Experimental Textiles is a course developed to support our research on collaborations that blend engineering and craft. Students from across CU, at grad and undergraduate levels, can join the class to learn about woven textile structure and techniques for integrating movement or sensing (no prior experience in weaving or electronics is necessary). Students create final projects that explore a concept of their choosing and create at least 4 iterations of that idea before selecting their “final” swatch to document in the class swatch book. We showcase some of the great work from 2023 below.
All course materials, schedule, and resources can be found at extx.unstable.design
Switch Or Swatch
Creative Industries Masters Student Ashley Ebbert created this swatch on an 8-shaft table loom that explores multilayer weaving to create thumb-sized pockets that act as switches when pressed to the base cloth.
Light Diffusion + Blue Tarp
MFA student Natalie Thedford continued her material explorations of blue tarp but unpicking its tabby structure in patterns that would reveal different patterns when held to the light.
Woven Lenticulars
Creative Industries Master’s Student Sasha Paulovich took inspiration from double weave to create structures that pull open and closed with monofilament and reveal different colors when turned in different directions. She woven these pieces on an 8-shaft table loom.
Sophia Huseby
Undergraduate Sophia Huseby created a textile to support fidgeting and tactile play by integrating beads and wire into stripes through the cloth.
Yuchen Zhang
Creative Industries Master’s Student Yuchen Zhang went above and beyond on her cricket loom to reinterpret Starry Night into an interactive textile with a color changing moon.
Mimi Shalf
Creative Technology and Design PhD student Mimi Shalf explored cyanotypes in cloth and made prints generated by different weave structures.
Mimi Shalf, @pamimus
Caleb Loewengart
Creative technology and design undergraduate Caleb Loewengart explored color shifting by integrating leno structures into multilayer cloth.
Caleb Loewengart, @caleb.loewengart