and therefore sixhorizontal lines.
(25:47):
So what you ended up getting wasthis massive piece of gradient
cloth where, through the middle,tartan repeat, it perfectly
blends from, like, one colourinto the next, into the next,
and so on, so on.
And you get all the colourmixing throughout the whole
piece, but it was in...
mercerised bamboo, like veni A2bamboo, and that means it's
(26:09):
really shiny as well.
So everything just glimmers andlooks really fancy and intricate
and it's good fun.
Certainly
SPEAKER_02 (26:16):
doesn't look like traditional tartan.
SPEAKER_01 (26:18):
God, no, it nearly killed me.
SPEAKER_02 (26:20):
And I'm desperate to make something to wear with it
because it looks incredible.
It's beautiful, lovely drapey,fine fabric.
It's just gorgeous.
SPEAKER_01 (26:27):
And then because I was up there for about 10 weeks,
I finished this piece and I waslike, oh God, what do I do now?
So I tried doing turns.
I was a 1-3-12, so on one sideyou have warp stripes, on the
other side you have weftstripes.
I'm a massive video game fan,complete nerd, so I designed a
bunch of Tarthans based off ofvarious video games.
(26:49):
Some work better than others.
What else did we do?
Oh yeah, so we had a loom in themuseum for people to come over
and have a shot on.
So it was just a...
I saw a H-frame loom, just twoshafts, it was just plain weed,
but we would set up 10-meterwarps or 11-meter warps on this
loom for just members of thepublic just to come in and have
(27:10):
a go.
And whenever it got low, I woulddo another warp setup, take it
in and put it on the loomwhenever they ran out.
So it's just constant fabricbeing made.
I think...
what was it in the end, 173metres?
SPEAKER_02 (27:24):
Yeah, visitors loved it.
When they came to see the tartanexhibition, because that's what
was on, we were there tocompliment, all the feedback was
saying, oh, the best bit wasthat we got to weave on a loom.
SPEAKER_01 (27:36):
About a third of all reviews they got for the entire
exhibition were about this loomthat we just left.
SPEAKER_02 (27:42):
We just had the best time.
But we try to be as sustainableas we can and not waste what
we're weaving.
So we put cotton warps on thatand at the end of the exhibition
we cut up all these long cottonwarps into chunks and basically
made tea towels and placematsand things like that and they
were distributed to localcharities so everybody got a bit
(28:04):
of the weaving that had beendone when the exhibition was on
as a memory and that was lovelyas well so just try to make as
much as we can out of you knowwhat we have there.
Yeah, but a huge experience.
So the V&A Museum, to beanywhere near it, we were so
honoured.
But we discovered that we werethe first charity,
(28:26):
not-for-profit social enterprisethat's ever had a residency.
And as Peter says, we ended upbeing there for about 10 weeks.
But it was a great experience.
And everybody associated withthe charity, whether it was
volunteers or people who comealong and use our service, We
offered them all the chance togo and do something so that at
the end of the day they can puton their CV that they were
(28:49):
designers in residency at thisV&A.
And we just had a great time.
It was transformational for us.
And it was
SPEAKER_01 (28:57):
the oldest home.
SPEAKER_02 (28:58):
Yeah, so they discovered the oldest piece of
tartan in Scotland, found thispiece of Glen Affric tartan, and
one of the curators came andasked, could we recreate this?
Could we make a piece of thistartan?
Of course we could, but wewanted him to do it.
So Peter sat and trained him howto weave.
(29:19):
He showed him how to set theloom up, and he finished all his
warping and whatever, showed himhow to weave, and he wove it,
and then proudly produced thispiece of tartan that was this
first attempt.
So even the curators of themuseum had hands-on experience
of weaving and we all had agreat time.
SPEAKER_00 (29:37):
That's amazing.
You guys are doing so much tospread the, like the knowledge
of weaving and the love ofweaving.
And just, you can see all oflike the excitement and the
enthusiasm and the passion thatcomes from everything that
you're doing here.
This is fantastic.
It's amazing.
I love that going back to like,you were talking about having
those cards to help indicate,like figure out like, what are
your values?
What do you believe in?
(29:57):
And how do you express that incolor?
And then into a piece of cloththat then becomes something
super, super special.
I know you have like a post onyour web site, very recent kind
of post about a couple that cameon their honeymoon to design
their own tartan and then usingthat for a future baby blanket.
(30:18):
I think that that entire storyis actually really lovely as
well.
Yeah.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat?
So
SPEAKER_01 (30:26):
this couple came in from, I think it was Northern
California, something like that.
and they wanted to just theywanted the whole scotch
experience so of course theycome and do something involving
tartan usually people go to themills and see all the big
machines weaving it but theywanted to they saw that this is
the fact they could design theirown tartan and decided to come
(30:47):
to it so we showed them how todesign everything they picked
out all their favorite colorsand one was a particular shade
of brown that was the same coloras their dog I think they had
three different shades of greysand browns for all their
different dogs and stuff likethat.
And then they wove their littlesample of tartan, took it away
(31:09):
and were perfectly happy.
Got back to Northern Californiaafter the holiday and then got
back in touch with us and said,could we commission a baby
blanket?
So we ended up weaving a babyblanket for them.
So they got this tartan thatthey designed themselves.
So they have the actual piece oftartan and this meter square-ish
(31:29):
baby blanket in bamboos andcottons.
It's all very soft and nice andlovely.
They have a very comfy baby.
SPEAKER_02 (31:35):
Yes, and easy to wash.
You don't want to be wrappingthe baby in wool, but you need
to hand wash.
Well, none of my babies anyway.
You need something you can chuckin the washing machine.
So hopefully that becomes anheirloom for them to keep for
many years.
And there's a lovely storybehind it.
SPEAKER_00 (31:52):
That's fantastic.
So I know that when we wereinitially trying to organize
this recording session, we hadto like kind of pause for a
little bit because you were inthe middle of a very important,
I mean, you were doing a bigfundraiser for Radical Weavers.
Can you talk a little bit abouthow that went and sort of like
what your plans for how you wantto grow the organization, where
(32:14):
you want to take it and how wecan all as a community help and
what can we do?
SPEAKER_02 (32:20):
So we were running a crowdfunder last year to allow
us, we have this beautifulbuilding in Stirling.
It's an old bank building,Victorian sandstone, huge
windows, fabulous.
But it was in a bit of a stateof disrepair.
And as a charity, we don't havea lot of money.
We're lucky to get some grantfunding, but mostly we have to
(32:41):
earn the money that we need torun the workshops and the
experiences.
And we were conscious that wehad a lot of space in the studio
that wasn't being used becauseit was needing lots of work done
and some heating put in.
So we ran a crowd funder in therun up to Christmas looking to
raise funds because we know thatmost of the young people that we
(33:03):
work with have become sociallyisolated and often they're
living in poverty.
So they don't have a lot ofmoney and they live on their own
and it's pretty miserable and inparticular January is a very
difficult month for this groupof people.
So we wanted to have everythingset up so that after Christmas
we could throw open the doors,we would have a beautiful warm
place for people to come in andthat would just encourage the
(33:26):
guys to come in and see whatgoes on with us.
When we invite people into thestudio as part of our community,
we typically don't go forreferrals from social work and
social agencies.
Sometimes that happens, butmostly we try and be a bit
cleverer about that because ifwe take referrals from
organisations, we miss out onthe people who don't engage.
(33:51):
We've found that lots of theseyoung people that we work with
just don't have any supportsystems in place.
They don't engage with thesupport that they could do, They
typically have mental healthissues.
They don't have a lot of money.
So instead of asking them, youknow, organisations to do fair,
instead we say, is theresomebody out there who has some
(34:14):
time every week that they couldvolunteer to come and help us?
And what we want to do is wewant to weave pieces, which we
will then donate to other goodcauses.
So people are thinking, well,I've got a few hours every week.
I could go on a Wednesdayafternoon.
You know, we'll teach you allyou need to know.
They look in the window.
They see the beautiful coloursthat the yarn is.
(34:34):
They hear the ridiculous musicthat is being played far too
loud for anybody to be able toconcentrate.
And you can probably guess whichof us is responsible for that.
But they hear this great music.
They smell the coffee.
They see the colours.
Why would you not come in?
They come in and then...
We start them off on simple,weave a tartan scarf and the
(34:55):
wellbeing, the confidence thatbuilds, they can see this thing
emerging and it is definitely atartan scarf.
And in Scotland, that's generic.
Everybody loves tartan.
It doesn't matter what genderyou are, what age you are, we
all know and recognise tartan.
So they typically go home reallypleased with that.
And once they've made thatdecision, step over the doorway
(35:18):
they're hooked pardon the punbut they are hooked they will
come back next week next weekthey'll choose colours
differently to the ones that didthe first time and they'll do
the same thing again so itwasn't a fluke They have managed
another piece.
And then by the third time,Peter's got a program that he
takes them through.
And so we add in, we build onthe skills, complexity, the
(35:39):
responsibility for theindividual.
And it's just really great fortheir well-being and confidence.
And they can see other peoplearound them, just like them, who
have been through the process.
And often they're the ones thatare coming over to help.
with the setting up of the loomor just talking about their
experiences and so on.
I use every psychological trickin the book to get people to
(36:01):
come in and to build on theirconfidence and so on, but it
works.
And the young people that comethrough, the idea isn't that we
end up with this huge family ofpeople who are all coming in and
staying in the studio.
My thought is once we've got youin and your confidence is good
and your mental health's okay,it's then a case of what's next
(36:21):
where do you want to go whatwhat would you like to do in
life and i'm not suggesting thatwe're trading a whole army of
volunteers and weavers becausethere aren't jobs for weavers
but there are jobs for socialmedia and so that some of the
young people get involved insocial media photography
accounts we manufacture a littleset of coaster weaving kits for
(36:44):
different Tartans.
So we've got manufacturing,we've got deliveries, we've got
customer service.
So they get a chance to have alook at all these different
things and think, I could dothat, or I could go this way.
And we encourage and supportthat to happen.
But plans for the future are,it's a big secret, so don't tell
anybody, but we're planning toopen Scotland's Tartan Centre.
(37:09):
So we're the only place inScotland where tour groups, for
example, can come and have ahands-on weaving experience and
try the looms and speak to realweavers who this is their job.
to weave.
So we're planning to developthat into a proper tourist
destination visitor centre forScotland and that will allow us
(37:31):
to generate more commercialrevenue because people will come
and will see the history oftartan.
They might want to weave theirown family tartan and take a
piece of that home with them orcommission us to do it and one
of the team would do that.
So there's all sorts ofcommercial revenue that we can
generate which will help supportour work but just And just as
importantly, that means there'sa whole lot of volunteering and
(37:53):
work experience that our youngpeople can get.
So there will be jobs with usthat some of them will want to
do, really what we want them todo is to fly the nest and go out
in the big bad world and beconfident to do work out there.
But when we have our biggercentre set up, it certainly will
give people more opportunitiesin our safe space because we run
(38:17):
a trauma-informed safe space.
So they can try all the customerservice and all that stuff with
our support and then ultimatelywe move on from there.
So we would love to have peoplevisit us.
Please do come to Scotland.
It is a beautiful country.
We are not biased in any way,but it is the most beautiful
country in the world.
(38:39):
Maybe not so beautiful, but thepeople are friendly.
It's always good fun.
So please do come and visit usif you would like a tartan
designed for yourself, family.
So yes, we did a beautiful piecerecently for a wedding
anniversary and then wove up thefull piece of that.
We can do the design your tartanonline.
(39:00):
So if you wanted to do it fromhome, we can happily do that.
All of these things will help usto grow.
We're always looking for, so wesell little tartan weaving kits
that you buy in a box.
You don't need a loom.
Everything you want is in thebox.
And when we can do familytartans or company tartans, we'd
love to have a distributor.
(39:20):
either in Canada or the USA forthese kits or maybe things like
New York Tartan Week.
We'd love to speak to peopleabout that.
Oh yes, so one of our localpoliticians, a member of
Parliament, wore a piece of ourtartan.
She was in a New York Tartanparade last year and she wore a
piece of our tartan and took itout there.
(39:41):
So yeah, I mean, we're alwaysdelighted to take any donations
that people are able to give.
I mean, I know everybody's moneyis so tight and there's so many
causes out there um but yeah wewe we try to be self-sufficient
so we'd rather earn money thanthan you know ask for a donation
we always want to give somethingback in return for the help that
(40:03):
we get um so yeah but big plansum hoping to open in the summer
this year As always, we're doingeverything on a shoestring.
We've got lots of peoplevolunteering skills and time and
bits of wood and stuff.
So hopefully our Tartan Centrewill have an exhibition about
(40:26):
the Tartan radicals.
So that would be WilliamWallace, you may know from
Braveheart, Robert the Bruce,Rob Roy McGregor.
Mary Queen of Scots.
These are all local to Stirling.
Bonnie Prince Charlie.
Bonnie Prince Charlie, yeah.
So we have bits of all of thesein our story, as well as the
story of the original RadicalWeavers from 200 years ago,
(40:49):
which is a rather fascinating,if somewhat grisly story.
And spoiler alert, it did notend well for the original
Radical Weavers.
So if you're able to visit us,you'll see all about the story
and what these guys did 200years ago to make our lives a
bit better today.
day.
SPEAKER_00 (41:06):
This sounds amazing.
I mean, what you're buildinghere, the organization, both on
the charity side and thecommercial side and everything
that you have planned, it allsounds amazing.
Did you ever think that this iswhat it was going to become when
you first started weaving?
No.
SPEAKER_02 (41:22):
No.
Absolutely not.
So I started in a corner of myliving room by the window, as
you do, and I have thishorrendous habit of late-night
yarn buying, especially on eBay.
So I bought more and more andmore of this.
I'm sure we all know exactlywhat that's like.
So then I had to move out to thegarage and I took all my yarns
(41:45):
out to the garage and filledthat and got a couple of looms
and got some friends round andthat was great.
And then it started to getthere's not enough space.
So I had to get a weavingstudio.
And I knew that I found weavinghugely therapeutic.
And I would have describedmyself as a non-creative person
(42:07):
previously.
And then when I saw these thingscoming off the loom, I was
amazed that I made that, youknow, from nothing.
And we found that people, ifthey really enjoy it, they
typically enjoy it, butsometimes they think, oh, my
goodness, this is just...
(42:28):
we love the fact it's always achallenge.
And at the end of it, you alwayslook back and think, well, next
time I would do that on adifferent set and a different
color.
I wonder what would happen if wedid.
And it's this never endingperpetual challenge.
And it's, I think that's the joyand the frustration of weaving.
But it is, I mean, we've, Wehave people hooked on it.
(42:49):
So I would never have thoughtPeter would in any way have been
interested in weaving.
SPEAKER_01 (42:54):
God,
SPEAKER_02 (42:56):
no.
And now he has his ownInstagram.
He runs these commercialworkshops.
The fellow that Peter did theworkshops with up in Dundee,
this was a...
Someone who from locally who hehad been referred to us by the
food bank.
So he was living alone and inpoverty.
(43:16):
He's one of my older communitymembers being in his 40s and
ex-forces, ex-military, a vet.
had trauma when he was in thearmy and had left early, hadn't
worked for more than 20 years.
And he would describe himself asvery rough.
I mean, I know that our accentis difficult, but even we
(43:38):
struggle with Chris tounderstand.
And he came in one day, he sawan advert that said, basically
free tea and coffee and biscuitsin a warm space.
So he thought, well, I'll gothere.
And he said, what are you doing?
What is this?
What is that thing?
And he said, it's a loom forweaving.
We were slightly, you know, it'sa loom for weaving.
(44:00):
Have a go.
And he's like, okay, okay.
So I'll eat my biscuits and I'llfill my pockets with the ones
that are left and I'll be backnext week.
And he did.
And he stuck around and he endedup being remarkable in his
capacity to produce beautifulthings.
And we would sort of look andthink, you know, I'd be saying,
oh, what's everybody doing?
(44:21):
Oh, who did that?
And it's Chris.
And you think, how has hemanaged to make this beautiful
thing?
And he's gone from strength tostrength and to the extent that
he did the whole contract withPeter up at the V&A, between the
two of them, they did the wholelot themselves.
And the difference in him, inhis confidence, his wellbeing,
turning up, his mental health'snot great enough to do a paid
(44:45):
job, a regularly paid job, buthe treats his volunteering with
us as if it was a job.
So he sets his alarm in themorning and he turns up every
day and he does the full day.
