Recently I posted on my moving towards the use of neutrals with color. Yesterday my inbox newsletter from Robert Genn was directed to just this subject. The clickback for this newsletter is not yet available, but should be in a few days. In this particular newsletter, which he titled "Lively Greys." Genn was talking specifically about grays, but, for my purposes, I am thinking of grays as a neutral and browns can just as well be treated as a neutral. Browns can move to golds and oranges and then they become less and less of a neutral.
He believes that the use of grays (neutrals) is very important in painting. And he believes that the best grays are "obtained by using opposites on the colour wheel." In my experience, it is very very hard, though not impossible, to obtain grays in this way; but I have always found it a wonderful way to achieve neutral browns and beiges. The resulting neutrals are, as he says, much more "lively" than a gray achieved by mixing white with black.
He also talks about achieving these "lively" or "vibrating" grays by using "equal-intensity colours that essentially fight one another for attention." Genn is, of course, talking about painting techniques,but it can apply to weaving as well. A kind of iridescent shimmer can be set up just using plain weave, but with the warp one color and the weft another. I have seen this in commercial taffetas, and it is really lovely.
Sandra Rude explored liveliness of color in her fire series scarve. Go here for some lovely pictures of them. I think I will have to explore possibilities exploiting this kind of "liveliness" in crackle. Crackle, in fine yarns, seems almost born for exploring pointillistic effects.
Here is what I am beginning to imagine right now. I would use the same 4-shaft structure I am currently using for the crackle jacket, though not necessarily the same threading. I would also weave it as I plan to weave this crackle fabric. That is, I would not use tabbies. Each block would consist of the 4 treadles in succession. Block A would use colors in this order, a different color for each treadle: a,b,c,d. Block B would use colors in this order: b,c,d,a. Block C would use colors in this order: cdab; and Block D would use colors in this order: b,c,d,a. Each block would be treadled as many times as I would need to for the width I would like. The colors might consist of 3-4 different blues and 3-4 different browns, and perhaps 3-4 different golds.
There could have all kinds of different arrangements here. Indeed, there is no reason when I couldn't repeat a color. Eg, treadle 1, blue a; treadle 2, brown a; treadle 3, blue a; treadle 4, brown b. I could vary the amounts of neutrals and colors in any given block. I could work on creating the overall stripe effect I discussed in the earlier post.
But I also want to bring black into this. In some of the warp ends and/or in some of the weft ends.
But all of this is for some future date. It is back to work on the crackle warp I am preparing for the loom.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Sampling for Acrylic Afghan
I did finish the samples on the left-over baby blanket warp. I tried several different tie-ups. I'm kind of glad I did that because frequent changing of tie-ups has changed my previous attitude of wanting to avoid changing them. And I tried a lot of different treadlings. I enjoyed seeing the results. Here are two of my favorites.
When I washed and killed the samples, the fabric did soften nicely. But I really don't like the samples at all. None of them is right for the afghan I envision. I can't explain why. Perhaps the patterning of the threads conflicts/disturbs the plaid effect of the colors. I suspect that adding a third color would intensify the disturbing effect.
Or perhaps I'm really not a structure person at all. Sara Lamb had an excellent post recently on structure and color people. For more, take a look at her post for July 27. I definitely fit into the category of a color person. However, I do use structure, but for the purpose of exploiting color.
I think I will go with the good old plain twill from the baby blanket. Sometimes simple really is better.
When I washed and killed the samples, the fabric did soften nicely. But I really don't like the samples at all. None of them is right for the afghan I envision. I can't explain why. Perhaps the patterning of the threads conflicts/disturbs the plaid effect of the colors. I suspect that adding a third color would intensify the disturbing effect.
Or perhaps I'm really not a structure person at all. Sara Lamb had an excellent post recently on structure and color people. For more, take a look at her post for July 27. I definitely fit into the category of a color person. However, I do use structure, but for the purpose of exploiting color.
I think I will go with the good old plain twill from the baby blanket. Sometimes simple really is better.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Designing and Color
Usually I try not to engage in weaving activities on the weekend. Rest from such intense activity is, I believe, helpful. I tend to focus on gardening, though fiber activities are also usually included. Fiber activities include spinning, knitting and sewing.
I have been slowly working up to designing my son's annual Christmas sweater. On Sunday, I finally finished the process and began the knitting. I looked at the design and the yarn. The design is stripes, but the design of the stripe continually changes up through the entire sweater. I have never designed a sweater like this. And I thought, what about a woven scarf....... OK, I know it's Sunday, but I continued on with the thinking process anyway.
I could weave a crackle scarf in a stripe design similar to the stripe design of this sweater. The same color would sometimes repeat for a long time. In that instance, I could continue to change the treadling, but just keep the colors the same.
Then I looked at the colors I was working with in my son's sweater: a dark brown, a beige, a dark blue, and a dark red. These have not been typical of my usual color choices. And the brown and the beige dominate. The neutrals dominate. The colors are accents. And then I thought about the crackle jacket fabric. The neutrals dominate, the colors are accents. Without realizing it, I have been moving forward on a path in color designing a path which began with the use of bright and saturated colors almost exclusively. Yes, there were occasionally dark colors, but they were always clearly colors. There was nothing neutral about them.
And then I began to think about the next crackle fabric after this one. I had already thought of it
in terms of deep browns and golds and blues, with slashes of black. There on the left is the original inspiration. Things could be getting interesting.
Meanwhile, it's time to get back to that warping board.
I have been slowly working up to designing my son's annual Christmas sweater. On Sunday, I finally finished the process and began the knitting. I looked at the design and the yarn. The design is stripes, but the design of the stripe continually changes up through the entire sweater. I have never designed a sweater like this. And I thought, what about a woven scarf....... OK, I know it's Sunday, but I continued on with the thinking process anyway.
I could weave a crackle scarf in a stripe design similar to the stripe design of this sweater. The same color would sometimes repeat for a long time. In that instance, I could continue to change the treadling, but just keep the colors the same.
Then I looked at the colors I was working with in my son's sweater: a dark brown, a beige, a dark blue, and a dark red. These have not been typical of my usual color choices. And the brown and the beige dominate. The neutrals dominate. The colors are accents. And then I thought about the crackle jacket fabric. The neutrals dominate, the colors are accents. Without realizing it, I have been moving forward on a path in color designing a path which began with the use of bright and saturated colors almost exclusively. Yes, there were occasionally dark colors, but they were always clearly colors. There was nothing neutral about them.
And then I began to think about the next crackle fabric after this one. I had already thought of it
in terms of deep browns and golds and blues, with slashes of black. There on the left is the original inspiration. Things could be getting interesting.Meanwhile, it's time to get back to that warping board.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Weaving and Blogging
I subscribe to a newsletter by Robert Genn. The newsletter is intended for artists. It arrives in my inbox twice a week. As a weaver, I find much of interest in his newsletters. Perhaps a reason for this is that I have been learning to think of myself as an artist. Or perhaps it is his newsletters that are teaching me to think that way.
Recently someone posed a question to him about how to good at making art and also make a living at it. He responded with a list. If you are interested in seeing the entire list, go here. One item on that list in particular attracted my attention:
I think the word "impedimenta" has such a nice sound to it. But what does it mean? Is blogging
an "impediment?" Is it an "outside distraction?"
I had hesitated to start blogging because of the time it would take from my weaving. I feared it
would be an impediment, an outside distraction. But when I finally plunged into the world of blogging, I discovered something quite different. I discovered that the more I blog the more I weave, or do things closely related to weaving. And the more I blog, the more intensity goes into these weaving activities and the more focussed they become.
And another surprise: the more I engage in weaving and weaving-related activities and the more focussed I become in this area, the more I have to blog about. And also the more I engage in weaving activities, the more intensity goes into my blogging. So I find weaving and blogging actually feeding each other.
I have been blogging about 6 weeks now. I would have thought by this point I would have lost interest in blogging. Blogging, however, has become much more for me than just blogging; it has become journaling, but journaling with an important difference. Because the blog is public, I think about what I am writing and take some care with it. I put more thought and care into my posts than I would into journal entries. I don't quite understand, but I think that in someway this care and thinking is the key to the intensification of my weaving and so of my blogging as well.
Recently someone posed a question to him about how to good at making art and also make a living at it. He responded with a list. If you are interested in seeing the entire list, go here. One item on that list in particular attracted my attention:
"Cut back on impedimenta and outside distractions"
I think the word "impedimenta" has such a nice sound to it. But what does it mean? Is blogging
an "impediment?" Is it an "outside distraction?"
I had hesitated to start blogging because of the time it would take from my weaving. I feared it
would be an impediment, an outside distraction. But when I finally plunged into the world of blogging, I discovered something quite different. I discovered that the more I blog the more I weave, or do things closely related to weaving. And the more I blog, the more intensity goes into these weaving activities and the more focussed they become.
And another surprise: the more I engage in weaving and weaving-related activities and the more focussed I become in this area, the more I have to blog about. And also the more I engage in weaving activities, the more intensity goes into my blogging. So I find weaving and blogging actually feeding each other.
I have been blogging about 6 weeks now. I would have thought by this point I would have lost interest in blogging. Blogging, however, has become much more for me than just blogging; it has become journaling, but journaling with an important difference. Because the blog is public, I think about what I am writing and take some care with it. I put more thought and care into my posts than I would into journal entries. I don't quite understand, but I think that in someway this care and thinking is the key to the intensification of my weaving and so of my blogging as well.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Crackle Jacket: Making the Warp
The color planning I have done for the warp does make for difficulties in winding the warp. Winding it on the warping board is going to go very very slowly. I am used to winding on 2-4 ends at a time; I have to wind this warp as individual ends. I normally make 20 trips around the board for thread-marking purposes. But in this case I am making only 10 before I put in the marking thread. And, of course, the color changes usually do not coincide with the number 10. So, at the same time, when I finish with one color, I mark it off on the piece of paper. This is another reason why I felt there ought to be more regularity in the design of the structure itself. Much as I like asymmetry and randomness, I believe there must be some order or all I would have would be a mess.
I have decided, however, I am not going to agonize over the exact number of ends so far as the color changes go. If I get confused in the winding process and can't figure out exactly where I am, I am not going to obsess over the issue. The changes do not coincide with block divisions. They are not supposed to coincide with block divisions.The end effect is supposed to be kind of free flowing in terms of color changes. I made a plan for the changes only because I think that too much randomness results in something unreadable and unpleasant. I think that as long as there is some kind of order, even if that order cannot be perceived but would have to be discovered through analysis, that there will be an underlying sense of order.
Winding this warp on the board will nevertheless be very slow going It will be awhile before I have finished making it,
I have decided, however, I am not going to agonize over the exact number of ends so far as the color changes go. If I get confused in the winding process and can't figure out exactly where I am, I am not going to obsess over the issue. The changes do not coincide with block divisions. They are not supposed to coincide with block divisions.The end effect is supposed to be kind of free flowing in terms of color changes. I made a plan for the changes only because I think that too much randomness results in something unreadable and unpleasant. I think that as long as there is some kind of order, even if that order cannot be perceived but would have to be discovered through analysis, that there will be an underlying sense of order.
Winding this warp on the board will nevertheless be very slow going It will be awhile before I have finished making it,
Crackle Jacket: Slight Change in Design
It was the middle of the night. I woke up.The block design for the crackle fabric needed just a tiny bit of loosening. I went back to sleep. After breakfast in the morning, I opened up the computer file and played with the design. Here it is.
Here is what I changed. The first time the C block appears, I changed it from 6 to 3 units, and did the same thing later when the blocks moved from D back to A. Then, on the much smaller motives, I changed the turning point of each motive (the C block in the case of the first motive, and the D block in the case of the second) from 2 units to 3 units. My aim is to make the weave pattern just a little more fluid, while still retaining the sense of pattern.
The pattern I see 2 small rises and falls within a larger rise and then fall. I want the pattern to be there, but diffused. I hope for it to be diffused both my these subtle changes and, more importantly, by the use of color. I am getting very eager to see how this will all turn out!
The practical result is fewer warp threads. The warp will still be a bit wider than it needs to be, and that is good. I have already finished one bout so it will have a few more warp ends in it than the other 5 bouts, 14 more to be exact. Because I weight the bouts individually as I wind the warp onto the warp beam, it is important that all the bouts weigh the same. That way the bouts should all wind on the beam with the same amount of tension. I do not think (or at least I hope!) that 14 fewer ends in one bout of 10/2 pearl cotton is going to have a significant difference. And the warp is only 7 yards long, which will also help.
Here is what I changed. The first time the C block appears, I changed it from 6 to 3 units, and did the same thing later when the blocks moved from D back to A. Then, on the much smaller motives, I changed the turning point of each motive (the C block in the case of the first motive, and the D block in the case of the second) from 2 units to 3 units. My aim is to make the weave pattern just a little more fluid, while still retaining the sense of pattern.
The pattern I see 2 small rises and falls within a larger rise and then fall. I want the pattern to be there, but diffused. I hope for it to be diffused both my these subtle changes and, more importantly, by the use of color. I am getting very eager to see how this will all turn out!
The practical result is fewer warp threads. The warp will still be a bit wider than it needs to be, and that is good. I have already finished one bout so it will have a few more warp ends in it than the other 5 bouts, 14 more to be exact. Because I weight the bouts individually as I wind the warp onto the warp beam, it is important that all the bouts weigh the same. That way the bouts should all wind on the beam with the same amount of tension. I do not think (or at least I hope!) that 14 fewer ends in one bout of 10/2 pearl cotton is going to have a significant difference. And the warp is only 7 yards long, which will also help.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Crackle Jacket: Designing the Fabric
Since I got my computer back and it's working fine, I have gone back to work on the crackle jacket. I had already decided from the earlier samples the particular sample I planned to use as the basis for the jacket fabric. And here it is.
The colors are fairly close to the actual
fabric, but the actual fabric has a great deal
more subtlety. The warp colors are a medium
greened blue, a medium brown and a medium
browned gold. The weft colors are a pastel blue, a pastel yellow, a pastel lavender and the medium browned gold of the warp. All yarns are 20/2 pearl cotton. It might be remembered that I had some initial reservations about the lavender. There were some sample treadlings where it just did not work. But here the lavender, subdued by the other colors, creates a little surprise which in fact, does work.
None of this would be revealed on a computer screen. Or perhaps I simply cannot project in my head from the computer screen to the actual fabric. This is why I can use the computer only for suggestions and finding errors and technical problems. It simply is of no help with color. And for me, manipulating color is in many ways what weaving is all about.
By the way, I have used computer software to pull this sample out of the fabric of samples. I know there are ways to get rid of the unwanted black parts, but I have yet to learn how to do that.
I opened my weaving program and designed a 4-block symmetrical design. I have created it as a 4-shaft design because, despite the fact that the sample I am using for the basis of this fabric was designed on 8 shafts, it is really a 4-shaft design. It just seems easier to thread and weave on 4 shafts than on 8. Had the threads been any finer (my favorite 60/2 silk, for example), I would have used the 8 shafts simply to separate the heddles a bit. Then there would be less likelihood of shed problems when it came time to weave. But this is only 20/2 pearl cotton and the yarn is very slippery.
The design for the crackle exchange and subsequent sampling had been quite wildly assymmetrical, but I decided that some kind of symmetry would make for easier making up of a garment from the fabric. Here is the block design for the threading.
Each individual unit of a block is indicated by one square. Each square consists of 4 threads. These four threads make up the individual crackle unit. What you see (rather dimly, I am sorry to say) is a block representing, when drawn out as threading, 278 individual ends. This thread grouping will be repeated 4 times across the warp. The total number of ends thus should be 1,112.
I am using the same color ordering as I used for the exchange and sampling warp. It consists of 3 colors appearing at apparently erratic intervals. There is, however, a plan and I have used my spreadsheet program to block out the 3 colors with the number of repetitions each time. The ordering and repeating of the colors, however, has nothing to do either with the blocks or the repeated design units.
The colors are fairly close to the actual
fabric, but the actual fabric has a great deal
more subtlety. The warp colors are a medium
greened blue, a medium brown and a medium
browned gold. The weft colors are a pastel blue, a pastel yellow, a pastel lavender and the medium browned gold of the warp. All yarns are 20/2 pearl cotton. It might be remembered that I had some initial reservations about the lavender. There were some sample treadlings where it just did not work. But here the lavender, subdued by the other colors, creates a little surprise which in fact, does work.
None of this would be revealed on a computer screen. Or perhaps I simply cannot project in my head from the computer screen to the actual fabric. This is why I can use the computer only for suggestions and finding errors and technical problems. It simply is of no help with color. And for me, manipulating color is in many ways what weaving is all about.
By the way, I have used computer software to pull this sample out of the fabric of samples. I know there are ways to get rid of the unwanted black parts, but I have yet to learn how to do that.
I opened my weaving program and designed a 4-block symmetrical design. I have created it as a 4-shaft design because, despite the fact that the sample I am using for the basis of this fabric was designed on 8 shafts, it is really a 4-shaft design. It just seems easier to thread and weave on 4 shafts than on 8. Had the threads been any finer (my favorite 60/2 silk, for example), I would have used the 8 shafts simply to separate the heddles a bit. Then there would be less likelihood of shed problems when it came time to weave. But this is only 20/2 pearl cotton and the yarn is very slippery.
The design for the crackle exchange and subsequent sampling had been quite wildly assymmetrical, but I decided that some kind of symmetry would make for easier making up of a garment from the fabric. Here is the block design for the threading.
Each individual unit of a block is indicated by one square. Each square consists of 4 threads. These four threads make up the individual crackle unit. What you see (rather dimly, I am sorry to say) is a block representing, when drawn out as threading, 278 individual ends. This thread grouping will be repeated 4 times across the warp. The total number of ends thus should be 1,112.
I am using the same color ordering as I used for the exchange and sampling warp. It consists of 3 colors appearing at apparently erratic intervals. There is, however, a plan and I have used my spreadsheet program to block out the 3 colors with the number of repetitions each time. The ordering and repeating of the colors, however, has nothing to do either with the blocks or the repeated design units.
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