HCI research has demonstrated that textiles have interactive potential, with the ability to transform or self-shape, whether through material, structure, or the addition of non textile elements. Many materials for developing interactive or animated textiles – textiles which change during use – are fossil fuel-based, require electricity for activation, or are only available in small quantities. In this pictorial we present our exploration of high-twist linen yarn as an actuator material in woven textiles. Through experimental design research, we have defined key parameters affecting use of the material, and identified combinations of material and structure producing contrasting textile movement. The resulting woven textiles may be activated by spraying with water, or in high humidity, and the actuation is repeatable after drying, offering multiple modes of interaction. We offer proposals for HCI applications for the animated linen yarn, alongside a guide to facilitate producing and designing animated woven linen textiles.

Shaping the water-line(n) is a presentation of a hygromorphic textile sculpture woven with high-twist linen yarn, and the research process that it embodies. In contrast to the textiles we are surrounded by – mass produced, disposable – Shaping the water-line(n) invites its audience to interact in its forming. The textile has its own behaviour, responding to moisture – environmental humidity, or sprayed water. Every interaction leaves traces in its form, as it tenses and relaxes with increasing and decreasing moisture levels. Its ongoing forming is a collaboration between the textile and its audience. For designers, it proposes the concept of ‘textile behaviour as co-worker’: an alternative perspective for textile design in contrast to dominant determinative, computational models of design. The designer is no longer the sole arbiter, releasing agency over the outcome of their design, partnering with the material and structure of the textile as it forms itself.

Woven textiles are increasingly a medium through which HCI is inventing new technologies. Key challenges in integrating woven textiles in HCI include the high level of textile knowledge required to make effective use of the new possibilities they afford and the need for tools that bridge the concerns of textile designers and concerns of HCI researchers. This paper presents AdaCAD, a parametric design tool for designing woven textile structures. Through our design and evaluation of AdaCAD we found that parametric design helps weavers notate and explain the logics behind the complex structures they generate. We discuss these finding in relation to prior work in integrating craft and/or weaving in HCI, histories of woven notation, and boundary object theory to illuminate further possibilities for collaboration between craftspeople and HCI practitioners.

Printable smart materials offer textile designers a range of changeable colours, with the potential to redefine the expressive properties of static textiles. However, this comes with the challenge of understanding how the printing process may need to be adapted for these novel materials. This research explores and exemplifies the properties and potential of electroluminescent inks as printable smart colours for textiles, in order to facilitate an understanding of designing complex surface patterns with electroluminescent inks. Three conventional textile print methods – colour mixing, halftone rasterization, and overlapping – have been investigated through experimental design research to expand the design potential of electroluminescent inks. The result presents a set of methods to create various color mixtures and design complex patterns. It offers recipes for print formulation and documents the outcomes, offering a new design resource for textile surface pattern designers to promote creativity in design, and provides fundamental knowledge for the creation of patterns on textiles using electroluminescent inks.

In woven textile-form design, layers may be stacked in a pleat structure, in order to provide greater area from a limited weaving width, or to create shaping in a rectangular cloth. The layers are typically joined by weaving them together where their edges meet. However, this method of joining creates a thickened seam, and may prevent the layers from opening flat. This paper presents a woven textile hinge structure, which enables joined layers to be opened flat, without adding extra thickness, or requiring further finishing. Its utility is demonstrated through the Twistbox, an eight-layer textile-form, woven flat, which unfolds into a cube, and can be collapsed and unfolded indefinitely. The structure was produced through experimental design research, in the context of a bio-inspired design collaboration. Inspired by natural suture structures, the hinge structure broadens possibilities for woven textile-form design, while its development provides a case for how biomimetics may be applied in textile design.

Digital tools such as computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) have expanded the nature of craft practice, offering new means of design and making. However, in weaving, handmaking continues to be privileged, despite the acceptance of digital design and computer-controlled lifting mechanisms. Through experimental design research methods, self-forming three-dimensional textiles were designed in CAD software and woven on a computer-controlled jacquard power loom (a CAM tool). The textiles' three dimensionality arises from the combination of materials (contrasting shrinking and stiff yarns), structure and finishing. They are contextualized as craft objects through Pye's concept of 'the workmanship of risk'. As outcomes of a craft process, they illustrate the potential of industrial looms as tools for producing complex textile systems and expressions. The results include a method for crafting at the intersection of the workmanship of risk and CAD/CAM, providing a framework for this hybrid practice. The concept of emergent behaviour is discussed as a craft strategy when the workmanship of risk is focused on material forming rather than the tool or technique. This concept is contextualized beyond weaving, suggesting its applicability to other craft fields and practices, whether produced by hand or with the use of digital tools. 

The form of the Penguin textile artifact arises from an experiment exploring a three-layer weave-and-cut pleat structure (developed by Holly McQuillan: McQuillan, 2020), but transposing it to a closed volume incorporating stiff and shrinking yarns. The woven geometry is a simple one, and it is the interaction of the material and structure that gives rise to complex three-dimensional form. Penguin arises from a 'form-finding' design process (Baerlecken & Wright, 2014): one that allows space for the natural tendencies of the materials within a structure to produce three-dimensional form.

Exhibited in Drafts:3. Curators Jane Tepe, Faseeh Saleem, Vidmina Stasiulyte, Berit Greinke.

The Twist-box was designed to develop and showcase the suture structure at its fold-lines. This weave structure enables two wovenlayers to unfold and refold flat. The design process leading to this artifact included tests exploring variations of the suture structure, before a paper model of the box was produced, and a number of woven iterations were produced. Each iteration was examined for flaws, and thus informed the next iteration, which crept closer to the ideal of the paper model. Thus the design process for the Twist-box was a hylomorphic one (Ingold, 2010). Its complex weave structures lead to a simple geometric form, and each development was a narrowing of possibility.

Exhibited in Drafts:3. Curators Jane Tepe, Faseeh Saleem, Vidmina Stasiulyte, Berit Greinke.