A's work and he goes home atnight having done all this and
he's the sort of peer supporthe's almost like the father
figure in the team because he'sthat little bit older than the
rest of them but yeah I mean wehave success stories I'm always
(45:09):
conscious about you know theconfidentiality but we have two
young people one young man whocame to us a couple of years ago
with quite bad mental healthissues and really holding him
back at school quite badly.
And after he'd been with us fora few weeks, he didn't have to
attend as many appointments withhis mental health support.
(45:31):
He ended up being absolutelyhooked on the weaving thing and
became, in his final year atschool, became the creative
ambassador for school.
So when there was a parents'evening, he was the one who
borrowed the loom anddemonstrated what we do in the
weaving studio.
And then we found out that justin August last year, that was
the end of his final year atschool, and he has started a
(45:53):
university course to do a fullbachelor's degree in
architecture and interiordesign, which was completely
inspired by the weaving studioand the experience that he had
there.
And that's a life-changing thingfor that young man.
I mean, I don't know where hewould have what he would have
done if he hadn't been with us.
(46:14):
But we certainly wouldn't haveseen him going to university.
I believe he's the first personin his family who's gone on to
higher education.
But yeah, huge, huge experience.
And that's not an isolatedexample.
We have lots and lots of storiesof people whose lives have
turned around.
And it's this beautiful craftthat we share.
It's wonderful.
(46:36):
It's inspiring.
So we have three words thatdescribe what we do.
And they are, Peter, test foryou.
Let's see if he's paidattention.
SPEAKER_01 (46:45):
Inclusive, wholehearted and inspiring.
SPEAKER_02 (46:48):
Correct, but in the wrong order so inclusive it's
working with family it's justit's just horrendous we argue
all the time inclusive inspiringwholehearted okay so we are
always inclusive first always uminspiring and it's that sorry
type inspiring so we inspirewe're not inspiring because
(47:08):
we're the best or the mostprofessional or the most you
know Sometimes, but thank you,by no means, he says.
Sometimes, in fact, most timesthe inspiration comes from the
fact that you look at someoneand see how far they've come.
And that's inspiring.
Or somebody has overcomeobstacles, you know, the blind
weaver or the person who youwould not ever see in a weaving
(47:30):
studio.
And they've overcome all ofthat.
And that's inspiring.
and wholehearted just means thatwe we give our best we do our
best we are limited with fundsum we try to do try to be as
self-sufficient as we can be inevery way so when we're
renovating the studio you arehanded a paintbrush when you
(47:53):
come in and if you've got ifyou've got the energy and the
capacity to do an hour'spainting please just go ahead
and so we might be a bit wonkyaround the edges but the beauty
is in the fact that we've alltaken part it's we're all doing
this so uh yeah so the inclusivepart has so we now support
(48:17):
mainly young neurodiverse andthat's typically autistic kids
or lgbt kids and they found uswe didn't advertised
specifically for these groups.
That was just who happened todrift in.
And I think they were probablylured in by the colours and the
music and all these things.
But they definitely chose us.
(48:39):
So one of the things thathappened a couple of years back
was we had a young man in thestudio who was transgender.
And he had a family weddingcoming up and had got really
distressed because the suit thathe was trying to wear to the
wedding just didn't fit him.
It didn't hit the right places.
It looked awful.
And he had a horribleexperience.
(49:00):
And we had this lady in thestudio who could sew.
And she said, well, do you knowwhat?
I can alter that with just alittle nip and tuck.
I'll alter that suit.
You'll look great.
And he did.
So this Sam...
took forward that project as wethought the name Nip and Tuck
was lovely for a transgenderalterations project.
(49:21):
And we've now run that for thelast two years.
We have another couple of yearsto go with that project.
And it's for clothingalterations for people with
non-standard body shapes.
So typically that is our youngtrans and non-binary young
adults, but it can cover allsorts of people from all sorts
of backgrounds.
(49:41):
And we've won a number ofawards, haven't we, in diversity
and inclusion for that becausewe have a safe space and it's
trauma-informed and we'reinclusive.
We developed a trainingprogramme that we run for
everybody who comes along thatjoins us has disability the
opportunity to have thistraining.
(50:02):
So we've got transgenderawareness.
We have Tourette's awarenessbecause we have somebody in the
studio who has Tourette's.
And if you're not aware of thatcondition, it can be quite you
can take a step back sometimeswhen you see, you know, hear
what people say and so on.
So whenever we have somethingthat where someone's
particularly vulnerable, we doan internal training programme
(50:25):
and everybody gets the trainingregardless of their own life
experience or whatever.
And that just helps to keep thissafe space going.
And it means that we have themost incredible bunch of people
and I find them very inspiring.
All these young people who maybemissed out first time around for
whatever reason and end upflying off and doing wonderful
(50:47):
things with their lives.
And that's why we do what we do.
SPEAKER_00 (50:51):
Yeah, this is incredible.
I am so inspired listening toeverything that you guys have
brought up today.
And I'm just so excited to sortof hopefully spread your story
to more of our community.
And hopefully the people in ourcommunity will also check out
your website and go visitradicalweavers.org and see all
of the amazing things thatyou're doing and hopefully
(51:13):
support you there as well.
It is incredible the impact thatyou're making on your community
around you.
And listening to your talk.
So this is fantastic.
So I appreciate you making thetime today, both Peter and Mari.
Thank you so much for being heretoday.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_02 (51:29):
Thank you.
Thank you for taking the time tospeak to us.
It's been inspiring for us to
Welcome to today's episode of The Sweet Georgia
Show, where we explore how thethrough her background in trauma
(00:39):
counseling, Mari has created aninclusive, inspiring and
wholehearted organizationfocused on helping young adults
from disadvantaged backgroundsto develop essential life skills
in a safe space.
This work is about more thanweaving fabric.
It's about bringing confidence,connections and new
opportunities for the communityof individuals who are often
(01:03):
socially isolated.
So you'll hear about howtraditional Scottish tartan
designs are being given new lifeand meaning and how inclusive
teaching methods are opening thedoors for those who were
previously excluded from craftspaces and very, very moving and
touching personal stories thatshowcase the healing powers of
(01:24):
creating with your own twohands.
This conversation reveals howthe simple act of weaving can
actually create profound ripplesof change through an entire
community.
But I really wanted to thank youboth, Mary and Peter, for being
here for this conversation.
Originally, this is like monthsand months ago, I've been
wanting to have thisconversation with you because I
(01:46):
noticed, you know, that Mary,you had joined the School of
Sweet Georgia.
And I was just kind of likelooking through the members who
had joined that day.
And then I saw your name andthen I saw your email address
pop up.
And it had the domain nameradicalweavers.org.
And I was immediately like, oh,this is interesting.
I wonder what And then I wentover to your website and then
(02:08):
discovered this whole world ofall of these things that you've
been working on and doing.
And I found it so fascinatingand wanted to have a chance to
chat with you about it and sortof explore that whole world of
all of the amazing charity workthat you have been doing.
And so thank you so much forbeing here and agreeing to do
this.
(02:29):
You're welcome.
SPEAKER_02 (02:30):
Thank you for inviting us.
We're delighted to have theopportunity to talk about the
work that we do.
SPEAKER_00 (02:35):
Fantastic.
So why don't we get started withjust if you could tell us a
little bit about yourselves,both of you, Mary and Peter.
And so, Mary, if you want tostart first and just sort of
talk about, you know, whereyou're from, where you sort of
got started with weaving and andyeah, what you're doing now.
SPEAKER_02 (02:53):
Okay, so my name is Mary, Mary Breslin, and we live
in central Scotland.
We run the Radical Weavers basedin Stilling.
So we started initially in 2019and I thought that it would be
nice to have something for thecommunity, somewhere for the
community to go and to dosomething lovely and creative
(03:16):
and I was a weaver for manyyears before that.
I was at the time a traumapsychologist working at the
local university but I had anidea that something in the
community would be nice so Ithought how am I going to do
this?
Will I do it part-time aroundwork or will I do it full-time?
So I decided to run acrowdfunder to see if anybody
(03:37):
was interested and that wouldhelp buy looms and stuff
initially.
And we got a fantastic response.
So I decided to give up theacademic career and start a
charity, a community weavingstudio, initially for people who
had experienced trauma or loss.
But from there, we have evolvedinto quite a smaller niche.
