HANDSPUN SCARF IS WOVEN AND I HAVE A QUESTION

Posted by Peg in South Carolina
 Here is the scarf, still on the loom.  On the loom, it is 88” long and the width is 7.25 inches (the width at the reed is 8.0 inches.

I have done the hemstitching…..after re-checking the directions! I find it amazing how easy it is to hemstitch this fabric as compared to hemstitching my 60/2 silk pieces.  And how much better the hemstitching looks here.

And now I have a question.
I wonder how long I will be able to make the end-of-the warp sample I would like to have for testing wet-finishing?

Related Posts: 
Handspun Shawl Done….Almost
Hemstitching

"Handspun Scarf is Woven and I Have a Question” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on December 10, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

 

ALMOST DONE WEAVING THE HANDSPUN

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I have removed the raddle so that the back rod could move up onto the top of the back beam. 

I have woven 80 inches so far.  I plan on weaving only six more inches. That may (or may not) give me space to weave a short piece that I could use for sampling the finishing.

I have decided, by the way, that I like the sheds I get better with the raddle off the back beam.  So for the next warp, I will remove the raddle after I am done threading. Then, of course, I will leave the lease sticks in.

Related Post:  Finished

"Almost Done Weaving the Handspun” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on December 9, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

GREEN AND RED DYE SAMPLING

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

The movement is from 75% red + 25% green on the far left to 1.5% red + 98.5% green on the far right.  The depth of shade is 4%.

I’m glad I did this.

The dye sampling is now done.

Related Post:   Done with Dye Sampling?

"Green and Red Dye Sampling” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on October 21, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

A BAD SILK SKEIN

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I was running out of the 2/20 silk on a cone.  Since I have more dye sampling to do, I got out one of my skeins to wind another cone.  I discovered, much to my horror, that the skein contained many cut threads.

Here is what happened when I put the yarn on the skein winder and started winding a cone. 

No, this is not a bad skein from Treenway Silks.  It is a skein from Treenway but the fault is entirely mine.

A year or two ago, I had received a package of silk from Treenway.  They are very frugal with their packaging and so package the skeins very tightly.  I was careless.  As I cut the package open, I cut into the skein.

I did not throw the skein out.  I figured it was still usable.  On the other hand, I was very slow to wind a cone of it.  So slow that I had forgotten all about it.

Before I started winding, I undid the ties and found the beginning and end of the skein.  I started winding from one of those.  The winding went well until the yarn stopped coming.  I had reached a broken end. 

If you look carefully at the top of the skein in the photo, you can see a heavier golden yellow piece of yarn hanging down from the skein.  This is 5/2 pearl cotton which I tied to the opposite end.  Doing this would keep me from losing it as I wound from the first end.  That 5/2 pearl cotton attached to the end would be my safety net—a place to start again.  I always do this, because I never know what problems are going to happen.

Now I do not know whether to proceed with that end or to take one of those many loose broken ends you see hanging down to the floor.  I know those loose ends will not unwind smoothly.  I will probably have to make a fair number  of knots.  But the good news is that I am not dyeing this yarn for weaving, only for sampling, so knots don’t matter.

Related Post:   
Loose End
Disappointment
That Badly Snarled Skein of Yarn

“A Bad Silk Skein“ was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on October 6, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

 

LAST GREEN SAMPLES

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

When I looked at the first two sets of green samples, I saw some gaps I was interested in filling in.  These are the results.

The orange doubled loop visible at the top of the photo is what I used to loop through a skein (one through each skein) to make it easy to dip the individual skeins in and out of each of its Mason jar dye baths. 

NUMBERING THE SKEINS

The piece of paper with the number 2 written on it is a piece of masking tape. After I removed a skein from the dye and rinsed it I put a piece of masking tape on the doubled loop with an identifying number from 1-7.  These numbers referred to the formulas I used for the dyeing.

Numbering them makes it much easier for me to know which finished skein goes with which formula.  I don’t always have to do this because sometimes it is very clear.  In dye pots of yellow and blue, where I simply varied the amount of blue in the five or seven dye pots, it is very easy to distinguish one from another.  But these recipes were more diverse and complex.  I did not trust my eyes.

STARTING THE NEUTRAL SAMPLINGS

Since there were only five greens I wanted to try, I had room for two more colors, so I started on the set of neutrals.

The two colors I am using in this set to achieve neutrals are yellow-green and red-violet.  The reddish one on the left has 45% red-violet.  The browner one next to it has only 24% red violet.  I had anticipated that it would take less than half of the red-violet to brown the green because red is a very strong color.  I didn’t realize that I would have to drop it down to 1/4 of the total mount.  Red is really a dominating color.

PHOTOGRAPHY NOTE

For those who notice (and care about) such things, I took the two photos on the same table in the same light.  In the top photo, the color of the table is pretty close to what it is in reality.  In the bottom photo, the color is much more yellow. 

This color cast happened because to correct the color balance for the skeins in my software, I had to move the color cast to cyan and to green.  This removed the excess reddish cast but it also removed the reddish cast from the table and so turned it into a yellow-brown.

Playing with lightness and saturation in the two photos also affected the tables differently.

There are ways of dealing with this problem, but they are time-consuming and, quite frankly, I don’t care what the table looks like in the photo!

Some time I might try white paper, but I’m not sure I would like the strong contrast between background and skeins that would happen.  Of course, trying it is the only way to find out!

Related Post:   Two Sets of Greens Done

“Last Green Samples“ was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on October 2, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

 

AND SO I BEGIN DESIGNING IN EARNEST

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

The clearest diagonals here are in the green weft shots, in this case, the second shot thrown in each block.  But the diagonals are not all that simple.  In the top two blocks, the diagonal begins near the left and proceeds to the right for three blocks.  But in that third treadled block, a new diagonal picks up and moves to the right for a total of five treadled blocks, at which point it moves to the left for two more treadled blocks.
And here is the same draft with the green weft shots being the first shots, with the brown shots following:

The treadling here is exactly the same as in the first draft.  Only the colors have been reversed.  Here the green diagonal starts at the upper left-hand corner and proceeds for five blocks, but is then interrupted.
So I changed the treadling order:

And of course two treadling blocks were removed.  Anybody want to figure out which two?  I am bleary eyed from staring at the computer screen for far too long….

“And So I Begin Designing in Earnest” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on August 18, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

SOMETHING NEW HANGING ON THE DOOR

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

The samples at the top, the polychrome treadlings, are all woven with no beinder wefts.

The remaining samples are all woven with binder threads.

The binder threads are all 120/2 silk in various colors.  The pattern threads, with a couple of exceptions, are all 60/2 silk. The exceptions are the yellow pattern threads in the overshot treadlings:  these are the silk tram which is at once a bit heavier and much shinier than the 60/2 silk.

To view the sample hanging on the door that this new one replaced, go to this post.

The treadlings that interest me for the next warp are the alternating treadles with binder wefts.  It is time to begin working in the weaving software with colors closer to what I will be actually using.

To read more about the treadlings that interest me, go to this  post and also to this post.

“Something New Hanging on the Door” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on August 11, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

FINISHED

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

But not off the loom, not mended, fringes not twisted, not wet finished, not pressed.  And it’s staying on the loom for a bit.

I have made preparations for doing a bit of sampling on the last of this warp.

After securing the closing shots of the scarf with junk yarn, I inserted a number of sticks into the different sheds until I had enough to do a fringe on the scarf.  These are the same sticks I use to separate warp layers when beaming on. Then I threw a few shots of heavy rug yarn and then a few shots of 10/2 cotton.

Now I am ready to sample.

But I don’t have a whole lot of room left for the sampling.

The back rod is at the bottom of the back beam.  That means it won’t be long before it lifts off the beam and starts rising to the back of the loom.  When that happens, how much I can continue to weave is based on the quality of the warp tied on to that back rod.  It’s not actually tied on to the back rod;  the rod was inserted through loops.  That makes the chances pretty good that it will be fine.  But I never know and don’t count on anything.

Those extra little warp ends going round and round the beam are the extra warp ends I hadn’t needed when I was done threading.  I had just thrown them to the back, cutting them as short as I could.

Also visible is one of the intarsia bobbins I use to wind the selvedge weft on to.  I then attach weights to it with shoe laces.

Related Post:  Beaming On

“Finished” Written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on July 14, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

CRACKLE EXCHANGE SPRING 2009

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

The samples are in the mail—all ten. Hurrah!

There are eight participants in this exchange, but two of the samples go to Complex Weavers. So ten samples it was.

For the curious, yes, that is a ball of sock yarn in the upper left-hand corner. And yes, I knit socks. Lots of socks. For me.

To see a better photo of the samples, before they were cut up, go to this post.

For the curious, yes, that is a ball of sock yarn in the upper left-hand corner. And yes, I knit socks. Lots of socks. For me.

Knitting socks keeps me sane waiting in doctor’s offices, waiting at the post office, and on long drives (when I am not the driver--grin!). I do like to read, but cannot read in the car, and TV sets on in doctor’s offices also make it impossible for me to read.

Related Post: Crackle Exchange Samples

“Crackle Exchange Spring 2009” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on April 23, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

SAMPLING FOR SILK CRACKLE SHAWL

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I wrote a post last week in which I reluctantly found myself deciding to weave a sample before I wove the crackle shawl.  When I started writing the post, that was not how I thought it would end. 

Thanks to Bonnie Tarses I now have a better ending. She made the following comment on that post:

For me the answer to sampling is a 6"-8" "scarf" 4-5 yd warp. Not too wide, not too long, but enough to both sample AND have a finished product

I stared at that comment for a moment.  Slowly I began to realize how right she was.  And my dreading of putting this narrow warp on the loom has been transformed into eager anticipation.

I realized Bonnie’s answer would allow me a lot more latitude in playing with the motifs and sub-motifs: their spacing, their height, their combinings, their frequency.  Indeed, I woke up this morning with a possible plan for the overall design which will help bring some feeling of order to all of this play.  Finally, because this is something I will wear, I have to be honest in my weaving.  That means I cannot dismiss errors and other technical problems simply because I am weaving a sample.  I have to take care with the technical aspects of the weaving as well as the design aspects.  That will be very good for me.

One more thing about this brings me great happiness.  I feel I will have enough understanding, not only to use this concept for a shawl, but to use a painted warp as well.  That is something I have been wanting to do for a long time.

“Sampling for Silk Crackle Shawl” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on February 20, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

WORDS OF WISDOM?

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

“Give yourself room to fail and fight like hell to achieve.”*

Giving myself “room to fail” means, to me, trying out ideas, structures, colors that I have not woven before.  But why should I give myself “room to fail” at all?

In recent years I’ve given myself plenty of room to fail in my study of crackle.  But as I progress in my studies, I find that there is less and less room to fail.  I am becoming quite comfortable with crackle.  But what about the wool crackle sampling I did?

I have to admit, I kind of threw things to the wind.  I had not used either wool or heavy yarns with crackle.  And I had not specifically designed this warp for crackle and certainly if I had been designing it, I would not have used blue and light gray wide warp stripes.  I had used those stripes simply to check for color relationships in the lace weave structure I was trying. That the unplanned crackle attempt turned out, in terms of design and color, as well as it did was pure serendipity.

On the other hand, I had woven with this yarn before, had fulled with this yarn before, and had some idea of what might happen.  And I certainly was not “fight(ing) like hell to achieve” anything.  It was just a let’s-try-it-and-see project.  Moreover, it was the only way I was going to get anything woven for the spring Crackle Complex Weaver’s Exchange.

(Question: does serendipity happen without the previous wrestling?)

Perhaps giving myself room to fail doesn’t necessarily mean I have to give myself a huge room.  The silk crackle shawl I am currently designing does seem to be providing me with a fairly good sized room. But again, why give myself this room at all? 

1. It is the only way I will learn.

2. It is the only way I will find and continue on my own particular journey.

3. It’s fun.

But fighting “like hell”?  I know that faithfully doing my morning exercises is one version of fighting “like hell.”  There I am fighting hard to keep my body in shape so that I can weave (and garden) hopefully well into my 80’s.  But back specifically to weaving.

I suppose that weaving sample after sample is fighting.  And probably, thinking about it in those terms, I don’t fight enough;  probably I don’t weave enough samples.  I know that with this crackle shawl I should probably put a lot of warp on so that I can weave each of the motifs and trying different ways of weaving them.  Or another narrow warp to try the different ways of weaving them. 

Using the full width for this type of sampling is wasteful and serves no real purpose.  Indeed, With the full warp on I would be so eager to get through the sampling and into the “real” weaving that I would doubtless shortchange myself.

A narrow warp is a good idea.  What is holding me back from just doing it?  The difficulty of winding and warping the silk.  Can I look at this winding and warping more 60/2 silk as another opportunity to improve my skills there?  Yup, that will help a bit.

A narrow warp I think it shall be.  No, a narrow warp it SHALL be……………sigh………………

*”From Words to Paint By” (Irwin Greenberg) as found in The Painter’s Keys.  Go here to read all the “Words to Paint By”. 

Related Posts: 
   Out of the Washing Machine 
   That Badly Snarled Skein of Yarn
   Winding Cones: Have I Found the Secret?

“Words of Wisdom?” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on February 20, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

OUT OF THE WASHING MACHINE

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

After I corrected the treadling errors in the wool crackle sampling (go here to read about that), it was time to wash it. First I hand washed it. I soaked it in very hot water with some Ivory detergent for 30 minutes. Then I squeezed and pummeled and squeezed some more for a couple of minutes. I let it soak for another 30 minutes, then squeezed and pummeled some more. I rinsed it, squeezed the water out of it by hand, then put it flat in a bath towel which I then stood on to get the rest of the excess water out. Then I hung it to dry.

Here is what it looked like when I was finished.

Some fulling had taken place. It was OK. It had softened up a bit. It looked a lot more cohesive than when it was unwashed. But I was not satisfied. I thought I could do better with the washing machine.

I put a bit of Ivory detergent in the machine filled half way with hot water. I put the sample in and let it sit for 10 minutes. Then I let it agitate for 5 minutes. I stopped the machine and looked at it. Needed some more agitation. I repeated the process twice more and here are the results.

I am quite pleased. It is fuzzy and soft and nicely blurred. The colors have softened. And it is plushly thick. Yet the design shows. I also liked the thin red tabby though I think I different color or shade of red would have been better. But I got the effect I was after of these red dots peeking through.

There was a bit of bleeding from the red but I liked the result: an ever so slight pinkish cast to the piece which pulled the whole thing together nicely. Kind of like overdying!

Despite its fuzzy softness, it is too heavy for a scarf. I will cut it up to send to the March Complex Weavers’ Crackle Exchange. I do hate to cut it up. I would like to keep it whole just to fondle it and look at it from time to time. A totally useless piece but it pleases me.

Because I like this so much, I am now playing (in my head) with the idea of weaving wool crackle scarves for Christmas. But I will weave with (surprise!) a much finer wool. And I might see if I can’t think about some planned overdying…….

PHOTOGRAPHY NOTE

The last two photographs are quite an accurate representation of the fabric. And there was no playing with the software (except for adding borders, watermark). The first one is not at all accurate. I tried and tried and tried playing with the software, but I simply could not get it right.

They were photographed in two different rooms. The first one on my weaving bench where there are a lot of windows. So natural light and incandescent light were conflicting. The second two were photographed in a room where there was very little natural light.

I shall have to test out the resulting hypothesis in the future……….

Related Post: Slow Weaving

“Out of the Washing Machine” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on February 17, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

A NEW THREADING: MORE SAMPLING

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I took this photo and zoomed way out. Then I copied it and treated it as a separate photo. I wanted to get some idea of what this will look like as fabric when it is off the loom….when it is no longer window screening.

Can you guess the structure?

 

Perhaps this photo might make it easier to figure out the structure.

A clue:  the thin red threads are tabby threads.

P.S.  I’m not sure I could guess the structure on the basis of these photos!  It’s not the photos per se that is the problem.  It is the change of warp colors from blue to light gray back to blue again.

"A New Threading: More Sampling" was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on January 28, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

SHADOW WEAVE CONTINUED

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Here is a photo of the fabric that I wove on the loom. At the very bottom, the original mess created with the wrong tie up is visible. After that, the weaving is on the corrected tie up. There are a few clear treadling errors.

 

 

 

 

 

And here is a photo of the same fabric, off the loom and fulled. It looks just a bit different…….

 

Now, if you don’t know what shadow weave is supposed to look like, check on the example in this recent blog post of the Weaving Discussion Group, Weave Meeting January 20.  Scroll a little over half way down to find the example, but do enjoy the rest of the post as well.

Back to my second photo. Despite those treadling errors, however,  a glimmer of the shadow weave effect is visible in the diagonal lines.  You can even see it in the earlier photo of the fabric still on the loom, but it is much more pronounced with the fabric off the loom and fulled.

These diagonal lines are different in the parts woven with the correct tie up.  These different lines result from different treadlings. 

I have done now what I have wanted to do for a long time.  I have wanted to see what would happen if I threaded shadow weave on a plain color but wove it with two colors.

This is the first time that I have had an easy warp to rethread, plus two colors to work with.  So  jumped at the chance.  Doing this does create an interesting effect.  Not one, however, that I want to use for the final shawl.

"Shadow Weave Continued" was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on January 26, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

THE TIE-UP WAS WRONG

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

But to understand how the tie-up went wrong, I need to explain that this is a shadow weave threading. For those of you familiar with shadow weave, I know that sample did not look anything like shadow weave. I will get to that later. Just accept that this is a shadow weave threading I am now working on.

I knew shadow weave was not a structure. It is a threading, not a structure. Its structure, I had thought, was plain weave. I looked at the tie up I had been using. It was the traditional 4-shaft twill tie-up of 1-2, 2-3, 3-4, 1-4. What on earth was I thinking?! No way was I going to get plain weave with that tie up.

An aside. I’ve always had trouble understanding tie-ups. I have had it explained to me. I have heard lectures about designing in the tie-up. I just didn’t understand. Now, for the first time, I think I am just beginning to grasp the concept.

I looked at my source* for this threading and studied more carefully the tie-up. This is not as easy as it sounds. The book is not transparent. It requires work to figure out threading, tie-up and treadling. One could say it is written in its own kind of code. I looked at some of my other books, but there is precious little written on shadow weave so I was left with trying to work out the code. I had done so with the threading and the treadling. The tie-up was my Waterloo. All I knew was that a twill-tie up would not work. But neither would a plain weave tie-up.

After much frustration, I finally navigated the code. The tie-up was supposed to be 1-3, 2-4, 2-3, 1-4. Well, that helped a lot but it still didn’t make a total sense. How would this tie up yield plain weave on a shadow weave threading?

Something echoed in my head: shadow weave is BASED on plain weave………… That is very different from saying something IS plain weave. I was an English major…….once upon a time……..long ago. Finally I understood the tie-up. The first two tie-ups (1-3 and 2-4) do produce plain weave. I didn’t try it but I knew that just a plain weave tie-up would result in just as much of a mess as the standard twill tie-up did. Something more was still needed.

That something more is a tie-up that allows the weaver to treadle opposites: 2-3 and 1-4. The result is not plain weave but a structure very similar to plain weave except for its occasional short floats in warp and weft. And it is those floats which produce (when both warp and weft alternate colors) the shadow weave effect.

This photo of the fabric still on the loom shows what happens 1) at the bottom with the wrong tie-up and the resulting too-long overshots; and 2) at the top with the correct tie-up and plain weave with very short overshots.

More to come........

*My source is Marian Powell, 1000(+) Patterns in 4, 6, and 8-Harness Shadow Weaves. Yes, the book is written in its own kind of code. I have used it a couple of times before and each time I have tried to figure it out all over again, just as I had to this time. But it is an invaluable book. It has all those patterns, but it also has photos of all those patterns. Each threading, moreover, has many treadling possibilities, and the photos show that as well. So for anyone interested in shadow weave, I cannot recommend the book too highly.

"The Tie-up Was Wrong" was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on January 23, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

PREPARING FOR NEXT SAMPLING

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

While I was processing the canvas weaving samples, I worked out the threading for the next set of samples and prepared the loom for its new threading.

When I cut the canvas weave samples off the loom, I left plenty of warp yarn at the front to make it easy to re-rethread the heddles.  But as I was cutting and tying slip knots I suddenly thought, oh my gosh, I have no cross!  A moment of silent panic. 

But I did have the cross. The lease sticks were still there holding the cross.  But they were at the back of the loom, as you can see in the photo. They are being held there by “angel wings,” a neat little tool made by Purrington Looms. What I had not done was to remove the lease sticks from the angel wings and move them from the back of the loom up close to the heddles. 

With the tension totally released,  moving those lease sticks forward would be extraordinarily difficult. But then I tested and learned that I could still pick the cross from the lease sticks in order to thread.  It will just mean a little standing and sitting in order to see what I am doing.  But it is a narrow warp, thick yarn and a wide epi, so picking out the ends from the lease sticks will not be all that difficult.

Before I cut off the woven fabric and the warp was till under tension, I should have removed the lease sticks from their angel wings and brought them up to the heddles.  Will I remember this when I cut off again for another new threading…….?

Related Post:   Getting Ready to Thread

"Preparing for Next Sampling" was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on January 21, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

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

PLAYING WITH COLOR

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

A book I recently purchased is called Confident Color: An Artist’s Guide to Harmony, Contrast and Unity, by Nita Leland. I have enjoyed her earlier work and now am finding this book to be quite interesting. Or at least I find that it stimulates my thinking about what I might do with color in weaving. It is probably the photos in the book that are most important, but they are in the context of commentary, which is also helpful.

The picture at the top of this post I created in Paint Shop Pro, using a picture on page 44 as my inspiration. I used two processes. First I created the various squares and rectangles (but not the yellow not the little red square at the top right) with the rectangle tool and filled them with various colors using the flood fill tool. Then I did some blurring and applied some filters. Last I put in the yellow thin rectangle with its square at the end and then the dark red tiny little square at the top.

What is here is far less subtle than what is in the inspiring photo, but it gives me the general idea. The major issue, which I see only now since I have inserted it into this post, is that the yellow line should be farther down. There should also be a bit more pure black.

Despite the limitations of this interpretation, I still like it and think it would be possible to create a piece based on this idea. Not a literal interpretation, any more than this is a literal interpretation of the piece in Leland’s book.

What I am taken with is the use and placement of yellow and dark red. It could work in an art piece, but I think it could also work in fabric meant to be worn or used in furnishing. That would require repetition. But I would like to try it with crackle and see what I can do.

Here is one attempt with my weaving software:

The visual effect is far too much of a plaid and also the background colors are too spotty. The only colors which I want to stand out sharply are the black warp stripes and the bright red and yellow weft stripes. It is difficult for me to get this in the weaving software. But I could do better.

Of course, I have some other irons in the fire to deal with first.

"Playing with Color" was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on January 19, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

CANVAS WEAVE SAMPLING DONE

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Here are the last three samples I wove.  In the first picture is what I would consider the traditional canvas weave treadling.  In the bottom I have used blue for the overshot wefts and light gray for the pseudo-tabby.  On the top I have reversed the colors.

The second picture is the same treadling but here the colors are split up with a shot of blue and a shot of light gray both in the overshot and also in the pseudo-tabby.

My source for most of these treadlings has been from The Handweaver’s Pattern Directory by Anne Dixon.  Also helpful has been Donna Muller’s Handwoven Laces. Muller’s book has been especially helpful for helping me understand the structure of 8-shaft canvas weave and so in convincing me that 4-shaft canvas is what I really wanted, not 8-shaft. 

Now what I have woven comes off the loom to be wet-finished.  And then what?

I  had thought of tying on a very short warp of the handspun, enough to give me maybe 6” of width.  But then I decided against it. I have to admit that my laziness is cutting in here.  But it is not just laziness.  I want to use every last bit of the handspun I have for the shawl.

Tying on a narrow bit of the handspun would be the prudent way to go. But I am going to take the risk of not doing it.

Unless the washing reveals something new about the fabric, I am either going to use the red-orange for the warp and weave with the dark green, or bands of red-orange and dark green and weave with both colors.

Which treadling will I use?  I won’t make a decision until after I wash these samples.  And then I will use the beginning of the handspun warp to sample just a bit.

What about all the remaining warp on the loom?  Tune in later and find out!

"Canvas Weave Sampling Done" was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on January 17, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

WINDOW SCREENING CONTINUED

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

PLACING, PRESSING AND SQUEEZING

Next I wove with the same treadlings I had on the first set of samples but with a difference: I did not beat the warp to death.  This time, as in the second set, I gently pressed and then carefully squeezed the beater.  So these samples look (and feel) much different from the original first set.

One of the issues was how hard to squeeze those overshot threads which are thrown twice in the same shed.  I decided to barely place the first shot, then throw the second shot and barely place it.  Then I treadled the next treadle and pressed and squeezed the beater until those doubled threads seemed to be where I thought they needed to be.

Beat this way, the bottom sample with blue weft measured 8 picks per inch;  the top sample with gray weft measured 9 picks per inch. In counting the picks I counted the doubled wefts as 2 picks.

These samples seem much more promising.  But again, only removal from the loom and washing will tell the full story.

PHOTOGRAPHY AND COLOR NOTES

Normally when I photograph my weavings I have the bright colors settings on.  But photographing these blue and gray wools have given me trouble. The only way I could get close to the right color was to turn off all the color settings. Even so the colors were still too bright.

So today I decided to play with the software as well.  The result is much closer to the real thing.

But I took another photograph as well.  I had no lights turned on when I took the photo at the left, only the ambient light available from bright sunlight coming through the windows.  So I decided to try a daylight setting and a cloudy daylight setting.  With the cloudy daylight setting, this is what I got.  I almost didn’t take the picture when I saw it on the LCD screen because it seemed so wrong.  Then I looked at the fabric.  I was surprised to see that actually, right then, with the fabric at the distance it was from my eyes, these were pretty close to the colors I actually saw!  Color is definitely magical.

Related Posts:
Window Screening
Discouraged But Not Totally

"Window Screening Continued" was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on January 13, 2009. © 2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina