Submitted by columnist Amanda aka: chicita

Friday 12 March saw the airing of an excellent TV programme on BBC2. Craftmasters celebrates six traditional crafts in need of more experts. We Folksy folk are very proud of Momtaz Begum-Hossain, a Folksy seller and one of three trainees featured in the latest in the series about weaving. There are now fewer than 200 professional weavers in the UK. You may imagine weaving to be a simple craft, but Momtaz had to deal with a huge loom and try to master professional weaving skills in only 6 weeks, when the group’s mentor admitted to spending five years to reach a similar standard. Watch the programme online until early April. Listing link is at the bottom.

I scooped an interview with Momtaz just after the show.

Tell us about your day job and craft on Folksy.
I’m self-employed as a writer, writing mainly about the arts and crafts industry and lifestyle features for magazines. I also teach art to community groups around London, I’m always making things, customising clothes and I started the shop to showcase things I make.Last year I set up an independent not-for-profit craftzine for artists and crafters to get their work showcased and the Folksy store helps me distribute that publication.

How did you get involved with the programme? 
I saw an advert on a careers website. I emailed the production company and they called me the next day. I met them a week later and did an interview to camera. After that there were a couple of telephone interviews and I was selected. They wanted people committed to crafts who could prove their passion and I had to show a portfolio of my work – most of what I do is fashion and textiles based and weaving complemented this. I’ve been doing textiles for many years and most of what I’ve learnt is from evening classes and short courses – sewing/dye work/knitting/crochet/accessory making. Weaving was the missing link, the one area of textiles that I had yet to experience, and the show was a chance for me to change that.

How were the first few days?
They were really hard. We met each other for 5 minutes and then the cameras rolled and we were introduced to our tutor. I thought that I fell behind from day one and never caught up. The pace was so fast I didn’t have a chance to grasp anything. We had to keep sketch books, do design work, research visits and keep mood boards. One thing that was cut from the programme was the fact that we also dyed our own yarns which was brilliant – we developed our own colours at a dye lab. There was no free time. We had limited internet connection and the outside world seemed very alien, like being in a weaving bubble. My favourite aspect of the show was when we took our work to Hereford Craft Fair and showed  our weaving to the public. I wove two lap top cases and they got a fantastic response.I also sold two handwoven greeting cards but the programme’s voice over said that Holly, another student, was the only person who sold something. I felt a bit hard done by!

With weaving so many things can go wrong and that’s what happened to me.  Everything I did went wrong and I had to keep going back.  I did contemplate giving up. Twice the others went home at 10pm and I was on my own until after midnight to untangle knots. One weekend the other two did go home and I stayed to catch up and still didn’t manage it! I spent so long on the technicalities of the loom that by the end I had much less weaving experience than the others. It took them one day to set up the loom for the final task. It took me 5 days, so I only had 2 days to weave.

What about Monty Don? Is he as wonderful as I think he is with his laid back attitude and dulcet tones? Was he solely the  presenter or did he contribute in other ways?

Monty helped me through it without a doubt! He was the only person who sympathised with what I was going through and kept reminding me that I was normal, that I happened to be with two students who were geniuses but that if you got three people off the street they wouldn’t have grasped weaving either. He restored my confidence. At one point he spoke to me for over an hour and his calming and sincere nature made me smile again. There were plenty of times I felt down, not like myself, because on a day to day basis the other students were miles ahead of me and when that happens day in day out it is hard to pick yourself up. I knew I had to stick with it and I’m proud that I did come away with a piece of fabric, even if it does fall 2 metres short of the brief!

 What advice can you give to those crafters who are considering learning a new craft (without the distraction of a camera crew)?

You can never stop learning.  You never know everything. There’s always a new skill you can acquire to make your work better. I’ve learned so much from short courses and evening classes. There are three year degree courses in weaving and in six weeks that’s what we covered.  I may not have been as good as the others but I did learn how to weave and set up the loom and I don’t want to lose that knowledge. It is something I would revisit at an evening class. I think that kind of environment would be much less stressful.

View the show: 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00rl51q/Mastercrafts_WeavingVisit Momtaz at http://www.Momtazbh.folksy.com

Tags: Chicita, craft business, folksy, indiepreneur, indiesmiles, interviewed, Momtaz, television, tv, tv show

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