(03:59):
And really, we support youngadults who are either
neurodivergent or LGBT and whohave become socially isolated.
And essentially, they've leftschool.
They didn't have a good time atschool, typically.
Bullied, probably left school,underqualified.
And then we encourage them tocome in and spend some time with
(04:21):
us.
And they discover the wonderfulworld of weaving and spend a bit
time with us and then we saywell you know what do you want
to do from here whether it's goand get some qualifications or
looking for a part-time job or afull-time job or just
volunteering with us or with oneof the other charities locally
and that's what we encouragethem to do and we've had some
(04:44):
great results.
So as I say I started in 2019and then when lockdown hit I
needed help because I was doingthings online and all sorts of
stuff.
So I turned to who was thenearest person who could help
me.
And my son, Peter, or this isPeter, I said, could you help me
(05:05):
please?
All these looms come flat packedand I'm hopeless at that.
Could you please help withbuilding the looms?
And he reluctantly agreed.
He'd finished his college courseand he was kind of hanging
around looking for something todo.
So he agreed to build the loomsand said, I'm not interested in
weaving.
I'm not going to learn to weave.
Not interested.
But he did come to the studioevery day when we were able to
(05:27):
go.
And over a period of time, Iwatched him working with the
other young adults and he wasvery good at supporting them.
And we ended up dragging himinto the weaving.
Kicking and
SPEAKER_01 (05:40):
screaming.
SPEAKER_02 (05:41):
And now he runs all the classes.
He does all the community workwith young adults and he runs
all our commercial offerings aswell.
And I very much take a backseat.
So Peter, do you want to talkabout what it's been like
learning to weave?
SPEAKER_01 (05:59):
Exhausting.
Hi, so I'm Peter Dickey.
I started at Radic Weavers aboutfive and a half years ago now,
give or take.
wove one thing then didn't weaveagain for about another two or
three years almost and then weneeded a new weaving instructor
and I already knew how to do allthe stuff so I've just kind of
fallen into that role stuck itin now they kind of get rid of
(06:23):
me
SPEAKER_00 (06:25):
Yeah, so I have so, so many questions.
Maybe first, I could ask about,Peter, how you go about teaching
somebody how to weave?
Like, where do you start?
Are you starting with yarn?
Are you starting with warp?
How are you going aboutteaching?
And are people coming in for,you know, week by week training?
(06:46):
Are they coming in every coupleof days?
Or is it just one session?
Or how many sessions?
What does that kind of all looklike?
SPEAKER_01 (06:53):
So for the community stuff, so all the charity work
that we do, what usually happensis I have a table loom or a
floor loom set up in advancewith just something on it,
usually just like four-plycotton.
And it's just something quickand easy.
And people come in and they'lljust have a shot and see if they
like it.
And usually what happens is it'sjust plain weave, so it goes
(07:15):
really quickly.
And they end up loving it andthey want to come in and they
just keep doing it.
more and more complicated thingsso they'll start doing like I
said plain weave and then moveon to like a straight draw twill
or then they'll do diamonds orzigzags something a bit more
complicated with levers andthings and the treadle pattern
or lift pattern tends to getmore and more complicated until
we get to a point where it's toodifficult and then we work
(07:37):
backwards to where they're mostcomfortable and then they
usually get a chance on settingup their own loom and just
trying out different thingsusually either me or mary will
find a pattern online or eventhey'll find a pattern online
and we'll set up a room inadvance or get them to set it up
depending how often they're inAnd then they start to do that
(07:57):
pattern and just trial and errorresearch things for us.
Just because we don't have timeto weave anymore, do
SPEAKER_02 (08:04):
we?
No, I can't remember the lasttime I actually wove anything at
the loom.
I think
SPEAKER_01 (08:08):
it's been about a month for me now.
SPEAKER_02 (08:09):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (08:09):
And then for the commercial stuff, we usually run
a weave-a-tart scarf workshopwhere people come in for one day
from 9.30 until about 5-ish.
with an hour break in the middlefor lunch.
And we have this big IKEA unitfull of balls of knitting yarn.
And I just showed them one ofthe examples, say pick three
(08:30):
colours and then they just gofrom there.
And that's, as you'll know, thehardest part of weaving is
picking your colours.
So it takes, I think the longestI've had was about three hours
for one workshop.
Like an eight hour workshop,somebody spending three hours
picking their colours and I'mtrying to egg them on to hurry
up.
But then they just start warpingup.
It's just rigid heddles for thatone.
So it's nothing overlycomplicated.
(08:51):
So it's set up within half anhour.
It's warped up in half an hour,threaded up by the hour mark,
and then they're up and weavingin an hour and a half, usually.
And then it's just entertainingthem until the end of the
workshop and showing them allthe other things you can do with
weaving, like all the twills andall the fancy patterns and like
(09:13):
croak bright, overshot, andshadow weave and all that other
nonsense that's a bit morecomplicated.
SPEAKER_00 (09:18):
That's fantastic.
And you've been learning allthat sort of on your own or are
you learning that anywhere?
SPEAKER_01 (09:23):
More or less on my own.
So Mary taught me all thebasics.
I think the first thing was justplain weave on an Ashford table
and so with all the levers andit was just one, two, one, two,
one, two, the whole way up untilI was finished.
And then you showed me thebasics of foreshaft weaving and
I was like, no, it's toocomplicated.
And then went back to it yearslater and and everything after
(09:45):
your first four-shot pattern hasjust been on my own.
And you're self-taught as well,aren't you?
SPEAKER_02 (09:50):
Yeah, so I just learned from...
Initially learned from YouTube,trial and error, because there
wasn't any weavers or anythinglike that around where I lived.
And then I discovered JaneStafford's online guild, and
that was transformational.
So I love the way Jane teaches,and I have to say we follow a
lot of her examples in the wayshe teaches.
(10:11):
If something...
if something unexpectedly goeswrong, she doesn't try and cover
it up.
She just says, aha, this canhappen.
And this is how you fix it.
And I thought that wasfantastic.
So we did that as well.
But yeah, my weaving transformedwhen I saw how she taught,
really helped a lot.
(10:32):
And then as Peter says, hestarted, I showed him the basics
and then left him to it.
And then I would come back andfind that he was doing something
that there's no way I would beable to do.
And I think, oh my goodness,that's amazing.
The only downside of this isthat typically he'll send me
pictures of you know pieces ofwoven material or weaving drafts
(10:53):
and stuff like that in themiddle of the night I get the
bong on the phone and it's notan emergency it's oh look I
found this and it looks reallyinteresting how do you think
they did that you know so I'mnot
SPEAKER_01 (11:03):
sure how
SPEAKER_02 (11:05):
many young men his age would do that but he's
really taken the challenge andrun with it so we all have our
particular favourites andfavourite styles and things like
that so we weave verydifferently.
Yeah, we have differentpreferences in what we make.
Different tastes.
(11:26):
Very much.
SPEAKER_00 (11:27):
Yeah, it's very unique and individual, right?
I love that story about JaneStafford because Jane Stafford
is like around here, like aroundour area, Pacific Northwest
area.
She's in Salt Spring Island.
And so to go all the way fromlike education in Salt Spring
Island, making it all the way toStirling in Scotland, I think
it's just like really, reallycool.
So that's fantastic.
And then we'll be sure to pingher and let her know.
(11:49):
Thanks, dude.
Yeah.
Now, I know that you hadmentioned before, Mari, about
how the first sort ofcrowdfunding that you had done
to get started and to bring onlooms and things like that, and
you were working sort of aroundthe idea of your trauma
psychology and trauma counselingand everything.
And in that crowdfunder, you hadmentioned about taking those
(12:11):
looms and being able to modifythem so that wheelchair users
could use them, so that peoplewith limited mobility could use
them.
I didn't even know that that wasreally possible.
Can you sort of describe whatneeds to be modified in order to
allow all different challenges,how you can access a loom if you
have all different kinds oflimitations?
SPEAKER_02 (12:32):
So mostly for people who need modifications, we use
the sorry weaving looms.
So they come with all sorts ofadditions that for people with
different abilities.
So there is a loom that you canuse when you're in a wheelchair.
There's one's that you can pushthe shuttle with a stick in your
(12:53):
mouth.
There's additional bars to holdonto for the beater that makes
that easier to do.
So really most of the work forpeople who have additional needs
is done in the soiree.
The only things we would reallydo otherwise is just things like
adjusting the height of theloom, maybe putting it on a
special table that you could geta wheelchair under if it's a
(13:15):
small table loom.
But we tend to try people, whenwe're teaching people, we tend
to build on strengths and we usethis psychological technique of
errorless learning in thebeginning.
So everything they do iscorrect.
And that's one of the sorryprinciples is there's no such
thing as mistakes.
And we always say that to peoplethat come to our studio.
(13:36):
Nobody ever makes mistakes.
mistakes in our studio.
There might be some unplanneddesign features that creep in to
the work that you're doing, butthey're absolutely not mistakes.
So when people are coming alongand they're learning and they're
developing their skills, we tryto have everybody doing the same
thing, regardless of whereyou've come from.
So we have people of all sortsof abilities working together in
(13:57):
the studio.
One of our regular weavers is ablind lady.
So she came along and said, Iwould love to do this.
How can I do it?
And, you know, I'd sort ofchatted to some people who said
that you can't, a blind personcan't be weaved.
Don't be ridiculous.
That's just can't be done.
So Joan has repeatedly provedthis wrong.
(14:18):
And Peter's taught her frombasic plain weave, where she,
she just you know, went with thetouch of the lumen and got the
feel of how that all works tothings like, well, she's done
twills, she's done...
SPEAKER_01 (14:34):
She can do tartan.
So one of the things we do quitea lot is we get tartan and then
try and do something differentwith it.
So instead of doing a regular2-2 twill, it's a diamond twill
or a herringbone or justsomething different.
So she ended up doing afour-shaft undulating twill as a
tartan.
So she would follow theundulating twill pattern and
just throw in the colours thatshe needed as she went.
(14:56):
And it's ridiculous.
She's a better weaver thanneither of us.
SPEAKER_02 (15:01):
The results are incredible.
So she has a very limited amountof vision and she can see high
contrast.
But she almost does it, youknow, by intuition now.
She's so familiar with the loomand how she weaves and what she
produces is incredible.
And she's often saying to us,you know, there's not much
creativity activities that as ablind person I could do.
(15:23):
Yes, I could do pottery, perhapsa bit of mosaic, but mostly you
need a decent amount of vision.
But this, because of the tactilenature of the yarns and the high
contrast colours, the fact thatyour loom is self-contained and
you're working within a boxalmost.
Yeah, and she absolutely lovesit.
So, yes, and we often wheel herout if we're doing
(15:47):
demonstrations and displays andshe'll stand and show the work
and talk about the looms.
And then I'll say, and of courseyou realise that Joan is blind.
And people are sort of like,what?
SPEAKER_01 (15:57):
They think we're joking.
And then she gets out He usedthe white
SPEAKER_02 (16:00):
stick and said, no, really, I am blind, but I do
this.
So it's remarkable and it'sgiven us so much joy.
So we have, typically we haveblind weavers.
We've had very frail elderlypeople in.
I'll never forget one of thefirst elderly people that we had
was an older man and he wantedto weave tartan, a specific
(16:22):
tartan.
But, you know, we were lookingat the warping board and
thinking, well, how can we makethis work?
So So we decided that he wouldfollow the draft and he would
shout out the colours to Peterand how many threads.
So it was like, right, Peter,four reds.
So Peter winds the four reds andeight black, eight black.
So the gentleman was in chargeof what was happening and Peter
(16:45):
was just being his arms andlegs.
And then we put the warp on andhe wove away with that.
So it's always about trying tofind...
what people can do so thateverybody in the studio is
treated the same regardless ofwhere they are.
And often we get a realsurprise.
We've done a lot of work withautistic young adults who are
(17:08):
autistic who are told that theycan't do things.
When they come to us, they'reoften referred from a sort of
social work situation and we'llbe told This person can't do
this and can't do that.
Here's all the adjustmentsyou'll need to make.
And we're right.
OK, so we'll take all that intoaccount.
And then you see what theyproduce.
(17:29):
And after they've had a go andproduce something, they're
shocked that, oh, my goodness,I've made a tartan scarf.
You know, that's incredible.
And so next time, well, you pickthe colours and pick the pattern
and off they go.
And then next time you set thisbit up.
and off they go and it justbuilds on their skills and what
they produce is incredible.
SPEAKER_00 (17:51):
Yeah, their confidence must be going up so,
so much just to be able toproduce something and to be
excited about what they'vecreated.
I think that that's, I mean,there's life skills built into
all of this and then confidenceboosting for everyone in all of
this.
So Peter, you actually mentionedsomething about the tartan that
I thought was really interestingbecause you were talking about,
oh, maybe not doing itnecessarily as a tutu twill or
(18:13):
as a plain weave, but just liketrying different weave
structures.
And we're going to do a diamondand we're going to do undulating
twill.
We're going to do all thesedifferent things.
And I think, Mari, I had alsoread that.
you had done an exhibition atthe V&A in Dundee.
And as part of that, you weretalking about, you know, using
different materials, using maybelike repurposing waste
materials, maybe using recycledyarns, all sorts of things like
(18:36):
that.
And so this past year, I'd beenexploring and reading and
researching a lot about tartanand the history of tartan and
all these kinds of things.
And initially, when I came intothis whole sort of field of
weaving, I thought it was verylike disciplined and almost very
rigid and it has to be two totwill it has to be set at 24
(18:56):
ends per inch it has to be thiskind of yarn it has to be this
kind of colors and then the moreand more i looked into it i was
like oh actually tartan weavingand tartan design is very open
it's very inclusive it's veryyou know um there's lots of
innovation happening constantlypeople coming up with new
designs all the time usingdifferent materials trying
different things um and so iwanted a chance to like speak to
(19:18):
you guys about this as well likehow how do you how do you see
tartan weaving now is it likehistorically always I mean it's
it's changing I think from fromwhat you're showing me
SPEAKER_02 (19:29):
yeah so we do a design and weave your own tartan
workshop which takes six hoursso people come along no previous
experience we sit with them andhelp them design the tartan and
it's actually it's maybebuilding on my psychology
background but it's more of acounseling session than a design
session so we we try and findout we have a set of prompt I'm
(19:51):
giving away all our secretthat's here.
But we have a set of cards thathelps them decide on what's
important to them in theirworld.
And then we match that withcolours.
And then we work out a divisionof space, as Jane would say, how
the colours are going to fit.
We do yarn wraps and we docolouring pencils and all this
stuff.
And in the end, we just set up alittle rigid heddle loom.
(20:14):
They set up the rigid heddleloom and weave a little piece,
just about an A4 size.
And at the end of it, they'represented with a booklet that
shows the journey of the designthat they've done.
And it's a lovely thing to do.
It's all woven in cotton becausethe colours of the cotton are
much broader than the wool.
It's also more beginner friendlybecause it tends not to snap
(20:36):
quite so easily when it's on theloom.
But we had a lovely experiencewith a group of refugees who had
resettled in Stirling and theycame along to do the design and
weave their own tartan becauseobviously they came from
countries where they don't havefamily terms.
I'll never forget, it was themost moving thing.
(20:57):
There was a gentleman who wasfrom Ukraine who had come to
settle with us and he hadbrought his daughter and they
were working away and of coursewere practicing English as well.
But at the end of it, we got towhere the colours were that he
had chosen and he chose red,Ferrari red, because he liked
motor racing.
(21:19):
and he chose black for the roadbecause he'd spent a lot of time
on the road.
Blue and yellow to represent hishome of Ukraine and this lovely
bottle green colour.
And I said, well, what does thebottle green represent?
And he said, for me, itrepresents trust.
He said, I have come to Scotlandwith my disabled daughter and
(21:40):
we've trusted in completestrangers who have taken us into
their home and given ussomewhere safe.
But also the people who took usin trusted us because we're
strangers from another countryand we don't speak your
language.
And he said, I just thought thisgreen to me represented trust.
And, you know, it was the mostmoving thing I'd heard was his
(22:01):
description.
And he wove out this beautiful,designed and moved this
beautiful little piece of tartanthat demonstrates what his life
in Scotland was like now.
Really a lovely, lovelyexperience.
But when we did the residency atthe V&A, Peter did this for
eight weeks with one of ourvolunteer weavers.
(22:22):
And we'd been given the brief ofpushing the boundaries of
Tartan.
And I think we definitely didthat.
So you want to talk about someof the projects?
SPEAKER_01 (22:32):
So it was me and one of our volunteers.
So we just We went up to Dundee,which is about an hour and a
half by car from Stirling.
So we took the train up everyday, ran into the studio because
the train got in like twominutes before the studio opened
every day.
And just spent, I think it wasabout a part of 10 weeks, give
or take, designing and makingtartans and trying to do
(22:53):
different things.
So while we were up there, Ihadn't actually decided what I
was going to do.
But the volunteer had.
He decided he was going todesign his own tartan.
He was going to make it look alittle bit funky and make a
waistcoat out of it.
And he had only really wovenabout five or six things at this
point.
I just needed an extra hand upat the museum.
(23:14):
And what he ended up doing wasusually when you weave tartans,
you have a set of warp threadsand then your weft threads is
your warp sideways.
So you do four weft passes onfour warp threads, gives you a
square, That's what Harten does.
But for these white and blackhoundsteeth sections they
wanted, instead of doing fourwhite, four black, four white,
(23:36):
four black, as you usually do,he did four different shades of
white and four different shadesof black and grey.
So that way you get striationsas you go.
And it was just one weft thewhole way up.
Or sorry, one weft for...
that whole tooth.
And that means you get all theseweird 3D effects almost
happening with the teeth.
(23:56):
And he sat and wove about fourmetres of tartan on a wee
lever-operated table loom inabout a week.
He took to it like a fish towater and just...
pounded out meterages of thisstuff.
It was insane.
And then all the othervolunteers, not volunteers,
sorry, all of our othercolleagues came up and had a go,
because it was a once in alifetime opportunity thing,
really, being the design andresidence at the V&A.
(24:19):
So we had somebody who designeda goth tartan, so it was all
black.
So it was all different shadesof black and it came together
quite well.
I think we used latex, latexthreads at one point, which is
almost as fine as silk andnowhere near as strong.
So it just started todisintegrate after a while.
But then when we finished it, itkind of melted into itself and
(24:41):
made this weird 3D bubblingtexture and various other
things.
We had somebody who...
decided i can't do foreshaftweaving confuses me too much so
they wove a plain weave sheet offabric on a rigid heddle and
then took the readout reattachedthe sheet fabric and used it as
like an embroidery frame almost.
Embroidered a warp on top oftheir fabric and then wove with
(25:04):
a needle a 2-2-12 tartan in acircle on top of this piece of
fabric.
It was insane.
Absolutely ridiculous.
And then a few other peoplecoming up trying just different
things or just designing theirown tartans.
And what was your piece?
My one...
was a rainbow gradient tartan.
So it starts off with red in onecorner, ends on violet in the
(25:26):
next, and the pattern for it was10 red, 1 orange, 9 red, 2
orange, and it slowly, slowlytransformed into...
more and more purple.
So, from red into orange intoyellow, the whole way through
the visible light spectrum,finishing at violet, with a
little grid going over it, soabout six vertical lines across
every repeat, and therefore sixhorizontal lines.
(25:47):
So what you ended up getting wasthis massive piece of gradient
cloth where, through the middle,tartan repeat, it perfectly
blends from, like, one colourinto the next, into the next,
and so on, so on.
And you get all the colourmixing throughout the whole
piece, but it was in...
mercerised bamboo, like veni A2bamboo, and that means it's
(26:09):
really shiny as well.
So everything just glimmers andlooks really fancy and intricate
and it's good fun.
Certainly
SPEAKER_02 (26:16):
doesn't look like traditional tartan.
SPEAKER_01 (26:18):
God, no, it nearly killed me.
SPEAKER_02 (26:20):
And I'm desperate to make something to wear with it
because it looks incredible.
It's beautiful, lovely drapey,fine fabric.
It's just gorgeous.
SPEAKER_01 (26:27):
And then because I was up there for about 10 weeks,
I finished this piece and I waslike, oh God, what do I do now?
So I tried doing turns.
I was a 1-3-12, so on one sideyou have warp stripes, on the
other side you have weftstripes.
I'm a massive video game fan,complete nerd, so I designed a
bunch of Tarthans based off ofvarious video games.
(26:49):
Some work better than others.
What else did we do?
Oh yeah, so we had a loom in themuseum for people to come over
and have a shot on.
So it was just a...
I saw a H-frame loom, just twoshafts, it was just plain weed,
but we would set up 10-meterwarps or 11-meter warps on this
loom for just members of thepublic just to come in and have
(27:10):
a go.
And whenever it got low, I woulddo another warp setup, take it
in and put it on the loomwhenever they ran out.
So it's just constant fabricbeing made.
I think...
what was it in the end, 173metres?
SPEAKER_02 (27:24):
Yeah, visitors loved it.
When they came to see the tartanexhibition, because that's what
was on, we were there tocompliment, all the feedback was
saying, oh, the best bit wasthat we got to weave on a loom.
SPEAKER_01 (27:36):
About a third of all reviews they got for the entire
exhibition were about this loomthat we just left.
SPEAKER_02 (27:42):
We just had the best time.
But we try to be as sustainableas we can and not waste what
we're weaving.
So we put cotton warps on thatand at the end of the exhibition
we cut up all these long cottonwarps into chunks and basically
made tea towels and placematsand things like that and they
were distributed to localcharities so everybody got a bit
(28:04):
of the weaving that had beendone when the exhibition was on
as a memory and that was lovelyas well so just try to make as
much as we can out of you knowwhat we have there.
Yeah, but a huge experience.
So the V&A Museum, to beanywhere near it, we were so
honoured.
But we discovered that we werethe first charity,
(28:26):
not-for-profit social enterprisethat's ever had a residency.
And as Peter says, we ended upbeing there for about 10 weeks.
But it was a great experience.
And everybody associated withthe charity, whether it was
volunteers or people who comealong and use our service, We
offered them all the chance togo and do something so that at
the end of the day they can puton their CV that they were
(28:49):
designers in residency at thisV&A.
And we just had a great time.
It was transformational for us.
And it was
SPEAKER_01 (28:57):
the oldest home.
SPEAKER_02 (28:58):
Yeah, so they discovered the oldest piece of
tartan in Scotland, found thispiece of Glen Affric tartan, and
one of the curators came andasked, could we recreate this?
Could we make a piece of thistartan?
Of course we could, but wewanted him to do it.
So Peter sat and trained him howto weave.
(29:19):
He showed him how to set theloom up, and he finished all his
warping and whatever, showed himhow to weave, and he wove it,
and then proudly produced thispiece of tartan that was this
first attempt.
So even the curators of themuseum had hands-on experience
of weaving and we all had agreat time.
SPEAKER_00 (29:37):
That's amazing.
You guys are doing so much tospread the, like the knowledge
of weaving and the love ofweaving.
And just, you can see all oflike the excitement and the
enthusiasm and the passion thatcomes from everything that
you're doing here.
This is fantastic.
It's amazing.
I love that going back to like,you were talking about having
those cards to help indicate,like figure out like, what are
your values?
What do you believe in?
(29:57):
And how do you express that incolor?
And then into a piece of cloththat then becomes something
super, super special.
I know you have like a post onyour web site, very recent kind
of post about a couple that cameon their honeymoon to design
their own tartan and then usingthat for a future baby blanket.
(30:18):
I think that that entire storyis actually really lovely as
well.
Yeah.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat?
So
SPEAKER_01 (30:26):
this couple came in from, I think it was Northern
California, something like that.
and they wanted to just theywanted the whole scotch
experience so of course theycome and do something involving
tartan usually people go to themills and see all the big
machines weaving it but theywanted to they saw that this is
the fact they could design theirown tartan and decided to come
(30:47):
to it so we showed them how todesign everything they picked
out all their favorite colorsand one was a particular shade
of brown that was the same coloras their dog I think they had
three different shades of greysand browns for all their
different dogs and stuff likethat.
And then they wove their littlesample of tartan, took it away
(31:09):
and were perfectly happy.
Got back to Northern Californiaafter the holiday and then got
back in touch with us and said,could we commission a baby
blanket?
So we ended up weaving a babyblanket for them.
So they got this tartan thatthey designed themselves.
So they have the actual piece oftartan and this meter square-ish
(31:29):
baby blanket in bamboos andcottons.
It's all very soft and nice andlovely.
They have a very comfy baby.
SPEAKER_02 (31:35):
Yes, and easy to wash.
You don't want to be wrappingthe baby in wool, but you need
to hand wash.
Well, none of my babies anyway.
You need something you can chuckin the washing machine.
So hopefully that becomes anheirloom for them to keep for
many years.
And there's a lovely storybehind it.
SPEAKER_00 (31:52):
That's fantastic.
So I know that when we wereinitially trying to organize
this recording session, we hadto like kind of pause for a
little bit because you were inthe middle of a very important,
I mean, you were doing a bigfundraiser for Radical Weavers.
Can you talk a little bit abouthow that went and sort of like
what your plans for how you wantto grow the organization, where
(32:14):
you want to take it and how wecan all as a community help and
what can we do?
SPEAKER_02 (32:20):
So we were running a crowdfunder last year to allow
us, we have this beautifulbuilding in Stirling.
It's an old bank building,Victorian sandstone, huge
windows, fabulous.
But it was in a bit of a stateof disrepair.
And as a charity, we don't havea lot of money.
We're lucky to get some grantfunding, but mostly we have to
(32:41):
earn the money that we need torun the workshops and the
experiences.
And we were conscious that wehad a lot of space in the studio
that wasn't being used becauseit was needing lots of work done
and some heating put in.
So we ran a crowd funder in therun up to Christmas looking to
raise funds because we know thatmost of the young people that we
(33:03):
work with have become sociallyisolated and often they're
living in poverty.
So they don't have a lot ofmoney and they live on their own
and it's pretty miserable and inparticular January is a very
difficult month for this groupof people.
So we wanted to have everythingset up so that after Christmas
we could throw open the doors,we would have a beautiful warm
place for people to come in andthat would just encourage the
(33:26):
guys to come in and see whatgoes on with us.
When we invite people into thestudio as part of our community,
we typically don't go forreferrals from social work and
social agencies.
Sometimes that happens, butmostly we try and be a bit
cleverer about that because ifwe take referrals from
organisations, we miss out onthe people who don't engage.
(33:51):
We've found that lots of theseyoung people that we work with
just don't have any supportsystems in place.
They don't engage with thesupport that they could do, They
typically have mental healthissues.
They don't have a lot of money.
So instead of asking them, youknow, organisations to do fair,
instead we say, is theresomebody out there who has some
(34:14):
time every week that they couldvolunteer to come and help us?
And what we want to do is wewant to weave pieces, which we
will then donate to other goodcauses.
So people are thinking, well,I've got a few hours every week.
I could go on a Wednesdayafternoon.
You know, we'll teach you allyou need to know.
They look in the window.
They see the beautiful coloursthat the yarn is.
(34:34):
They hear the ridiculous musicthat is being played far too
loud for anybody to be able toconcentrate.
And you can probably guess whichof us is responsible for that.
But they hear this great music.
They smell the coffee.
They see the colours.
Why would you not come in?
They come in and then...
We start them off on simple,weave a tartan scarf and the
(34:55):
wellbeing, the confidence thatbuilds, they can see this thing
emerging and it is definitely atartan scarf.
And in Scotland, that's generic.
Everybody loves tartan.
It doesn't matter what genderyou are, what age you are, we
all know and recognise tartan.
So they typically go home reallypleased with that.
And once they've made thatdecision, step over the doorway
(35:18):
they're hooked pardon the punbut they are hooked they will
come back next week next weekthey'll choose colours
differently to the ones that didthe first time and they'll do
the same thing again so itwasn't a fluke They have managed
another piece.
And then by the third time,Peter's got a program that he
takes them through.
And so we add in, we build onthe skills, complexity, the
(35:39):
responsibility for theindividual.
And it's just really great fortheir well-being and confidence.
And they can see other peoplearound them, just like them, who
have been through the process.
And often they're the ones thatare coming over to help.
with the setting up of the loomor just talking about their
experiences and so on.
I use every psychological trickin the book to get people to
(36:01):
come in and to build on theirconfidence and so on, but it
works.
And the young people that comethrough, the idea isn't that we
end up with this huge family ofpeople who are all coming in and
staying in the studio.
My thought is once we've got youin and your confidence is good
and your mental health's okay,it's then a case of what's next
(36:21):
where do you want to go whatwhat would you like to do in
life and i'm not suggesting thatwe're trading a whole army of
volunteers and weavers becausethere aren't jobs for weavers
but there are jobs for socialmedia and so that some of the
young people get involved insocial media photography
accounts we manufacture a littleset of coaster weaving kits for
(36:44):
different Tartans.
So we've got manufacturing,we've got deliveries, we've got
customer service.
So they get a chance to have alook at all these different
things and think, I could dothat, or I could go this way.
And we encourage and supportthat to happen.
But plans for the future are,it's a big secret, so don't tell
anybody, but we're planning toopen Scotland's Tartan Centre.
(37:09):
So we're the only place inScotland where tour groups, for
example, can come and have ahands-on weaving experience and
try the looms and speak to realweavers who this is their job.
to weave.
So we're planning to developthat into a proper tourist
destination visitor centre forScotland and that will allow us
(37:31):
to generate more commercialrevenue because people will come
and will see the history oftartan.
They might want to weave theirown family tartan and take a
piece of that home with them orcommission us to do it and one
of the team would do that.
So there's all sorts ofcommercial revenue that we can
generate which will help supportour work but just And just as
importantly, that means there'sa whole lot of volunteering and
(37:53):
work experience that our youngpeople can get.
So there will be jobs with usthat some of them will want to
do, really what we want them todo is to fly the nest and go out
in the big bad world and beconfident to do work out there.
But when we have our biggercentre set up, it certainly will
give people more opportunitiesin our safe space because we run
(38:17):
a trauma-informed safe space.
So they can try all the customerservice and all that stuff with
our support and then ultimatelywe move on from there.
So we would love to have peoplevisit us.
Please do come to Scotland.
It is a beautiful country.
We are not biased in any way,but it is the most beautiful
country in the world.
(38:39):
Maybe not so beautiful, but thepeople are friendly.
It's always good fun.
So please do come and visit usif you would like a tartan
designed for yourself, family.
So yes, we did a beautiful piecerecently for a wedding
anniversary and then wove up thefull piece of that.
We can do the design your tartanonline.
(39:00):
So if you wanted to do it fromhome, we can happily do that.
All of these things will help usto grow.
We're always looking for, so wesell little tartan weaving kits
that you buy in a box.
You don't need a loom.
Everything you want is in thebox.
And when we can do familytartans or company tartans, we'd
love to have a distributor.
(39:20):
either in Canada or the USA forthese kits or maybe things like
New York Tartan Week.
We'd love to speak to peopleabout that.
Oh yes, so one of our localpoliticians, a member of
Parliament, wore a piece of ourtartan.
She was in a New York Tartanparade last year and she wore a
piece of our tartan and took itout there.
(39:41):
So yeah, I mean, we're alwaysdelighted to take any donations
that people are able to give.
I mean, I know everybody's moneyis so tight and there's so many
causes out there um but yeah wewe we try to be self-sufficient
so we'd rather earn money thanthan you know ask for a donation
we always want to give somethingback in return for the help that
(40:03):
we get um so yeah but big plansum hoping to open in the summer
this year As always, we're doingeverything on a shoestring.
We've got lots of peoplevolunteering skills and time and
bits of wood and stuff.
So hopefully our Tartan Centrewill have an exhibition about
(40:26):
the Tartan radicals.
So that would be WilliamWallace, you may know from
Braveheart, Robert the Bruce,Rob Roy McGregor.
Mary Queen of Scots.
These are all local to Stirling.
Bonnie Prince Charlie.
Bonnie Prince Charlie, yeah.
So we have bits of all of thesein our story, as well as the
story of the original RadicalWeavers from 200 years ago,
(40:49):
which is a rather fascinating,if somewhat grisly story.
And spoiler alert, it did notend well for the original
Radical Weavers.
So if you're able to visit us,you'll see all about the story
and what these guys did 200years ago to make our lives a
bit better today.
day.
SPEAKER_00 (41:06):
This sounds amazing.
I mean, what you're buildinghere, the organization, both on
the charity side and thecommercial side and everything
that you have planned, it allsounds amazing.
Did you ever think that this iswhat it was going to become when
you first started weaving?
No.
SPEAKER_02 (41:22):
No.
Absolutely not.
So I started in a corner of myliving room by the window, as
you do, and I have thishorrendous habit of late-night
yarn buying, especially on eBay.
So I bought more and more andmore of this.
I'm sure we all know exactlywhat that's like.
So then I had to move out to thegarage and I took all my yarns
(41:45):
out to the garage and filledthat and got a couple of looms
and got some friends round andthat was great.
And then it started to getthere's not enough space.
So I had to get a weavingstudio.
And I knew that I found weavinghugely therapeutic.
And I would have describedmyself as a non-creative person
(42:07):
previously.
And then when I saw these thingscoming off the loom, I was
amazed that I made that, youknow, from nothing.
And we found that people, ifthey really enjoy it, they
typically enjoy it, butsometimes they think, oh, my
goodness, this is just...
(42:28):
we love the fact it's always achallenge.
And at the end of it, you alwayslook back and think, well, next
time I would do that on adifferent set and a different
color.
I wonder what would happen if wedid.
And it's this never endingperpetual challenge.
And it's, I think that's the joyand the frustration of weaving.
But it is, I mean, we've, Wehave people hooked on it.
(42:49):
So I would never have thoughtPeter would in any way have been
interested in weaving.
SPEAKER_01 (42:54):
God,
SPEAKER_02 (42:56):
no.
And now he has his ownInstagram.
He runs these commercialworkshops.
The fellow that Peter did theworkshops with up in Dundee,
this was a...
Someone who from locally who hehad been referred to us by the
food bank.
So he was living alone and inpoverty.
(43:16):
He's one of my older communitymembers being in his 40s and
ex-forces, ex-military, a vet.
had trauma when he was in thearmy and had left early, hadn't
worked for more than 20 years.
And he would describe himself asvery rough.
I mean, I know that our accentis difficult, but even we
(43:38):
struggle with Chris tounderstand.
And he came in one day, he sawan advert that said, basically
free tea and coffee and biscuitsin a warm space.
So he thought, well, I'll gothere.
And he said, what are you doing?
What is this?
What is that thing?
And he said, it's a loom forweaving.
We were slightly, you know, it'sa loom for weaving.
(44:00):
Have a go.
And he's like, okay, okay.
So I'll eat my biscuits and I'llfill my pockets with the ones
that are left and I'll be backnext week.
And he did.
And he stuck around and he endedup being remarkable in his
capacity to produce beautifulthings.
And we would sort of look andthink, you know, I'd be saying,
oh, what's everybody doing?
(44:21):
Oh, who did that?
And it's Chris.
And you think, how has hemanaged to make this beautiful
thing?
And he's gone from strength tostrength and to the extent that
he did the whole contract withPeter up at the V&A, between the
two of them, they did the wholelot themselves.
And the difference in him, inhis confidence, his wellbeing,
turning up, his mental health'snot great enough to do a paid
(44:45):
job, a regularly paid job, buthe treats his volunteering with
us as if it was a job.
So he sets his alarm in themorning and he turns up every
day and he does the full day.
A's work and he goes home atnight having done all this and
he's the sort of peer supporthe's almost like the father
figure in the team because he'sthat little bit older than the
rest of them but yeah I mean wehave success stories I'm always
(45:09):
conscious about you know theconfidentiality but we have two
young people one young man whocame to us a couple of years ago
with quite bad mental healthissues and really holding him
back at school quite badly.
And after he'd been with us fora few weeks, he didn't have to
attend as many appointments withhis mental health support.
(45:31):
He ended up being absolutelyhooked on the weaving thing and
became, in his final year atschool, became the creative
ambassador for school.
So when there was a parents'evening, he was the one who
borrowed the loom anddemonstrated what we do in the
weaving studio.
And then we found out that justin August last year, that was
the end of his final year atschool, and he has started a
(45:53):
university course to do a fullbachelor's degree in
architecture and interiordesign, which was completely
inspired by the weaving studioand the experience that he had
there.
And that's a life-changing thingfor that young man.
I mean, I don't know where hewould have what he would have
done if he hadn't been with us.
(46:14):
But we certainly wouldn't haveseen him going to university.
I believe he's the first personin his family who's gone on to
higher education.
But yeah, huge, huge experience.
And that's not an isolatedexample.
We have lots and lots of storiesof people whose lives have
turned around.
And it's this beautiful craftthat we share.
It's wonderful.
(46:36):
It's inspiring.
So we have three words thatdescribe what we do.
And they are, Peter, test foryou.
Let's see if he's paidattention.
SPEAKER_01 (46:45):
Inclusive, wholehearted and inspiring.
SPEAKER_02 (46:48):
Correct, but in the wrong order so inclusive it's
working with family it's justit's just horrendous we argue
all the time inclusive inspiringwholehearted okay so we are
always inclusive first always uminspiring and it's that sorry
type inspiring so we inspirewe're not inspiring because
(47:08):
we're the best or the mostprofessional or the most you
know Sometimes, but thank you,by no means, he says.
Sometimes, in fact, most timesthe inspiration comes from the
fact that you look at someoneand see how far they've come.
And that's inspiring.
Or somebody has overcomeobstacles, you know, the blind
weaver or the person who youwould not ever see in a weaving
(47:30):
studio.
And they've overcome all ofthat.
And that's inspiring.
and wholehearted just means thatwe we give our best we do our
best we are limited with fundsum we try to do try to be as
self-sufficient as we can be inevery way so when we're
renovating the studio you arehanded a paintbrush when you
(47:53):
come in and if you've got ifyou've got the energy and the
capacity to do an hour'spainting please just go ahead
and so we might be a bit wonkyaround the edges but the beauty
is in the fact that we've alltaken part it's we're all doing
this so uh yeah so the inclusivepart has so we now support
(48:17):
mainly young neurodiverse andthat's typically autistic kids
or lgbt kids and they found uswe didn't advertised
specifically for these groups.
That was just who happened todrift in.
And I think they were probablylured in by the colours and the
music and all these things.
But they definitely chose us.
(48:39):
So one of the things thathappened a couple of years back
was we had a young man in thestudio who was transgender.
And he had a family weddingcoming up and had got really
distressed because the suit thathe was trying to wear to the
wedding just didn't fit him.
It didn't hit the right places.
It looked awful.
And he had a horribleexperience.
(49:00):
And we had this lady in thestudio who could sew.
And she said, well, do you knowwhat?
I can alter that with just alittle nip and tuck.
I'll alter that suit.
You'll look great.
And he did.
So this Sam...
took forward that project as wethought the name Nip and Tuck
was lovely for a transgenderalterations project.
(49:21):
And we've now run that for thelast two years.
We have another couple of yearsto go with that project.
And it's for clothingalterations for people with
non-standard body shapes.
So typically that is our youngtrans and non-binary young
adults, but it can cover allsorts of people from all sorts
of backgrounds.
(49:41):
And we've won a number ofawards, haven't we, in diversity
and inclusion for that becausewe have a safe space and it's
trauma-informed and we'reinclusive.
We developed a trainingprogramme that we run for
everybody who comes along thatjoins us has disability the
opportunity to have thistraining.
(50:02):
So we've got transgenderawareness.
We have Tourette's awarenessbecause we have somebody in the
studio who has Tourette's.
And if you're not aware of thatcondition, it can be quite you
can take a step back sometimeswhen you see, you know, hear
what people say and so on.
So whenever we have somethingthat where someone's
particularly vulnerable, we doan internal training programme
(50:25):
and everybody gets the trainingregardless of their own life
experience or whatever.
And that just helps to keep thissafe space going.
And it means that we have themost incredible bunch of people
and I find them very inspiring.
All these young people who maybemissed out first time around for
whatever reason and end upflying off and doing wonderful
(50:47):
things with their lives.
And that's why we do what we do.
SPEAKER_00 (50:51):
Yeah, this is incredible.
I am so inspired listening toeverything that you guys have
brought up today.
And I'm just so excited to sortof hopefully spread your story
to more of our community.
And hopefully the people in ourcommunity will also check out
your website and go visitradicalweavers.org and see all
of the amazing things thatyou're doing and hopefully
(51:13):
support you there as well.
It is incredible the impact thatyou're making on your community
around you.
And listening to your talk.
So this is fantastic.
So I appreciate you making thetime today, both Peter and Mari.
Thank you so much for being heretoday.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_02 (51:29):
Thank you.
Thank you for taking the time tospeak to us.
It's been inspiring for us to
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