MANAGING 3 SHUTTLES

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

The two shuttles with red bobbins weave the background.  In this area, where I am weaving the gold motifs, I regularly alternate the two reds.  I pick the front one to weave with, then place it behind the second shuttle, which becomes the front one and so the one I pick  up next.

This may seem like an inordinate amount of work to some.  The reds are so close in value that it hardly seems to matter.  Subtlety matters.  In this case a barely perceived increase in liveliness occurs, a liveliness already there by virtue of the threading. 

I used to weave with the fell very close to the front of the loom.  Then I could not keep the two shuttles this way because there was no room.  So I put a covered board on each side for a place to rest the shuttles.

The shuttle to the right with the gold weft is the pattern shuttle.  I weave it only once in each group of group treadles.  Consequently, I do not need so much yarn so I put it on a regular shuttle.  Not the Bluster Bay end feed shuttles which hold a great deal of yarn.

Still, it is clear that what I am weaving does not require a great deal of yarn, hence those pirns are not even half full (I’ve not woven even 24” yet!).

Also visible is the measuring tape I use pinned onto the cloth.

Related Posts: 
Where is My Fell?
Learning the Hard Way
Shuttle Rests
Managing Multiple Shuttles

“Managing 3 Shuttles” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on May 27, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

TO READ

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

The Wise Juror -- A post on nurturing your own individual voice in creating art. Listen to your work is the advice. From Robert Genn’s newsletter, “The Painter’s Keys.”

Pretty Sketchy – an interesting point of view on what sketch books are all about, namely, about thinking.  And don’t miss the link to the Flickr group.

Must Read Book: Brain Rules – Scott Berkun’s review of this book (Brain Rules) has definitely caught my interest.

Build a Self-Development Day – I wouldn’t build mine in the way that Persistence Unlimited does on this blog post, but I would like to play with his ideas in my own way.  I’d be curious if any of you have ideas of how you might plan your own self-development day.

Tips for Survival as an Artist--from Michael Shane Neal: Part 1 – I found this very interesting.  For me personally, the paragraph on setting aside a part of each day for study was most gratifying.  As you might remember, I have decided to do that.  And, if you have been noting my closing quotations on recent posts, you know the book I am currently reading!

Related Post: Weaving Resolutions for the New Year

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

MADDENED BY IDEAS

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Maddened as in tormented! It all began innocently enough. I simply would find my mind wandering, as I wove, to thoughts of my next warp(s). Blues and reds. Narrower threading blocks. Similar to what I am doing, but different. All kinds of ideas floating around.

Then a notice from The Textile Museum in Washington, D.C. arrived. A request for fiber entries focusing on green. I discarded the idea…….but not the request……. I started thinking.

First, however, I rechecked the deadline. Deadline is not till January. I could do something interesting in this crackle. I have not a prayer in the world that I could weave a piece that would get accepted (one of the things you have to submit is your curriculum vitae!!! oh sure!). Still, especially considering how difficult green can be, I thought it would be worthwhile accepting the challenge. And glimmers of possibilities started to float into my brain.

Also occupying my head (I can’t figure out how there can be so much room in the poor thing!) is a knitted lace summer sweater—raglan, top down. All very vague. Except that the lace pattern will be a very easy one. But then my poor head got more and more engaged. I realized it would not take that much yarn so I could use some of my handspun. Realizing that pushed everything else out, including weaving. The result is that now ideas are now coming to a critical mass where I really have to start to the labor of the actual designing. Hard work. And I want to weave!

Then there is the “small” matter of thinking about and looking at some interesting yarns for knitting our son’s annual Christmas sweater. I have always used relatively inexpensive yarns. Partly because I haven’t trusted his washing. But I’ve learned I can trust it, so this year I have decided to splurge. And I am so excited because it will be a splurge for me as well to feel wonderful yarn flowing through my fingers and watch the rich texture developing. We are going to Charleston this week (and then again next week) for Spoleto. Charleston has a simply wonderful yarn store…….

Not to mention that I am following a bra sew-along and learning that I just might be able to make really beautiful mastectomy bras, and so am looking at patterns, fabrics, books………..

And the Marimekko knit that just arrived – destined to become (when?) a nightgown for my daughter…..

Sometimes creativity feels akin to madness. I feel I will burst if I cannot work on all of this at the same time.

This madness tends to happen when I’ve been away on a trip, even a very short trip. On the way back, as I sit in the car and knit, ideas start to flow. Slowly, then more quickly. That night I wake up with more ideas and thoughts. Once. Twice. Sometimes multiple times. I don’t write them down. I know they will still be there when I get up.

In the morning I sit at the computer and go through the process of getting everything written down and roughly organized. The madness begins to dissipate. I can get back to work.

Yes, we were away briefly this weekend………….(grin!)

Related Posts:
Focus: A Postscript
Weaving Art Pieces
Weaving Masterpieces

“Maddened by Ideas” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on May 25, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

FLOATING SHAFTS

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

This current silk warp is the best warp I have ever put on. It has been giving me the cleanest sheds I have ever had with 60/2 silk. Only one treadle has been a bit of a problem. A thread or two near the left side sometimes gets hung up; so I try to remember always to stick my hand in that shed.

That shed is also a bit of a problem because the lower half the the warp does not lie flat on the shuttle race. Even loosening the treadle cord a notch doesn’t really help. All that does is make a shed that is really too narrow to weave with. Since the warp is narrow, the fact that the bottom shed does not lie perfectly flat has not been an issue. I am not shooting the shuttle across the race. It’s more akin to passing it from hand to hand.

I was contemplating all of this as I was weaving, when the phrase “floating shafts” entered my head. I checked. On the problem treadle, shafts 1 and 2, the down shafts, float. I checked the other sheds and the shafts that are supposed to be down float there as well, though not to the extent shafts 1 and 2 float when shafts 3 and 4 are up. In fact, if I push the shafts down with my hand, they come right back up! On the other sheds, the shafts stay down when I push them down.

I checked the weaving lists and found possible solutions.

1. Buy a countermarch loom. Well, yes. The shafts that are supposed to go down (and stay down) have no choice in the matter because they are tied up to do that. Jack looms, however, rely on gravity, not on a pulling action. Am I kicking myself for not having bought one because of the difficulty of tying up? Well, yes…….

2. Weave with less tension. Tried it. No matter how loose the tension, the shafts still float.

2. Add weights. Some time ago, when I had been dealing with floating shafts, I had bought some thin steel bars at Home Depot. I never used them. So I got them out and tried to tie them on to the bottom of the shafts. They would not stay tied on. I couldn’t figure out what was happening. The knot was still there, and the loop didn’t appear to be cut, but somehow, the cord was not holding them. So I put the bars away.

3. Push the shafts down with your hand. The weaver who suggested this says it is very easy to incorporate that action into the rhythm of the weaving. I have been doing that on the other treadles and I agree. But this is quite useless on a treadling where the pushed shafts refuse to stay down!

4. Spread the threading over more shafts. The heddles and the threads are so close together that their “stickiness” is keeping the down shafts from going all the way down. I’m pretty sure this “stickiness” has to be the problem as I never have shaft issues weaving anything from 4-30 epi. Threading this particular warp in this way, of course, I cannot do since the loom is already threaded. No, I am not going to cut off and start again. But I will definitely keep this threading technique in mind for the next warp.

Related Post: Jack and Countermarch Looms

“Floating Shafts” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on May 21, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

FIGURE AND GROUND

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Figure and ground is an art concept I have known about for a long time. Taking a photo of a person standing in front of a large shrub, for example, will result in the figure of the person, which stands out, and the ground of the shrub, which recedes into the background.

For most of us, the figure is what matters. The ground matters only insofar as it makes the figure prominent. Artists, however, realize the importance of the ground in its own right.

In studying art, most of us have been encouraged to see the shape of the ground as a positive shape, rather than a shape having been cut out by the figure. That has always been hard for me to do. It has always gone against how I have learned to see.

But as I was weaving the first motif I began to see the ground and how it was shaped as perhaps even more important than the figure. The figure, of course, is the gold pattern blocks, the ground is all the red on which it lies.

But, the gold pattern blocks really do not lie on that red ground. They are surrounded by the red ground. And I see their shapes as every bit as important as the gold figure. In fact, I can easily switch back and forth between viewing gold as figure and red as ground, on the one hand, and red as figure and gold as ground on the other hand.

Isolating the gold figure blocks, the figure (now individual gold lines)is actually almost enmeshed in the ground. As I have tried to design it, my hope is that those blocks read as a whole rather than the alternation of red lines and gold lines. And still, that is exactly what happens.

So even in weaving, the eye shifts in how it sees things.

Taking the red areas as figure rather than ground, it is difficult to see in those areas any clear figure/ground distinction. Everything is constantly changing because I am throwing two different warps in so many different ways. There is a pattern, so it is not really a jumble. There is only a vague sense of pattern because it is not readily identifiable.

I realize, too, that what I am trying to do with the blue shadowing is to integrate the design section (another figure, the eye again changing how it sees things) into the ground area, the ground area from this perspective being the group of dark red blocks which surround the figure or design area.

As I weave, I am learning.

Related Post: Crackle Shawl: The Motifs

“Figure and Ground” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on May 20, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

“GET BACK TO WORK”

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

A friend sent me a link to a short piece by the writer, Elizabeth Gilbert. It’s called “Some Thoughts on Writing” and it can be found here. It arrived just before I did some weaving on my latest piece, some weaving that left me momentarily a bit disappointed. Actually, I wanted to cry. Just a little. But I’m too grown up for that. If you believe that I have a bridge I’d like to sell you…….

But this piece was so appropriate for my disappointed state because in it Elizabeth Gilbert says something I needed to hear:

“…all writers think they suck.”

It’s not just writers who think this and need to deal with it; so do weavers. Elizabeth deals with it by……..well, read her piece!

But how do I deal with these disappointments? By seeing, not something awful, but something that is a problem. And problems challenge. This is how I can forget my own ego and “get back to work”.

Some things that getting back to work might mean for me:

• Taking a break (or walk, or nap—short or long)
• A little (or a lot) of unweaving
• Cutting off and starting all over again
• Continuing to weave with an open and curious mind
• All of the above

Elizabeth Gilbert talks a bit more about getting back to work:

Always, at the end of the day, the important thing is only and always that: Get back to work. This is a path for the courageous and the faithful. You must find another reason to work, other than the desire for success or recognition. It must come from another place.

Getting back to work, in other words, is not necessarily easy. There must be a reason for letting go of disappointment and getting back to work.

And so, my readers, I have two questions for you:

1. How do you get back to work when you feel that what you are weaving “sucks”?

2. Is there anything in Elizabeth Gilbert’s piece that you find helpful?

Related Post: Work

“Get Back to Work” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on May 19, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

FIRST MOTIF BEGUN

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Here is the beginning of the first motif, gold thrown on treadle 3, preceded by its shadow, blue thrown on treadle 3.

Right now I am intrigued by what is going on. 

• First, looking at the expanse of red.  The warp is all the same color and yet the appearance contradicts that fact.  There appear to be lengths where, instead of very dark red warp, there is a brighter warp.  This is especially true if, counting from left to right, you look at blocks 1, 5 and 6.  I looked at the threading and none of those threading units has anything on shaft 4.  All the other threading units have threads on shaft 4.  But I don’t know what to make of that!  I shall have to look at the tie-up and see if that helps explain.
• I’m also intrigued by the shadowy yellows in (again, counting from left to right) blocks 1, 3, 4, 5 and 7.
• And I am intrigued by how much darker the shadow blues preceding the golds  look.  That seems to be true primarily for the photo, not for the fabric in real life. Nevertheless, the photo alerts me to the need to be watchful and thoughtful as I continue to weave in relation to that blue. Is it telling I might need to make some changes in how I handle the blue in the design units? 

Under all of this lies a sense of disappointment.  At the same time there also likes a sense of challenge. I will ignore the former and live with the latter.

Photography Notes:

1. Looking at the top of the photo shows the fell line sloping just a bit down.  The reality?  Not true.  Had I not cropped the photo, what would have been visible is that this apparent slope gets greater and greater until, where the shuttles were visible at the top, they looked like they were going to slide right off the loom!  And yet the front beam looks perfectly level…..

2. Photographs do not always tell the real truth. I must always look to the cloth first and last and in between.

“First Motif Begun” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on May 18, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina