END OF WARP SAMPLING

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I have finished weaving the samples for the Complex Weavers’ Fall Crackle Exchange. I still had a bit more warp left. As I posted earlier, I had planned on using any extra warp to weave one more art piece. But surprise, I changed my mind. Instead I started doing some sampling.

PATTERN

The bottom half of the warp, the part with the blue for background wefts, is a continuation of the crackle exchange sample. But instead of treadling only treadle 5 for the pattern blocks, I treadled all of them. Starting at the bottom, I treadled first a group of with the pattern color on treadle 4, then a group with the pattern color on treadle 3, and then a group with the pattern color on treadle 8, then on treadle 7, then 6, and then 5.

AN ASIDE ON TREADLE TIE UPS

These treadles, 3 through 8, were all the treadles for this design. Why did I choose to tie up these treadles, rather than treadles 1 through 6? Even when I write about what I am doing, I frequently want to write treadle 1 when I mean treadle 3. I tied up these treadles because that keeps my feet closer to the center instead of angling them out, in the case of 1 and 2 especially, to the left. Easier on the body. More comfortable to treadle.

BACK TO PATTERN

I had not intended on treadling with a pattern color on treadle 5 because that was what my crackle exchange sampling was. But knowing the two would get separated, I decided that for the record I needed to have a sample of using treadle 5 as a pattern treadle.

Also, as in the Crackle Exchange fabric, I used the light pinks and greens and yellows for the pattern color. This part of the sampling was not about color; it was about pattern. I designed it to provide a clear reference as to what happens for each treadle when used as the pattern treadle. This way I will be able to plan designs if and when I decide to use this particular technique again.

COLOR

The top half of the warp was different. Here I was playing with color.

What I specifically wanted to see was what would happen if I used the warp yarn (a dulled darkish red) for the background weft and dark blue for the pattern wefts. The first thing that surprised me when I was weaving this is how bright the red became! I don’t know how it happened, but the somewhat dulled red warp threads, when crossed with the same dulled red, yielded a fabric that was a brighter, or at least a richer, red.

Once I was able to forget that and concentrate on the design, I saw that the dark blue pattern wefts did not stand out against the red background nearly as much as I had thought they would. But what really surprised me is that when I treadled blue with only one shot on pattern shaft 5, I could barely see it. Clicking on the photo to blow it up will show this "invisibility" quite clearly. Compare this with the yellow on treadle 5 just above, where the yellow stands out quite distinctly. And even when a treadled two shots of blue on pattern shaft 5, the color did not stand out clearly.

More to come.

Related Post:
Art Piece 5: Last Section Woven
Weaving Begins on Crackle Exchange Sampler

"End of Warp Sampling" was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on October 9, 2008. © 2008 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina