More Subiaco Stories...Weaver And Fundraiser (1947).
From Trove, the database of the National Library of Australia. No copyright infringement intended.
Western Mail, 24 July 1947.
by MARIAN DALE
A CRAFT which began as a hobby has enabled a Perth woman to raise many hundreds of pounds for the Red Cross and also to provide nearly 30 food parcels for Britain each month.
Mrs. A. D. Robinson who lives now in Subiaco, learnt the art of weaving from her daughter who was taught in Sydney before coming to Perth. When war was declared they decided to make articles for the Red Cross shop and their venture was a most successful one.
In one year Mrs. Robinson and her daughter (Mrs. G. Maitland Webb, of Kojonup) made about £500 for Red Cross funds.
When ever possible the special weaving cotton was eked out with scraps, but even by Mrs. Robinson buys her cotton by the hundred weight. Cream and fawn cotton is available in limited quantity, but colours are still hard to get.
Mrs. Robinson gets over the difficulty by cutting coloured strips from worn-out garments. Her son's shirts have been used up as woven stripes in bath mats, side by side with pieces of stockings and milanese, and it is remarkable that such a fine result can be achieved from odd pieces.
For better quality articles Mrs. Robinson dyes her own cotton what-ever colours she requires. Among the many lovely woven articles to be see at her home are handbags and shopping bags, sets ot dinner mats with table napkins to match, tray cloths, baby's bibs, bath mats and hand towels.
Mrs. Webb has made a special study of linen and wool weaving. The many baby blankets which she made for the Red Cross who were always in keen demand, as were her light travelling rugs made specially for plane travellers. Mrs. Webb can also produce beautiful suit lengths of Harris tweed when the material is available.
Now that the Red Cross shop is no longer open, Mrs. Robinson weaves to provide food parcels for Britain. Many of them go to invalids and old people she does hot know personally but whose names have been given to her by various friends and acquaintances. She says her parcels are always grate-fully acknowledged, and she received many newsy letters from the recipients.
MRS. ROBINSON is only one of several Perth women who now get great pleasure from weaving. It is interesting to note that the principles of this ancient craft have changed very little during the centuries.
The use of a simple loom for weaving plain, as distinct from ornamental textiles, has been practically universal. For example natives still in a state of savagery frequently use a crude loom or frame to make a textile with shreds of grass. Other more advanced races added a hanging comb or reed to press the weft and warp together. Gradually came the idea of adding coloured warp threads in a given order, then weaving into them coloured weft threads so that stripes and patterns could be produced.
The crude loom was gradually added to, until it became possible to produce any kind of complicated pattern. So far as is known the Chinese were the inventors of looms for weaving figured silks, which in course of time other nations, who were acquainted only with wool and flax textiles, saw with wonder By 300 B.C. Chinese dexterity in fine-figured weaving was advanced far beyond the times, and was in fact, equal to anything produced today. Dragons, phoenixes, mystical bird forms flowers and fruits appeared in their fabrics in glorious colours.
Still numbered as one of the most, fascinating of the ancient arts, Weaving as a hobby is an educational craft as well as a useful one, allowing much scope for ingenuity in creating beautiful colour schemes
