I THINK I’M IN LOVE

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I wove until I just couldn’t get a pirn through the shed anymore. I kept trying to weave more and more; I just didn’t want to stop; I had fallen in love. I now have visions of weaving a shawl using the ideas from this last group of sampling, but using black silk instead of blue.

The part of the warp shown here that I am referring to, by the say, is the fabric that starts about the relatively solid blue rectangle at the bottom. Following that is 17 groups of different treadlings. All treadlings are still polychrome treadlings. In other words, I treadle one pedal after the other with no tabby treadles in between.

Sorry, there really are not 17 groups of different treadlings, just 17 groups of treadlings. Near the top I inadvertently repeated two treadlings. But this “mistake” is not, in the end, a mistake, for it shows me possibilities for creating repeatable patterns.

Also, in real life the colors do not blur together in such a lovely way as the photo shows! The individual wefts and warps stand out quite distinctly. I imagine, though, that at a distance they might blur together in a similarly impressionistic way; that would be nice as well. And I suspect that clicking on the photo to blow it up will also show those individual threads. In any case, here is a close-up shot I took to show it. The close-up shot also shows clearly a warp end near the left side at the top that somehow slipped away in my desperation to weave for as long as I possibly could.

Throughout I used only two colors: a yellow-gold and a darkish blue. The yellow-gold was the primary color; the blue was the secondary. In real life that gold does read quite a bit as orange because of the way it crosses the dark red warp. But in real life, the gold shows up quite a bit more as gold rather than as orange. The interaction of the two colors in so many different ways is too much for my camera to handle and more complicated than I have the ability to deal with in my image software.

With each treadling group I changed where I put the blue thread. Sometimes I put it on only one treadle, but putting it through that shed twice. Sometimes I put it on two treadles. And occasionally on three. But each time I varied the choice of treadles to weave with the blue threads.

This sample does not reveal all the possibilities. But I think I understand a bit more about what is happening and why in order to design with more thought the next crackle weaving. And I think I understand enough so that I can, on occasion, be a bit impulsive with the treadling.

Finally, I think it is quite clear that I must now cut off the warp. First, a view from the back. Then a view from the front.

"I Think I’m in Love" was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on October 28, 2008. © 2008 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina