Valerie made some interesting comments on weaving records. She had suggested keeping a basic information page, using either the HGA pages as a model or, if you have weaving software, the printout from it. Then she suggested mounting the sample on a piece of card and keeping it and the printed record in a large ring-binder.
This is an excellent idea for a project such as the baby blanket I have woven. There is only one sample and I have the printout from my weaving software.
The problem for me is the weaving of multiple samples before I even start the project! For example, the crackle samples I just finished have something like 22 different treadlings on 2 different tie-ups. Following Valerie's idea, I could cut the samples apart, create a separate printed document for each sample, and put each sample, with its corresponding print-out, into a large ring binder. Perhaps that is what I need to do in the end, though I think with this technique I would fill up ring-binders pretty quickly, yes, even the monster ones! And this would be especially true where I weave a second set of samples based on what I have learned from the first set.
As I think about Valerie's suggestion, I am wondering if, in the case of these multiple-sample projects, it wouldn't be better to dedicate a smaller ring-binder for each such project. This would be a great deal of work, but I think it might be worth it.
Right now, however, I need the samples in one piece and the documentation altogether. But I think, once I am actually weaving the jacket fabric, I may cut them up, etc., and dedicate a separate notebook for it.
Here is the second suggestion Valerie made which I think is so super I am quoting it:
"In the tapestry workshop I just took, Ann had us mount our samples onto mat board w/ sticky back velcro. Then you can hang or prop the mat board in your studio to let the learning sink in. I think you're on the right track to want to keep them in view for awhile."
This particular sample is quite long, but I could easily cut it in half at the point where I change the tie-up and then mount the two on separate mat boards, either hung or propped. That would make them more visible than they currently would be hanging them over the rack.
Thank you, Valerie!
Can I get this done before I leave for Washington, D.C. on Friday morning? We shall see.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Crackle Samples for Jacket
I have been trying to get things pulled together before I leave this Friday morning for a mini-vacation in Washington D.C. I want to have stuff organized well enough so it is easy to pick up and work on the crackle jacket designing when I get back. Actually, I would like to have all the preparations finished so that all I have left to do is to order the yarns I need.
But I will never get that far. I always seem to plan to get farther than I can, finish on an earlier date than is possible. That used to bother me for a long time. Now, unless there is truly a real deadline, it doesn't bother me. I know I get farther than I would have had I not set those goals that turn out to be unattainable.
So I have been going through the written work on the crackle sampling, comparing the tie-ups, treadlings, and colors with the actual woven samples. My dilemma (as always) is how to organize the stuff. I want the information to be useful in the future. That means, each sample needs to be associated with the tie-up, treadling and color information.
At first glance, it seems like the best way would be to cut the samples apart and attach to each of them the necessary information. But the necessary information is often quite long, extending at times to 3/4 of a page. OK, so then I could put each sample, with its paperwork, in a see-through plastic envelope that goes in a ring binder. This seems unnecessarily bulky and perhaps not even really useful.
Another thing I could do is to keep the samples intact and the paperwork in one piece. I like this idea best because sometimes it is really helpful to compare samples. And seeing them all together sets of different kinds of thinking about them.
OF course, I could play with the individual samples like puzzles, but then I would have to have an easy way to keep the paperwork with them. It could be difficult with some of them to identify them correctly because the differences can be fairly subtle.
So I really am coming down to the notion of keeping the samples in one piece and the written work in one piece and finding some convenient way to store them. The trick, of course, in storing them, is not to bury them so that out-of-sight becomes out-of-mind. So far what I have done is simply to put all the written materials in a file folder. Then I put the file folder in my filing cabinet. Out of sight..........
Then I have to put the woven samples some place else; they do not fit in the file folder. I have some in a box, but right now my tendency is to hang the ones with possibilities on a towel rack so they are always fairly visible. And I can easily pull off what I want to get a better look at. This may not be a pretty sight, but it does work.
Filing stuff has been an issue for each of my more creative problems. I have not solved it.l I don't know when, or even if, I will solve it. I keep hoping.
But I will never get that far. I always seem to plan to get farther than I can, finish on an earlier date than is possible. That used to bother me for a long time. Now, unless there is truly a real deadline, it doesn't bother me. I know I get farther than I would have had I not set those goals that turn out to be unattainable.
So I have been going through the written work on the crackle sampling, comparing the tie-ups, treadlings, and colors with the actual woven samples. My dilemma (as always) is how to organize the stuff. I want the information to be useful in the future. That means, each sample needs to be associated with the tie-up, treadling and color information.
At first glance, it seems like the best way would be to cut the samples apart and attach to each of them the necessary information. But the necessary information is often quite long, extending at times to 3/4 of a page. OK, so then I could put each sample, with its paperwork, in a see-through plastic envelope that goes in a ring binder. This seems unnecessarily bulky and perhaps not even really useful.
Another thing I could do is to keep the samples intact and the paperwork in one piece. I like this idea best because sometimes it is really helpful to compare samples. And seeing them all together sets of different kinds of thinking about them.
OF course, I could play with the individual samples like puzzles, but then I would have to have an easy way to keep the paperwork with them. It could be difficult with some of them to identify them correctly because the differences can be fairly subtle.
So I really am coming down to the notion of keeping the samples in one piece and the written work in one piece and finding some convenient way to store them. The trick, of course, in storing them, is not to bury them so that out-of-sight becomes out-of-mind. So far what I have done is simply to put all the written materials in a file folder. Then I put the file folder in my filing cabinet. Out of sight..........
Then I have to put the woven samples some place else; they do not fit in the file folder. I have some in a box, but right now my tendency is to hang the ones with possibilities on a towel rack so they are always fairly visible. And I can easily pull off what I want to get a better look at. This may not be a pretty sight, but it does work.Filing stuff has been an issue for each of my more creative problems. I have not solved it.l I don't know when, or even if, I will solve it. I keep hoping.
Akihiko Izukura
My interest in dyeing yarns, painting warps and learning ikat techniques, led me to join the Surface Design Association . Their magazine appears at Barnes and Noble and Borders, perhaps at other bookstores as well. But to get their newsletter, one has to be a member. And it is the newsletter which I have found most rewarding.
I just received the summer issue of the newsletter. Included in it was a discussion of the classification of acid dyes by Karren K Brito . She is not a weaver, but she has amazing dyeing skills and willingly shares what she knows with others.
Another article was about the Japanese Dyeing Ceremony as performed by Akihiko Izukura. But not only is Akihiko and master dyer, he is also a master weaver. So I looked him up on the internet and found some of the one-of-a-kind garments he has created. He has his own website where you can look at some of these. Clicking on the blue link should take you there.
He has two collections I was particularly interested in. One is called the Signature Collection. The garments here are black and white. I find them inspiring in their simplicity, simplicity which I am sure is deceptive. The other collection I liked is called the ReLuxe Collection. Here he uses color. Sometimes the colors are quite bright. But, bright or not, color is always used in a most elegant fashion, again a simplicity which is surely deceptive.
Akihiko's weaving is quite different from mine. His goal seems to be an elegant simplicity. My goal is one of much greater complexity. Not complexity of structure but complexity of color. That is why I like crackle so much: crackle allows me to explore, seemingly endlessly, complex color arrangements.
I wonder if someday this exploration in complexity will lead to a greater simplicity? I have found in the past with individual designs that as I work on the designing, the ideas become more and more complex, and then at some point it all just becomes too complex and I start simplifying. Perhaps I must struggle with complexity in order to move through it into a simplicity that is not really simple at all.
No, I will never be the kind of weaver Akihiko is. But I think that he is a good model for me.
I just received the summer issue of the newsletter. Included in it was a discussion of the classification of acid dyes by Karren K Brito . She is not a weaver, but she has amazing dyeing skills and willingly shares what she knows with others.
Another article was about the Japanese Dyeing Ceremony as performed by Akihiko Izukura. But not only is Akihiko and master dyer, he is also a master weaver. So I looked him up on the internet and found some of the one-of-a-kind garments he has created. He has his own website where you can look at some of these. Clicking on the blue link should take you there.
He has two collections I was particularly interested in. One is called the Signature Collection. The garments here are black and white. I find them inspiring in their simplicity, simplicity which I am sure is deceptive. The other collection I liked is called the ReLuxe Collection. Here he uses color. Sometimes the colors are quite bright. But, bright or not, color is always used in a most elegant fashion, again a simplicity which is surely deceptive.
Akihiko's weaving is quite different from mine. His goal seems to be an elegant simplicity. My goal is one of much greater complexity. Not complexity of structure but complexity of color. That is why I like crackle so much: crackle allows me to explore, seemingly endlessly, complex color arrangements.
I wonder if someday this exploration in complexity will lead to a greater simplicity? I have found in the past with individual designs that as I work on the designing, the ideas become more and more complex, and then at some point it all just becomes too complex and I start simplifying. Perhaps I must struggle with complexity in order to move through it into a simplicity that is not really simple at all.
No, I will never be the kind of weaver Akihiko is. But I think that he is a good model for me.
Monday, July 9, 2007
Crackle tieups
Last time I talked about 2 tie-ups that I used for the crackle sampling. Here they are in diagram form:
The first tie-up (on the left) is a typical (but not only) tie-up for 8 shaft crackle. On it you can weave 8 blocks.
The second tie-up (on the right) is a tie-up which turns an 8-shaft threading into the equivalent of a 4-shaft sampler. On it you can weave 4 blocks.
Note that in both tie-ups, the last 2 treadles are for plain weave. Pay no attention to them; they do not matter for this discussion.
Looking closely at this second tie-up closely shows how this happens. Think of shafts 1-4 as one group of shafts. And think of shafts 5-8 as a second group of shafts. Every time 2 shafts in the first group (1-4) are tied up, the equivalent shafts of the second group (5-8) are also tied up. For example, when shafts 1 and 2 are tied up, so are shafts 5 and 6.
Next, notice that tie-ups in rows 5-8 simply duplicate the tie-ups in rows 1-4. I might have actually treadled only treadles 1-4 when I had the treadles tied up in this way. In fact, I did actually treadle all 8; doing that just seemed easier.
Question: why would I even consider weaving a 4-shaft crackle on an 8-shaft loom, when weaving an 8-shaft crackle gives me twice as many blocks? OK, I cannot really answer this right now except to say that for what I am doing I like the 4-shaft blocks better. Not a very helpful answer? I agree. Let's see if I can do better.
8-shaft crackle creates block designs, things like crosses, flowers, waves. You do not get blocks across the entire width. Here is an example of some crawdowns resulting from treadling variations of the 8-shaft crackle I wove for the Complex Weaver's crackle exchange:
The blocks are broken up by areas of plain weave.
Compare this with this 4-shaft
drawdown. Here there are no plain weave areas setting off blocks of either weft emphasis or warp emphasis structures. So with this kind of structure the focus can be on color play instead of on the design revealed in the structure.
These kinds of blocks can be done with 6-shaft threadings as well. However I have not figured out how they might be possible with 8-shaft threadings. Perhaps they cannot be. Perhaps I have yet to discover that they can be.
The first tie-up (on the left) is a typical (but not only) tie-up for 8 shaft crackle. On it you can weave 8 blocks.The second tie-up (on the right) is a tie-up which turns an 8-shaft threading into the equivalent of a 4-shaft sampler. On it you can weave 4 blocks.
Note that in both tie-ups, the last 2 treadles are for plain weave. Pay no attention to them; they do not matter for this discussion.
Looking closely at this second tie-up closely shows how this happens. Think of shafts 1-4 as one group of shafts. And think of shafts 5-8 as a second group of shafts. Every time 2 shafts in the first group (1-4) are tied up, the equivalent shafts of the second group (5-8) are also tied up. For example, when shafts 1 and 2 are tied up, so are shafts 5 and 6.
Next, notice that tie-ups in rows 5-8 simply duplicate the tie-ups in rows 1-4. I might have actually treadled only treadles 1-4 when I had the treadles tied up in this way. In fact, I did actually treadle all 8; doing that just seemed easier.
Question: why would I even consider weaving a 4-shaft crackle on an 8-shaft loom, when weaving an 8-shaft crackle gives me twice as many blocks? OK, I cannot really answer this right now except to say that for what I am doing I like the 4-shaft blocks better. Not a very helpful answer? I agree. Let's see if I can do better.
8-shaft crackle creates block designs, things like crosses, flowers, waves. You do not get blocks across the entire width. Here is an example of some crawdowns resulting from treadling variations of the 8-shaft crackle I wove for the Complex Weaver's crackle exchange:
The blocks are broken up by areas of plain weave.
Compare this with this 4-shaft
drawdown. Here there are no plain weave areas setting off blocks of either weft emphasis or warp emphasis structures. So with this kind of structure the focus can be on color play instead of on the design revealed in the structure.These kinds of blocks can be done with 6-shaft threadings as well. However I have not figured out how they might be possible with 8-shaft threadings. Perhaps they cannot be. Perhaps I have yet to discover that they can be.
Friday, July 6, 2007
Sampling for the Crackle Jacket
Two days ago I hand-washed the sampling I had done on the warp left over from weaving the samples for the crackle exchange. Then I gave the sampling a fairly hard pressing. And here is the piece. The whole is not quite visible as I had to loosely pleat the fabric to fit into the photo.
What you see here are the results of 22 different treadlings and/or color experiments combined with 2 different tie-ups. The first tie-up was the same one I had used for the crackle exchange samples. The treadlings on this tie-up are visible on the left side of the picture.
The second tie-up converted an 8-shaft crackle into the equivalent of a 4-shaft crackle. And you can see those treadlings on the right side of the picture. You can even see that the weaving on the right side is reminiscent of a 4-shaft piece I showed some time ago.
By the way, as soon as I had pressed this sampling, the particular sample I plan to use for the jacket fabric immediately jumped out at me.
More later.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Selvedges Once More
In an earlier post, I had made a passing comment that my left selvedge was creating more problems than the right selvedge. I didn't pay this too much mind as my understanding is that for most people, one selvedge is not as good as the other. A solution commonly offered has been to change seating positions. I have hesitated to try that as moving away from center would affect the evenness of my beat.
This morning, the left selvedge was becoming progressively worse. I did some feeling around with my fingers/hands, testing for tension. I couldn't quite tell, but it seemed like the threads on the left side might be just a tad looser than the others. So I got out a wooden double-pointed knitting needle (size 7), and inserted it between the back beam and the first 5 threads on the left selvedge. The selvedge immediately improved. The left and the right selvedges looked virtually identical.
Yes, this is magic, but not without its own problems. As I continue to weave, the added tension to those 5 threads will result in those threads gradually stretching and getting looser and looser. Another knitting needle will have to be added. And later, I will probably have to hang weights from those knitting needles. Except in this case I will probably not have to do the last as I have only about 12 more inches to weave off.
And what effect will this gradual stretching of those 6 warp threads have on the appearance of the finished weaving? I don't know. I expect that in this case, with washing and hard-pressing (or, in this case "killing", for I am working with acrylic yarns) there will be no discernible difference. Perhaps it might affect the wear and tear on that side? I don't know, but if one wove for a long time with these few threads specially weighted and growing more and more stretched out, I wouldn't be surprised.
In any case, this "magic" solution is only for emergencies. The real issue is that I muse figure out how to keep this from happening on future warps.
I do have a suspicion, and therefore a solution for, of what may be happening. I attach my warp to the front beam by lashing with very slippery mason cord. I lash from left to right. To begin, I attach the cord with several knots on the left side. My suspicion is that there is some slipping on those knots. I do have a book of knots and I might investigate that for solutions. But I think I will also use a separate, non-slippery cord, to tie the warp rod to the apron rod. There should be much less tendency for the knot in this cord to slip, We shall see.
This morning, the left selvedge was becoming progressively worse. I did some feeling around with my fingers/hands, testing for tension. I couldn't quite tell, but it seemed like the threads on the left side might be just a tad looser than the others. So I got out a wooden double-pointed knitting needle (size 7), and inserted it between the back beam and the first 5 threads on the left selvedge. The selvedge immediately improved. The left and the right selvedges looked virtually identical.
Yes, this is magic, but not without its own problems. As I continue to weave, the added tension to those 5 threads will result in those threads gradually stretching and getting looser and looser. Another knitting needle will have to be added. And later, I will probably have to hang weights from those knitting needles. Except in this case I will probably not have to do the last as I have only about 12 more inches to weave off.
And what effect will this gradual stretching of those 6 warp threads have on the appearance of the finished weaving? I don't know. I expect that in this case, with washing and hard-pressing (or, in this case "killing", for I am working with acrylic yarns) there will be no discernible difference. Perhaps it might affect the wear and tear on that side? I don't know, but if one wove for a long time with these few threads specially weighted and growing more and more stretched out, I wouldn't be surprised.
In any case, this "magic" solution is only for emergencies. The real issue is that I muse figure out how to keep this from happening on future warps.
I do have a suspicion, and therefore a solution for, of what may be happening. I attach my warp to the front beam by lashing with very slippery mason cord. I lash from left to right. To begin, I attach the cord with several knots on the left side. My suspicion is that there is some slipping on those knots. I do have a book of knots and I might investigate that for solutions. But I think I will also use a separate, non-slippery cord, to tie the warp rod to the apron rod. There should be much less tendency for the knot in this cord to slip, We shall see.
8-Shaft Crackle
There are at least two things that can be observed about the crackle samples I wove for the Complex Weavers' Crackle Exchange this spring. First, I wove them on 8 shafts, not the 4 that is normally associated with crackled weave. Second, neither the draft nor the woven sample resemble the 4-shaft crackle stuff I have been showing so far on the blog.
Now this is not a bad thing or a good thing. It is just a different thing. And I'm not sure that it suits my current interest in color play.
Meanwhile, I wait to see what the end-of-the loom sample weaving brings to light. Of course, I have some ideas, but they are only ideas right now. In the midst of weaving sample treadlings, ideas tend in the heat of the moment to seem either brilliant or horrid. But that is an exaggeratedly close-up view sitting at the loom. Probably none of the ideas is either. So I await partial drying and pressing so I can get a bit more impartial view of what went on as I sat at the loom. Actually, if truth were to be told, I am a bit nervous............ I do hope for one small bit on that warp to speak to me.
Now this is not a bad thing or a good thing. It is just a different thing. And I'm not sure that it suits my current interest in color play.
Meanwhile, I wait to see what the end-of-the loom sample weaving brings to light. Of course, I have some ideas, but they are only ideas right now. In the midst of weaving sample treadlings, ideas tend in the heat of the moment to seem either brilliant or horrid. But that is an exaggeratedly close-up view sitting at the loom. Probably none of the ideas is either. So I await partial drying and pressing so I can get a bit more impartial view of what went on as I sat at the loom. Actually, if truth were to be told, I am a bit nervous............ I do hope for one small bit on that warp to speak to me.
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