TOWEL 4 BEGUN

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

With this towel I am alternating bands of blue and green.  Otherwise everything is still the same. Changing the colors this way helps to keep my interest up.

CONSISTENT BEATING

The slight beating inconsistencies I experienced with the first two towels have disappeared.  Towel 3 and this beginning of towel 4 both have the same number of shots in each section. 

DOUBLE BEATING

With towels 3 and 4 I have been double beating.  That is, I beat before I change sheds, then I beat after I change sheds.  But the second beat is not really a beat.  I simply pull once again on the beater which has remained at the fell. 

It appears that it has taken me roughly two yards or weaving to get the beat consistent!

"Towel 4 Begun" was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on December 4, 2008. © 2008 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

WHERE IS MY FELL?

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Here is a photo which shows where I am keeping the fell line during weaving. It is probably closer to the reed than many weavers would normally weave. But in the case of this warp it is working fine.

WHY I WOVE CLOSE TO THE BREAST BEAM

I now remember why I was weaving with the fell as close to the front beam as possible. Because the angle formed by the warp ends is not so extreme there, opening the sheds is easier on the warp. The closer you get to the beater, the more strength is required of the warp when the shed is opened, especially if you weave on a highly tensioned warp as I do. Silk, however, especially if tightly spun, is incredibly strong and will take the tension.

MOVING THE FABRIC AS YOU WEAVE

Wherever you decide to keep the fell when weaving, it is important to move the fabric every inch or two. Doing this keeps the fell in the same position throughout the weaving. In an earlier post I had mentioned Osterkamp’s discussion of how the ability of the beater to pack in the weft grows stronger as the fell approaches the front beam. If you want a consistent beat, then, it is important to keep the fell in the same or nearly the same position all the time you weave.

A BEGINNING WEAVER’S FEAR

When I was a new weaver I wove each small section for as long as I possibly could. I wove with the fell starting as close to the front beam as possible and continued weaving until I simply could not get the shuttle through a decent shed. Why? Ignorance for one thing! Fear for the other!

I did know what would happen if I didn’t maintain the same tension throughout; I did know that the beat was likely to change. I didn’t understand why. But I had seen baby blankets woven where even from a distance it was clear the beat had changed from beginning to end. No measuring and counting was necessary in order to see this. So I was afraid that I would not be able to get the same tension back after I moved the warp. Consequently I thought the less I had to move the warp, the less danger there was for this. Logical, huh?!

Related Posts:
Practice
Learning the Hard Way

"Where is my Fell?" was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on September 24, 2008. © 2008 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

SILK ORGANZINE YARN VERSUS BOMBYX SILK YARN

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

In the art pieces I wove off of the current warp, I used only silk organzine for weft yarn.  In the samples for the Crackle Exchange, however, I am using both bombyx silk (60/2) and silk organzine.  I am using the organzine for the pattern wefts, the bombyx silk for the background.  My idea was to create a greater contrast between the pattern color and the background.  But I am also curious as to what the drape of this cloth will be compared to the cloth where all the weft is organzine.

LIVELY WEFT YARN

While I was weaving, I noticed something that I had not observed before.  I saw that the yellow organzine as it came off the bobbin was lively, keeping the curved shape it had developed on the bobbin. See the kinky yellow weft yarn in the photo. The dark green bombyx (lying over the breast beam), however, was quite limp; it retained no memory from having been on the bobbin.

I suspect this liveliness of the organzine contributes to the little loops that want to pop up in the woven fabric. 

I have pretty much gotten control of this phenomenon.  But one thing I see now is that when I use the organzine in an actual shuttle (end feed)I will have to tighten the tension on that shuttle more than I have to with the bombyx silk.  Tightening the tension just a bit more will more strongly encourage the organzine to STAY FLAT!

Tightening the bobbin tension will doubtless have an effect on the selvedges, pulling the cloth in more.  I will either live with that or I will use temples to deal with that issue.

OSTERKAMP ON KINKY YARN

Having recently had occasion to look at Osterkamp’s Volume Three (something I hadn’t done for a long time), I decided to see if she had anything to say on this problem.  Well, yes indeed, she does have a great deal to say.  She writes for two pages about “kinky” yarns, two pages in small type and with many helpful drawings (pages 138-139).  She tells you how to test if the yarn is overtwisted, she discusses ways that the weaver might have inadvertently added twist to the yarn as she handled it, and she gives you ways to solve it.  And one of these ways is the way I had decided to try.  Here are her actual words:

You might use more tension than usual on kinky wefts, but don’t use so much that you cut in at the selvedges and the selvedge threads break.  You might need to us a temple to prevent the selvedge threads from breaking.

And then, of course, she refers to the page in this volume where she discusses temples.  I think this volume needs to be kept handy for awhile.

COLOR ACCURACY IN PHOTOS

Another observation:  the colors of the weaving in this photo are much better than in the photo of the earlier post.  Perhaps I need to play with the spot or spots the camera focuses on.

"Silk Organzine Yarn versus Bombyx Silk Yarn" was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on September 22, 2008. © 2008 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

Practice

Recently I ran across a fiber art web site with some interesting essays. One of the essays, written by a creator of art cloth and wall hangings by the name of Claire Benn, contained the following statement:

"To be a practising artist is to practise".

A truism? I don't know. I think it is very intriguing. When I think about practicing, usually I think about preparing for a performance. A pianist, for example, practices. A weaver practices when she uses the first inches of a warp to get everything right. A physician practices medicine.

A physician practices medicine? A physician practices on me?!! No way.

As I contemplated the horrendous possibility that my doctor is only practicing on me, I began to think of the implications of Claire's statement, "To be a practising artist is to practise." The reality is that when we paint a picture, weave a scarf, see a patient, we are really practicing. We are becoming better at our craft. The work we produce, the work we do, it is all practice. It is never final. It is always preparatory to the next thing.

And so the "thing" we produce loses its preciousness. It becomes simply a part of an ongoing process. I like that perspective.

In the current piece I am weaving, one of the things I have been practicing very carefully is looking at the mirrors on each side of the loom each time I open a shed. There have not been many warp ends that have gotten stuck. When I see one in the mirror, though, I am grateful that I have seen it. Seeing it then means that I can fix it during the weaving process itself, and not after it is off the loom. Off the loom, fabric is much more difficult to fix, sometimes, in fact, virtually impossible. So checking the mirrors is beginning to become second nature to me. I know, however, that when it is time to weave the next item, I will have to continue practicing that.

Since the unweaving fiasco, I have also started practicing watching the shafts as well as the treadles. This is taking lots of concentration. But it is worth it. For watching them helps me catch treadling errors before they happen. And I am grateful when I catch one.

Today I have begun practicing something else. On Friday my shoulders started to bother me. I realized then that I had to work on keeping my shoulders lowered and my "wing" bones pulled a bit to center back. There is a pose in yoga called Tree Pose. Keeping shoulders lowered and "wing" bones back are two of the many things I work on when I am practicing that pose. I try to remember the pose and how it feels when I weave. Today, practicing that really helped. My shoulders are just fine. I am grateful for my yoga practice. But I shall have to continue to work on practicing that.

Gratitude is an amazing thing.

Watching the Shafts

Amount woven Friday: 5"

My first weaving teacher emphasized that we needed to watch the shafts, not the treadles. Well, sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. Weaving this crackle fabric I did not watch the shafts because I did not know where the shafts were supposed to be in each of the eight treadles I was pressing down. It was just to complicated for this poor old head!

When I started weaving this second bit, however, I noticed some errors at the beginning. This is strange, I thought. The treadling is so easy. 1,7 and repeat four times. Then 2 and 8 and repeat four times. As I looked carefully at the errors it was clear that they were both mis-treadles. How could I have done that? I started watching the shafts. This time it was easy to see what shafts were supposed to be up and what shafts were supposed to be down. And I discovered that, even with watching the treadles carefully, I would occasionally press on the wrong treadle or catch a neighboring treadling along with the correct treadle.

I still find this unbelievable! Clearly, at least for me, watching the treadles is not sufficient. I am now watching the shafts (as well as the treadles...........).

Thank you, Elaine. You were right!

Throwing the Shuttle

Amount woven yesterday: 3.0"
Amount woven to date: 3 yards + 3"

Dorothy recently brought up a very important point about weaving technique in her blog. She pointed out the need for throwing the shuttle with each hand in the same way and the need for keeping the shuttle away from the body when beating the weft thread in.

When the shuttle is thrown through the warp, it emerges close to the open beater near the shafts. The yarn coming out of that shed and leading to the shuttle is thus at an angle to the fell. When the beater is then brought to the fell, and the hand holding the shuttle remains up close to the shafts, a fair amount of weft is pulled into the warp. Indeed, if you pull the beater slowly and watch the weft coming out of the shuttle, you can see the beater pulling more weft out of the shuttle as it approaches the fell. If you allow your shuttle holding hand to follow the beater and move down towards the fell, much less thread gets pulled into the warp. The end result will be more draw-in. The warp width will shrink.

How steep the angle is between the fell and the shuttle as it is held near the shafts depends on where the fell is. The closer the fell is to the shafts the less steep the angle is and the less thread that will be pulled into the warp. This raises two issues.

First, to have a consistent amount of draw-in, the warp has to be moved forward frequently, probably every 1"-2", Consistent draw-in is very important for consistent beating. Consistent draw-in may not guarantee even beating throughout the cloth, but it will definitely help.

Second, a decision has to be made as to where to maintain the fell. Close to the front beam? Half-way between the front beam and the shafts? Close to the shafts? Some people call that half-way point the "sweet" spot. That is the point where the beater will be closest to perpendicular to the warp. It is probably best to aim for that "sweet" spot. This is not an issue for the floating beater, if I understand the mechanics correctly. The floating beater will always hit the fell at an angle perpendicular to the warp.

I tend to keep the fell close to the front beam. Doing this, allows me to beat in more weft yarn and to beat more closely. As the warp threads on the edges get closer together because of draw-in, it becomes more difficult to beat as closely as I want to because those closely spaced edge threads offer too much resistance. That is the main reason that I often use temple. The temple gets those threads spaced out so that I can pull the beater closer.

Using an end feed shuttle creates a little blip in this issue. In an end feed shuttle the thread does not emerge from the center of the shuttle but from the end. When the shuttle is thrown from right to left, the thread will emerge from the far end of the shuttle because it is on the left side that it comes out of. But when the shuttle is thrown from left to right, the left side is closest to the warp and so will not pull out as far as it does when it is thrown from right to left. This difference may create a small difference in the appearance of each selvedge, at least that is what some weavers say. Oh well, nothing perfect under the sun, as they say.

One of the most important things about Dorothy's discussion, I think, is her focus on the need for self-analysis, the need to watch and analyze what you are doing. And she is good at it!

Floating Selvedges and Multiple Shuttles

Amount woven yesterday: 3.0"
Amount woven to date: 1 yard+32.5"

I have been thinking a bit about the selvedge issue I raised earlier in an earlier post. There I explained that the easiest way for me to manage the four shuttles was to start all four on the same side. This results in a slightly different looking selvedge, but it is fine.

One thing I could have done instead was to start all the shuttles on the same side, but alternate the over-under sequence. In other words, shuttle 1 would go over the first floating selvedge and under the last. Shuttle 2 would go under at beginning and over at end. Shuttle 3 would go over at beginning and under at end. And Shuttle 4 would go under at beginning and over at end. On the return trip from the left side to the right side I would have to reverse the sequence. Because shuttle 4 had gone over the last warp, and the last warp is now the first warp, shuttle 1 would have to go under the first floating selvedge and over the last. And the rest would continue to alternate.

Doing this would have been slightly tricky, but it would not have caused the difficulties that starting shuttles from opposite ends would have cause me. Starting shuttles from opposite ends would have given me far too many opportunities for mistakes!