I became interested in Kente cloth after I saw a young man weaving the cloth on a horizontal strip loom. I was fascinated by the way he used his feet to apply tension. The cloth is linked to the Ashanti who now live in modern day Ghana in west Africa.
Kente cloth is so important that it even has its own myth and it was this story I decided to weave.
Two weavers went out into the forest and while there they found a beautiful spider's web full of patterns. They decided to take it home with them but it disintegrated as soon as they touched it.
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| Design for the forest |
They went out the next day and searched for the spider's web and after a while they found it. This time the spider was present on the web and showed the weavers how to make the patterns. They took the knowledge of the patterns back with them and from that day on Kente cloth was always brightly coloured and made up of geometrical patterns. |
| weaving of geometrical patterns. |
The colours and the patterns and are of great significance to the Ashanti and all mean something.
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| weaving of spider's body |
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| completed spider with wrapped wire legs |
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| weaving of lower half with wrapped vines |
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| weaving of the geometrical patterns |
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| left half of completed weaving |
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| Completed weaving with spider and web. |
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| close up of spider weaving web. |
