A selection of weave and crochet projects by Glasgow/Galashiels based textile student, Melissa Winning.

Melissa modelling a selection of her completed pieces (gallery):

Due to her varied art background, Melissa always starts off textile projects with a very fine art mindset and is always inspired by expressionist art that uses a of colour, movement, and texture. Her favourite artists are Helen Frankenthaler and Cy Twombly - she loves that their work feels almost like visual poetry. When it comes to weave, she is constantly inspired by the Bauhaus weavers, Anni Albers and Gunta Stoltz.

Melissa follows a lot of fellow fibre artists and crafters like Lydia Morrow (@whatlydiamade) on Instagram and they have been the main motivation behind her home crochet projects.

Digital renditions of woven fabric:

On these digital renditions Melissa said:

“These are renditions of woven fabric using a software called ScotWeave. The process of creating them is usually looking at colour proportions within drawings or paintings that I have created and translating them into stripes. Within the software you can design your own yarns and match them to the colours and texture that you want, and you then fill the yarn in for the warp (vertical) and weft (horizontal). You can then create a draft which dictates which ends of yarn lift and which will have the weft sitting on top of, and the peg plan then creates different patterns from lifting the ends in different sequences. A lot of my final pieces might start out with a colour stripe that I then change a lot just from playing around with different colours and repeats. It's quite instinctual for me now, and having a colour theme already set helps me not to get too overwhelmed with colour choices.”

About Melissa

She/her

Melissa Winning is a 28-year-old textile student currently in her 4th year of university - specialising in weave. She has been in continued education for almost nine years, all within the creative arts field.

Her aim when leaving school was to go to art school to study graphic design but she ended up doing smaller courses in everything ranging from contemporary art practice, to screen-printing and weaving.

Melissa had always really liked fibre arts but saw it more as a hobby, describing it as “a way to keep her hands occupied when she felt restless” but she became more drawn to it before applying to study a BA in weave. She started crocheting before moving to the Scottish borders for university and has been doing it more seriously for the past six months.

Instagram: @melissafloreharmony