1. Ensuring outstanding teaching in art & design
Art academy
Ensuring outstanding teaching in art & design

2. Lesson: Textile Weaving
Art from
Lesson: Textile Weaving

3. African Textiles
7000 years ago the Ancient Egyptians were growing flax and weaving it into linen.
Later in Ancient Egypt, a weaving
loom was used to make textiles
Hieroglyphics on the walls of pyramids clearly show
Egyptians clothed in fabrics.

4. Weaving Cloth
Later civilisations began to cultivate cotton and use sheep and goat wool to provide yarn that could be woven into cloth.
Weaving is of great importance in many African cultures. The Dogon people of Mali believe that spinning and weaving thread is likened to human reproduction and the notion of rebirth.

5. The longitudinal thread is called the warp and the lateral threads are called the weft.
Cloth is usually woven on a loom that holds the warp threads in place.

6. Weaving Loom
The warp threads (going down) and held tightly in place by the loom. The shuttle is used to carry the weft threads when weaving.

7. African Woven Textiles
The different peoples of Africa weave patterns and designs that have been handed down from generation to generation.
Akwete Cloth from the Igbo people of Nigeria
Kente Cloth from the Akan people of South Ghana
Aso-Oke from theYoruba people of Nigeria

8. Creating Coloured Fabrics
Textiles are coloured using dyes.
Textile fibres (wool, silk, cotton, flax) can be dyed before spinning into a yarn – these coloured yarns are then woven into a pattern cloth.
Textile cloth can also be dyed once it has been woven.
Before the 19th century, dyes were created from nature (animals, plants or minerals):
Cochineal insect (red dye)
Murex snail (purple dye)
Indigo plants (blue dye)
Mud and tree barks (brown dye)
Iron (black dye)
Plants and roots (yellow and green dyes)