NO MORE WINDOW SCREENING

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I couldn’t wait for the washing machine to be returned.  I soaked the samples in very hot water with a bit of Johnson’s baby shampoo for 45 minutes.  Then I squeezed and churned them for a few minutes with my hands.  I rinsed them twice, each time squeezing and churning them a bit more.  The last rinse was in cold water—to shock the cloth just a bit more. 

No more window screening! 

They are fulled and soft.  Most have a great deal of nice texture.  But the texture inhibits the drapeability and so are not really suitable for the shawl I am planning. However, my handspun is more airy than this wool, and I am taking that into consideration in my decision.

This sampling is the group that I beat to death.  It did turn out soft but very heavy.  This would have its uses—think upholstery.  Not meant for a shawl or scarf.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The second photo is of the first half of the more softly beaten group of

samples.  There is nothing here that I am particularly fond of for the shawl that I am planning.  I don’t care for the color effects and the fabric is still quite heavy.  It would be very very warm!

 

 

The samples in this third photo do have some promise.  The bottom group of samples consists of a number of rows of pseudo plain weave followed by a double overshot.  This group drapes nicely, is the right weight, but I don’t like them.  Mostly I don’t like the way the colors interact.

In the middle, however, is a sample I really like.  It is woven with white weft.  I like how the weft appears both on the white and on the blue. I also like a bit the sample below it.  It is treadled slightly differently, with blue weft, and has kind of a quirky basket-weave effect that I like. I like the color effects in both: when the blue and light gray combine, I like that the two colors seem to appear in non-equal amounts.  That is true of the sample at the top as well.  

So I am thinking right now that I like that white on blue and I think I might like the identical treadling with blue on white.  So I could envision the shawl as either all one color warp with a different color weft.  Or I could envision it as large blocks of color.

Meanwhile I’m off on a new threading. 

And I have ordered the silk yarn for the next crackle shawl, a project that is coming up quickly but needs more thinking and planning to be followed by more dyeing.

To learn a bit more about how to full woven (or knitted) fabric, go to this essay on All Fiber Arts.  To learn quite a bit on the history of fulling, go to this essay on Wikipedia.

"No More Window Screening" was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on January 20, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

DISCOURAGED BUT NOT TOTALLY

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

The warp is on the loom for the handspun shawl sampling. For probably the first time, I threaded the loom without any tools. Why? None of my tools satisfactorily grabbed onto this heaviesh yarn. Being right-handed, that was the first way I tried it. Didn’t work because everything seemed to get in the way. Working left-handed, however, did work quite nicely. I tend to be slightly ambidextrous. I cannot write well with my left hand, but I do use it for other tasks. Fingers, however, will not be my tool of choice for threading 60/2 silk!

The photo shows that I have made a start. But I am not happy. Not at all.

First, the warp consists of two panels of blue on the outside and a slightly larger panel of light gray on the inside. When I weave with blue weft, the gray warp in the center is barely visible. When i weave with the gray weft, the blue warps are barely visible.

What is more, the feel of the fabric is just awful: thick and rough. Coarse. I immediately thought about trying a new threading—something like huck lace or Bronson lace. Then I remembered my tendency to beat wool to death. And the way the colors have occurred in the weaving, I am clearly beating a weft-dominant fabric. I don’t want a weft-dominant fabric.

It is so very hard for me to beat wool softly, loosely, so that it truly looks like window screening while it is on the loom. So that, in short, it looks like something the cat dragged in and I’d just as soon she get out promptly. Beating like that just always seems counter-intuitive to me.

When I am weaving plain weave or twill with wool it is easy to check the beat. I can measure or, in the case of twill, I can check the angle. When I weave with wool, I have to do this almost constantly. Perhaps this is a reflection of how little I weave with wool.

But this is canvas weave. Here is the threading.

In this case, the weaving does not provide me with an easy visual guide. At least not at the moment. So I have woven a few rows of bright red (visible at the top of the photo) to separate this off from the next sampling where I WILL weave window screening. Then I plan to remove this weaving from the loom, separate the two and wash them, full them, whatever, to see if they soften, bloom, to see if I really want to use this structure after all.

Meanwhile, a vigorous walk in the welcome (relatively) cold weather that has finally returned to South Carolina, is definitely in order. Sometimes, but only sometimes, I do long for the snow and freezing temperatures of Wisconsin………..

Related Post: Next Project: Handspun Shawl

"Discouraged But Not Totally" was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on January 09, 2009. © 2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

Texture

Dorothy recently commented:

"I just looked back at your oyster shell.... Please forgive me for being mischievous..., but I notice the shells have interesting texture as well as colour."

Oh yes, Dorothy is being "mischievous" here. She probably has already figured out how my passion for color dominates everything else, including texture! Texture is something that I never even tiptoe near.

But she is right about the implications for texture in that picture. The texture I see is a ridged texture. I am going to make a note of this because I can already see possibilities. Because I am so inexperienced in using texture in my weaving, these possibilities are among the most obvious possible. But the obvious is a good place to begin.

And as well, making notes is not designing or weaving, but it is a place to begin, if only hesitantly, tentatively, warily............

Dorothy, you can be mischievous anytime! Thank you.