SOME INTERESTING BLOG POSTS

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

The Latest Colour Sampler       
Dot's Fiber to Fabric

As usual, Dorothy’s post has much of interest to me. I love investigating the interaction of colors as weft crosses warp.  That is one reason I am so into crackle. But what Dorothy is dealing with is not one color crossing another color, but rather a duller color crossing a bright version of the color.

I have started playing with this theme in my recent crackle sampling and it will be very important to the crackle shawl/art piece I am in the process of designing. But I have never attempted anything resembling the systematic exploration that Dorothy is doing here.  I am very impressed.

Also of great interest is her note to herself to sample new yarns.  You can read the details of this by going to her blog post. I use pretty much the same yarns, but there are yarns that I am interested in trying and, when I do, I hope that I follow her advice.

Dorothy’s very systematic approach to matters of weaving is, I find, very inspiring.

Something New       
A Crone's Chronicle

Oh dear, you-know-who get thee behind me.............(sob)!  Connie Rose has come up with an absolutely wonderful idea for creative blog posts that I would really like to try.  But I would have to start a second blog.  Would that be a problem? I think it might keep me too much at the computer and away from weaving (and thinking about weaving).  So, until such time as I can figure out a way to make this contribute to weaving, I think Connie's idea will be a no-go for me.  But, oh............

What's on my Wheel?  Pol-paca 
Leigh’s Fiber Journal      

I love to spin, and I love to weave with what I spin.  Though I have spun enough to knit a sweater, and enough to weave a shawl, I don't think I could ever spin enough to weave enough fabric for a coat, which is what Leigh is doing.  And for all of that fiber to be the same, as Leigh's is, no way. 

I am so impressed by Leigh's peristence and patience.  I think of myself as persistent, but despite the fact that she has noted in a comment, her Myers-Briggs results are identical to mine, Leigh's puts mine to shame.  I guess for me, spinning will always be about relaxing and not even worrying that it may well never be made into anything. 

In fact, what I have discovered that I like to do, is to take some batts (multi-colored and textured, usually) and spin maybe half a pound.  Then I look at it and think, OK, that was fun.  This might make a nice scarf or shawl, but it's not really enough.  So I look at my stash for something that will work well with it; or I look at the batts and rovings my favorite suppliers have to see if there is something there.  And then I order what I need (Ok, the right word is “want”, not “need”….) and spin some more. 

Sometimes as I go through this process, I look at the singles and think, gosh, I think I'd rather not ply it on itself.  I'd rather spin something else that would look nice plied with it. 

For me this kind of spinning is sort of like painting a picture.  The joy is in the process and the end product is good enough in my eyes just to be.

"Some Interesting Blog Posts" was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on December 19, 2008. © 2008 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

SPINNING FOR WEAVING

GREEN WOOL FIBER

The green wool fiber made by Crosspatch Creations arrived two weeks ago from The Bellwether. I finished up the orange fiber I was spinning and started spinning this.

I love this fiber It is made up of Corriedale crossbreds, tussah silk, and silk noils. Some of those silk noils are even orange.

WEAVING A SHAWL

I am beginning to think about weaving. Not the current crackle project but something quite different. I'm thinking about a shawl.

I want to combine this yarn I am currently spinning with the orange yarn I have just finished spinning (but have yet to ply).

COLOR-AND-WEAVE

I want to do some kind of color-and-weave with a twill warp. At first I had thought about shadow weave. I dearly love shadow weaver and would like to explore six- and eight-shaft shadow weave.

The problem with shadow weave is that it based on plain weave. Plain weave fabrics do not drape very well. Their drape can be improved by sett and beat as well as by yarn selection. But in essence, plain weave creates a relatively firm fabric. Twill drapes.

TWILL VERSUS PLAIN WEAVE

I could open up the plain weave sett to improve its drape. But then the resulting fabric becomes schlocky and threads will want to move around.

Since I want to weave a shawl (preferably) or a scarf, I really want a weave structure that will drape nicely but at the same time is not schlocky.

And there are all kinds of color-and-weave possibilities within a twill structure.

FAROESE KNITTED SHAWL

A couple of years ago I knit a Faroese shawl. The structure of the shawl creates a garment which is really all-bias and drapes beautifully around the shoulders. A woven twill shawl which is simply a rectangle will not drape this well. But it hopefully will drape more nicely than a shawl woven in plain weave.

So twill it will be.

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