REFLECTIONS ON WEAVING TECHNIQUE

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

On reflection, I have discovered that I have come a long way technically in my ability to weave 60/2 silk.

First, this has been a wonderful warp.  By far the best I have ever woven on in this silk.  This warp is a big jump over my last warp and I attribute it to gritting my teeth and winding on approximately 1-inch bouts and then gritting my teeth again and lashing on to the front rod in 3/4-inch bouts.

Previously I had made my bouts about 2 inches wide when I made them at the warping board.  And when I lashed on to the front rod, I had tied on in 1 1/2-inch to 1-inch groups. Changing these two things has made a big difference in the overall evenness of tension in the warp. 

The major result of this reduction is size is that so far I have seen on the wrong side only one weft throw where a couple of a couple of warp ends were missed.  And I am almost done!  This is a record for me and will motivate me to continue to beam on this silk in narrow bouts.

Also as a result I have had very few problems with loops of weft yarn getting caught in the warp.  But they are still there, primarily close to the selvedges.  I have figured two things I need to do to solve the last of this problem:

1. WEFT YARN TENSION: I have not tensioned my yarn in the shuttles tightly enough.  I bumped the tension up one notch and doing that had a decided effect.  I need to be able to bump it up just a bit more and I think that will mean using a temple. Otherwise the pull of the weft yarn against the selvedge edge will start to draw the selvedge in too much. When I start the next warp I will test this out.

2. LIGHT: I need better light.  I am getting more precise in what I look at as I weave and I have discovered that often I can actually see the beginnings of what will be a loop after I throw and beat the next shot.  It is an easy thing, before I do that, to pull at the end just enough to straighten it out so it won’t loop.  Better light should make it easier for me to see this sort of thing, so I am looking at miner head lights.

There is, however, something I still need to figure out.  Well, actually, it is probably a matter of practice pure and simple. There is an issue with the pirns themselves.  I talked earlier of the knots.  These definitely interfered with my ability to get even tension on each weft thread.  But there is another issue.  Even without the knots, the weft yarn still gets stuck from time to time.  That means I have not wound the pirn at that point exactly correctly.

The next time I wind pirns I shall have to be observant and careful.

Related Posts:  
   Winding the Silk Warp
   Pirn Winding
 

“Reflections on Weaving Technique” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on July 3, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

RUSH TO FINISH OR SLOW DOWN?

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I’m beginning to see the end of this.  One more blue section, another gold section, then the final blue section and short gold section.

I have all kinds of mixed feelings right now.

First, I want to rush headlong into the weaving and get it over and done with.  But at the same time I want to slow down and not finish it so quickly.

I want to finish it quickly because I can barely stand the suspense of what it is going to look like off the loom.  Right now I am feeling pretty awful about what it is going to look like so the sooner I get it off the loom the sooner I can find out just how bad it is.

On the other hand, slowing down postpones the reality and also prolongs the agony. 

On May 19th, I posted this tidbit from The Hidden Order of Art.

Today, and recently, that passage really speaks to me.  I am doing my best to drown out the voice that would make me “sweep the whole mess into the wastepaper basket.”

So, should I rush to finish?  Or should I slow down. The answer seems to be to do neither.  Just keep up my usual rhythm. The rhythm will drown out the negative voices.

“Rush to Finish or Slow Down?” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on July 2, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

TREADLING WITH FLOATS OF 4: 8 CRACKLE BLOCKS ON 4 SHAFTS

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Here are some drawdowns for treadlings.

I have kept the images small in order to give a better feel of what the fabric might look like woven.

INTRODUCTION

I have taken the threading drawdown I designed earlier for getting 4-thread floats instead of 3-thread floats. The basic threading I worked with was a threading that allows me to get 8 blocks on 4 shafts.

The warp is all one color, blue. The block on the very left, however, has green warps. This is the same block as the block on the far right. It is there to test the join between first and last block. It is green so that I don’t forget that this block is a repeat.

Using that drawdown, I tried some treadling variations I am particularly fond of. Well, the first one I am not particularly fond of, but I use it because it shows the block structure so clearly.

THE TREADLING VARIATIONS

Treadling #1 is overshot- style treadling. I have used red throughout. *Tabby is required but not indicated in the draft.

Treadling #2 is treadling on opposites. In each block I have used green for the first weft color, and rose pink for the second. I repeated the sequence twice. In the repeat, it is the rose that appears as the first weft color and green for the second. The result is the appearance of more blocks than there actually are. Theoretically this should not require *tabby, but I’m not sure.

Note: there are no such things as genuine opposites on this threading, despite the fact that the tie-up makes it look like there is. One result of this is that there are no genuine tabbies.

Treadling #3 is a kind of pseudo summer&winter treadling. For one block I alternate treadles 1 and 2, then I move on to alternate treadles 2and 3 and so forth. As in #2, I have alternated green and red weft threads. Like #1, the long blue warp floats clearly visible in the draft mean that weaving this requires *tabby.

Treadling #4 is polychrome treadling---i.e., treadling the six treadles and repeating. I used green for the one treadle in a given group and red for the others. Tabby is not required.

MY PERSONAL FAVORITE

My favorite of these, at least on paper, is #3. I had not realized how much interplay of weft and warp there is in this treadling. The interplay is there in my current weaving, but it is not nearly as vibrant and demanding in its attention. The idea of weaving *tabby does not, however, please me, for I would be adding yet another shuttle into the mix, and I would probably use 120/2 silk to make it as little obvious as possible.

On the other hand, I really like what I did here. That is the same treadling as #4. The same treadling as my current piece. Hard to believe! It was just a different way I used the colors as I treadled.

3 FLOATS VERSUS 4 FLOATS

Extending the weft pattern floats from 3 to 4 seems to have no impact on the drawdown. Had I done this with the 3-float drafts I have been using, I am sure no one would have noticed any real difference. This leaves two questions in my mind:

1. Why bother with this?
2. Why not jump to 5- or even 10-float drafts to see what happens?

A NOTE ON TABBY

In this structure there is no true tabby (unlike ordinary 4-shaft crackle). So one has to think in terms of binder threads and get creative. Zielinski is of enormous help here in suggesting some possible solutions.

A NOTE ON THE IMAGES

Those of you who have clicked on the above images to see them larger will have learned that there are not four images but only one. What I did was to copy and paste these images into a page of my E-sketchbook (kept in Microsoft Publisher) and once pasted, to arrange them as I wanted them. Then I locked them into position. I then copied the locked group and pasted it into this blog post. On my E-sketchbook page I can unlock the group any time I want. I assume that any of the publishing programs would allow you to do this.

Related Posts:
Crackle with Floats of Four (or More)
Summer and Winter and…….Crackle (of course)
Crackle Treadled as Overshot

“Treadling with Floats of 4: 8 Crackle Blocks on 4 Shafts” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on July 1, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

SLOWING DOWN THE WEAVING STILL MORE

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

In addition to the complexity of the treadling, there are other issues that slow down my weaving.

Another thing that happens is that throwing a shuttle will pull the loop from the other shuttle into the shot.  So I have to check to see if this has happened.  Sometimes the extra weft pulled in is visible, but mostly not.

The first image shows the loose hanging weft yarns. The second image shows the detail.  

Just a bit of a mess there.  No wonder weft gets caught  up where it doesn’t belong.

The weft ends hang that way because I rest the shuttles on the fabric.  There is no place for the weft emerging from the shuttle to go except to droop there at the edge of the fabric.

 

 

But if I were to place the shuttles on the bench by my side, there would be too much of the weft pulled out of the shuttle and it would be difficult to throw it correctly. And that would soon create its own mess.

What I need to do is to get out the boards I made for shuttle rests and position them on the loom.  That is exactly what I did.  It definitely helped. 

I still tug at the ends, but the ends are easier to get hold of.  And I still need to tug at them, because one still does occasionally get caught up, but usually only barely.

This setup has made my weaving more relaxing and quicker……..well, relatively quicker!  But the more relaxing did surprise me.

You can see how little of a mess there is any more.

The board I got from the waste pile at Lowe’s or Home Depot.  Then I covered it with rug liner so that the shuttles would not slip.  I attach it with a C-clamp.  There is one on the right side of the loom as well.

Related Posts:
Weaving with Multiple Shuttles
Managing Multiple Shuttles

“Slowing Down the Weaving Still More” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on June 30, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

SLOW WEAVING

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

It takes me a long time to weave my crackle pieces. There are several reasons for this:

1. I am generally working with fine silk at fine setts.
2. I am usually working with multiple shuttles.
3. Sometimes the pattern of choosing shuttles as I weave changes as I weave.

The following photo shows the fabric that just resulted from using two shuttles in a varying pattern:

This is the first blue section of the second half of the crackle scarf/sample I am currently weaving. Looking carefully at the fabric shows a constantly shifting muted pattern. The pattern varying the way I treadle. The easiest way to show how this slows down my weaving is to reproduce my treadling notes.

Before presenting these, I need to remind you that I have six treadles tied up and I am treadling them one after the other. One sequence, then, consists of six treadles in a row. Here they are:

1. 1 shot bright blue, 1 shot dark blue….repeat through the 6 treadles. Repeat this sequence a total of 3 times.
2. 2 shots dark blue, 2 shots light blue, 2 shots dark blue. Repeat this one more time.
3. 1 shot bright blue, 1 shot dark blue…repeat through the 6 treadles
4. 2 shots dark blue, 2 shots light blue, 2 shots dark blue.
5. 1 shot bright blue, 1 shot dark blue…repeat through the 6 treadles
6. 2 shots dark blue, 2 shots bright blue, 2 shots dark blue
7. 2 shots bight blue, 2 shots dark blue, 2 shots bright blue
8. 2 shots dark blue, 2 shots bright blue, 2 shots dark blue
9. 1 shot bright blue, 1 shot dark blue…..repeat through the 6 treadles.

This is one fully treadled section. It represents a binary system I designed and consists of 64 shots. It measures not quite 1” in length. I weave this four more times for a total of five repeats.

This is the same way I wove the red sections in the first half. Go here to read more about that.

Slow weaving? yes indeed!

Related Posts:
Binary Sequences and Designing
Managing 3 Shuttles
Slow Weaving (written in 2007)

“Slow Weaving” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on June 29, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

TO READ

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

KEEPING A PROJECT SKETCHBOOK

Sketchbooks -- Laritza has come up with a good idea for a project sketchbook.  She has set up the things it must be able to do and come up with a solution which I am considering for my own projects.

WHY DO LESS MORE SLOWLY?

The Seven Essential Rules for Slowing Down and Enjoying Life More – this little essay from Zen Habits really got to me, especially the suggestions to do less and eat more slowly.  How in the world can I do less?  Well, I could forget about the bra…………  My choice……..sigh.

If that isn’t enough, I found the introductory page for Zen Habits:  The Beginner’s Guide To Zen Habits  This page consists of links to all  sorts of amazing reading.  So I guess I’m not going to do less after all………

ANALYZING PATTERNS IN ART

Robert Genn has given me much to think about in his essay called Patterns. Though he has written this for artists, I believe there is much there that I can start thinking about in terms of my weaving, especially if I start using my weaving software in ways that better allow me to visualize the pattern of a whole piece.  I have printed this out for a ready reference to questions to ask myself.  And I have copied it into my E-sketchbook as well.

SOCIAL NETWORKING

Social networking is the rage these days, among weavers as well as all sorts of other people.  Keep in mind that both Ravelry and Weavolution are social networking sites.   With this in mind I found a recent post by DoshDosh, Social Media Networking and ROI: How to Maximize Value and Minimize Cost.  For me the title was a turn-off.  But it turned out to be a most interesting read.  If you keep in mind that value and cost do not have to refer to money necessarily, I would definitely recommend this piece.

TRACK BROWSING TIME

If you have Firefox, here is a very cruel extension that seems to work very easily to keep precise track of your browsing time.  Go here if you are interested in downloading it.  No, I have NOT downloaded it……..yet……….  I don’t think I want to…… 

A QUILTER’S CREATIVE PROCESS

I love to read how artists work out their creative ideas in the thinking and planning stages.  Weavers, fiber artists, visual artists, composers.  In this case the artist is quilt artist Carol Taylor.  An interview with her appears on Terry Jarrard-Dimond’s blog and can be read here.

PHOTOGRAPHING WOVEN GARMENTS

I found a rare treat on Daryl’s blog:  a wonderful essay called Photographs with images of Daryl photographing her garments.

“To Read” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on June 26, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

TYING UP TREADLES

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

On my current warp I have six treadles tied up.  But I have a total of ten treadles on the loom.  I could have tied up the first six treadles on the left side.  Or I could have tied up the center six treadles.  I decided to tie up the center six.

There is a definite ergonomic advantage to tying up the center six treadles.  Doing this keeps my legs closer to my body as I weave.  That translates into the fact that it is physically easier on my legs (and one arthritic ankle) to weave with the center treadles tied up.

But, as with most everything, there is a price to be paid.  Some times I don’t start far enough to the left at the beginning of the treadling sequence. When that happens, I begin the treadling sequence with treadle four instead of treadle three.  Since I am treadling straight and because for some reason I see more easily what is going on to the right of my body, by the time I get to what is supposed to be treadle five in the sequence I realize that I have not enough treadles left on the right.  So I unweave a bit and start again.  This has happened only a few times, so it’s really not a significant price.

The other problem is what to call these treadles when I am writing this blog or talking to others.  Sometimes I call them 1,2,3…….;   sometimes 3,4,5….  They exist in my computer drawdown as 1,2,3……..  I think it is probably least confusing to refer to them as 1,2,3…….  The actual physical tie-up is only a matter of ergonomics.

For myself, however, in my head I think 3,4,5…….as I am weaving.  If I did not talk to myself like this, I might really have treadling problems!  And so in my written notes I refer to them as 3,4,5………..

Related Post:  Ergonomics at the Loom

“Tying up Treadles” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on June 25, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina