Wenche Lyche

I love working with my hands, making textile objects and I have worked with through my hole life, starting young with shorts and anoracks for my friends and family. During my career as a tailor and designer I have made numerous dresses, suits, hats and jewellery for privat customers. My favorite these days is going back to basics and create designs, surfaces, prints and patters the handmade way.

Q&A

What craft do you work with?

My main love and focus is surface patters design in textiles. My background is from fashion as a tailor of exclusive wear for women, a company that I started with after my BA degree from Beckmans School of Design. I love working with my hands, making textile objects. My favorite teqnique, these days is going back to basics and create patters the “old school”, handmade. The way is making my own brushes from bluberry bushes around my cabin, slowly binking, drying and using them for silk painting, by hand.

Not controlable- more free!

What inspires you to work with this craft?

Customization where each cbject is unique id my main focus. Textiles such as silk, wool and natural fibers are preferred and my interest lyes in challenging the he performance in each textile, the softnes and luster of silk, the bouncing motion of organza and the solidity of wool. I have always prioritized quality in every step because it means do much to me to sew, stitch, print, customize function, using color as a driver for joy! I love using color in my work and I always will.

How does your creative process start?

My creative process never stop but starts often were I left.

I am process driven crafter that loves not knowing where I will end when exploring material and understanding the performance of a fabric, surface design, details connected to the body.

I am curios to people, form, function and aesthetics and the last years I have focused a lot on patterdesign, surface design and creation of prints that came from using fire, ice and minus degrees as part of my methodology. Textile takes a lot of experience and challenging the performance, weight, texture and tactility is what interests me.

I work more and more hand driven and less digital but using nature as my playground and source of inspiration.

How would you best describe your workspace and what tools could you not do without?

My workspace is small, compact and full of fabrics, thread, ribbons and pictures of earlier work. I cannot work without a good pair of scissor, sewing needles and thread.

Are there new techniques you would like to try?

Cross over material combinations such as textile and porcelain would be fantastic. Sculpuring fabrics with different qualities and then paint it!

What have you learnt or the best advice that you would like to share with fellow crafters?

Staying in the process for longer without being resultdriven is my best advice to other crafters. Letting discoveries come slowly to you. Being enthusiastic about work needs to be number one to keep up the good work.

What professional dream do you have?

Exhibition my work would be my next step and then in a huge room with high celing with textiles hanging from the roof and down letting each print shine and move slowly.