RETHINKING COLORS

I had made all those careful plans vis-a-vis color. I had made all those dye samples. And then I discarded everything.

Perhaps that is a bit of an exaggeration. But weaving that sampler did force some changes. First of all there was the red part of the sampler. One of these two scarves coming up just must have red as a dominant color. Not just the warp. Weft too.

I love red. So the first scarf will have nothing to do with all those original careful plans vis-a-vis color. It will be mostly in blues and reds.

The second scarf, however, will still follow the original plan of neutrals and blues as the dominant colors. So the dyeing plans are not totally thrown out. The neutral samples are invaluable here.

However, for the blues, and for the blues and the reds in the first scarf, I have to have many variations of each color. That was probably the most important thing I learned from the sampling. It doesn't matter whether I am going to treadle polychrome style (the first scarf), or Summer and Winter tromp as writ (the second scarf). I need multiple variations of the colors.

What I did, when I realized this, was to go to my ring binder of dye samplers and look at all the reds and blues there. From these I picked out the ones I liked. My plan right now is to dye five skeins of different reds and six skeins of different blues. Plus some other colors. Including neutrals.

I'm going to be spending a fair amount of time sweating over dye pots!

Related posts:
Next Crackle Project: Dyeing Plans Begun
Dyeing Sampling Update
Dyeing: Some Discoveries
Designing and Color

HERE ARE THE WARP BOUTS

The bouts are made. Even the floating selvedge warps are made. They are wound on the knitting bobbins at the top of the photo. I keep the individual bouts in sandwich-size plastic bags to keep them from tangling. Also to keep them clean. The ends with the cross peek out of the bags so that I will be able to slip in the rod and lease sticks.

FOUR ENDS AT A TIME WITH SIX CONES?

When I started making the warp, I worried that I might have some problems. I had wound six cones of yarn, three of each color red. However, I was going to wind four ends at a time. Why didn't I wind four cones (two of each color) to begin with? It's called hindsight.

This is what I ended up doing, and I wasn't sure it was going to work. I started with four cones and wound one bout. Then I removed a cone and replaced it with one of the two unused cones. I wound a second bout. Then I removed a different cone and replaced it with the remaining unused cone. Now I have two cones that have been used once but are now out of commission. After I wound this next bout, I removed another cone, and replaced it with one of the out-of-commission cones. I kept doing this until I had wound all six bouts. And it worked. I never ran out of yarn. In fact, I have plenty of yarn left over.

KNOTS

As I was winding the warp, I ran into the expected knots. Three of them were at one end or the other of the bout, so I didn't have to do anything with them. Two others were in the middle. My usual tactic when encountering knots in this situation is just to keep going. has always seemed easier to do that and then fix the warp when I was weaving that it was to pull one end back to the beginning, replace it, and wind it back to join its fellow ends.

But I decided to try.

I was pleased to discover that it is not that hard to cut out an end with a knot when the warp is only a little less than seven yards, even when warping with four ends at a time. Now I don't have to worry about cutting out a knot when I am actually weaving, and I will also not have the doubled warp ends that cutting out knots entail.

Related Post: Another Raddling Tip

WEAVING AS EXPLORATION

How would I feel if I were to lose something I had woven? If something I had woven were stolen. Meg knows. To read her post about the event, "I'm a Victim of Art Theft?!" go here.

As for me, I do not know how I would feel.

Robert Genn recently wrote a piece about his experience of having had a painting he was working stolen. He describes how it felt to have lost it: it was as if he had lost a part of his own body. To quote him here:

I began to think my painting was the best thing I'd ever done,
unrepeatable, irreplaceable. The more I thought about it, the
more I boiled. Unlike the fish that got away, the art we make
is part of us, part of our very body, and unless we willingly
sell or give it, losing it like that is a supreme insult.

He thought of posting a reward for finding the painting. But then he changed his mind. What had suddenly become precious to him was not the painting, which he now realized was very ordinary, but the emotions arising from his momentary belief that this painting was or could have been a masterpiece.

I especially like his postscript at the end of his essay: "Angels fly because they take themselves lightly." (G.K. Chesterton)

But this is not the end, because Genn continues:

"When all is only exercise and experiment, where questions give more delight than answers, and results are the lesser of process, we are given a special kind of energy."

These words ring so true to my experience. In weaving, I love the process of exercise and experiment and questions being raised and possibilities being pursued. Hence my love of weaving samples. This is the kind of zone I like to be in and weaving samples can put me straight into it. I have so much enjoyed exploring this 8-blocks-on-4-shafts crackle. It has been an amazing experience. Probably the experience has been more amazing than the samples!

But now I am moving from samples to scarves. I am preparing to weave "something." Actually two "somethings." Something I might wear. Something I might give to someone else. Something I might submit to a show. But definitely a "something." Not a sample.

And so a certain kind of "seriousness" enters the picture. The greater this seriousness, the less energy there is.

Right now there are two things that are helping to keep the play and delight and energy going.

First, I do not know how these scarves are going to turn out. I do not know what they are going to look like. I have worked out the colors I am going to dye the silk. I have worked out the threading. I have worked out the sett. I have the yarns I am going to dye. I have worked out the treadling. And I have a general idea of how I am going to place the colors.

But as of right now I do not know the details. I have some idea of some of the details, but I do not know precisely how I am going to flesh them out on the canvas of the silk warp.

Each time I start I new block, I will have to make a decision as to what the colors will be, the order of the colors. I do have a general plan for changing the colors from block to block. But I do not know how that plan is going to manifest itself.

Even my plan to weave the blocks all the same size is subject to change, depending on what I see happening as I weave.

I am even planning to dye some small skeins in some spark colors that are not in my plan. And, once the dyeing is done, I am going to look at the silk yarn I have previously dyed just to see if there is anything there that strikes my fancy for using on this warp.

Second, I see this weaving as another kind of sampling. I see this weaving as preparation for the weaving that will come next, the weaving that will arise out what I am now doing. And I will be making notes of the ideas that come to me as I weave, ideas that I won't be able to use on the current weaving, but that may find a home in another piece.

Yes, for me weaving is about exploring. So, though I am sure that I would mourn a lost or stolen piece, I suspect that I would not mourn for long.

Go here to read the whole of Genn's piece.

Related Post: Originality

WARPING PADDLE

I use my paddle as a stationary paddle. Some people prefer to carry the paddle as the wind on the warp. When I have tried to do that, I get into a complete muddle at the cross.

Here is my warping paddle close up and in use. Because of the angle, you can't see that it consists of alternating holes and slots, just like a rigid heddle.

HOLES AND SLOTS

Four threads are coming up from four cones. Each one goes through a hole or a slot. The ends in the slot can be moved either to the right or to the left. The threads in the holes are always stationary because they cannot move. And that is the secret of the warping paddle.

As the four warp ends emerge from the top of the paddle, I grab them with my hand and wind them up to the top of the warping board. I stop short of the crossing pegs.

TWO FINGERS IN THE CROSS

Holding on to the four ends at the top of the board with my left hand, I reach down under the paddle with my right hand. I uses my right hand to grab the warp ends coming from underneath the paddle. I move those warp ends to my right. But only two warp ends move: those in the slots. The other two are stationary because they are in the holes.

FIRST HALF OF CROSS

There is now a space between the stationary warp ends and the moved warp ends. This space is not only underneath the paddle, it also appears above the paddle. I insert a finger of my left hand into the space between the yarns that appears above the paddle.

SECOND HALF OF CROSS

Next I move my right hand (still holding the four warp ends) underneath the paddle from my right to my left. This creates another space. The warps that are threaded through the slots now move the left. The space is visible between the top of the paddle and the warp ends threaded over one finger of my left hand. I put a second left-hand finger through this second space.

Now my two fingers are holding the cross. I put one section of the cross on one peg; I put the other section on the second peg.

RETURN TRIP

I then take those four ends and go round the end peg. I make the cross with the paddle again, getting the cross on my two fingers. I put each section of the cross on a peg and then run the four ends back down to the beginning.

TWO HELPFUL BOOKS

Peggy Osterkamp, Winding a Warp and Using a Paddle, pp. 67-84. She explains and illustrates how to use both a slot-and-hold paddle (both stationary and carry-around) and an all-holes paddle. If you've got this you don't need another book.......

but if you can't help yourself..........

Leslie Voiers, Workshop Notes for Winding Multi-Colored Warps with a Warping Paddle Using the Warping Board Frame or the Upright Warping Reel. Though Osterkamp has written (written very well) all you need to know about using the paddle, Voiers has included lots of tips that can be very useful. However, she does limit herself to carry-around paddles (both stationary and all-holes).

Related Post: Warping Work Station with Coffee

More on False Crosses

I received a couple of good questions on my earlier discussion of crosses and false crosses.

Leigh asked: "Aren't [false crosses] the result of using a warping paddle...?"

The answer is "yes." However, my guess is that they would occur if you warped with more than one thread but using your fingers to separate them and then to create the thread-by-thread cross at the cross end of the warp. A paddle is just a bit more efficient than fingers and you can work with more than four ends, which is the maximum you could use with fingers.

Indeed, if you set up a rigid heddle (the hole-and-slot kind found on rigid heddle looms) instead of a paddle to make the crosses, you could wind even more threads than the paddle allows.

FALSE CROSS WITH A SINGLE END

Also, a false cross will occur if you wind incorrectly with only a single end. I have tried to use a lime-green line to indicate the path the thread would take if you made the cross correctly. Clicking on the photos will result in a larger and clearer picture of the lime-green line.

After making the cross (correctly shown by the actual crossed red threads on the right), you draw the yarn (now the lime-green line) straight across to the top of the peg on the left, go around and under that peg under the peg to its right and than continue with the making the second half of the cross.
Some people do not do this. And some people do it correctly but occasionally make a mistake. The mistake is shown in the following photo, again indicated by the lime-green line. Here, instead of continuing with the yarn straight across, the yarn is brought to the underside of that first peg, then around it to the top, then back to the right and down to the underside of the second peg on the right.

MULTIPLE ENDS WITH NO FALSE CROSS

Anonymous asked another question:

"Peg, please describe in detail how the false cross occurs, I just can't figure it out. I almost always wind warps with multiple ends "in-hand" and have never had or seen a false cross."

I am afraid I can't explain how the false cross occurs. The next time I make a warp I will try to analyze what is actually going on.

What I can't figure out is why you don't get one! My guess is that you are literally carrying the ends "in-hand." I interpret that to mean that you are treating them as a single yarn. What this would mean is that you are not separating out the individual ends to make thread by thread crosses but are treating them as a single end and so making a group cross. Making a group cross would create no problem of a false cross between those first two pegs.

INTERESTING POSTS FROM OTHER WEAVING BLOGS

Here are a few posts from this past week's weaving blogs that I particularly enjoyed:

Adapters for winding Cones -- Sandra's Loom Blogg.
Draft for Mixed Warps -- Weaverly
Designing Woven Fabrics -- Dot's Fiber to Fabric
Multiple Tabby Sampler Off the Loom -- Leigh's Fiber Journal
Class 101: How Not to Warp Your Loom -- Deep End of the Loom
Red and White Check Towels -- Fun With Fiber

WARPING WORK STATION WITH COFFEE

I make my warps in my sewing room. My warping board rests quite casually on top of a built-in desk and leans against the built-in bookshelves. (This was clearly a child's room in an earlier life.) On the floor you can see the four cones and above that, in front of the warping board, you can see the warping board clamped to the desk with a C-clamp.

HOW MANY ENDS IN A BOUT?

For this warp I am winding six individual bouts of 60/2 silk. And I am winding from four cones. Now comes the trick question: how many ends in a bout?

First, I want the bouts to start and end at the same place. That place can be either the top or the bottom of the board. Since I start winding at the bottom, of the warping board, I make my cross at the top. That means that that is the part of the warp bout that I slip the rod into. If I were to end the bout at the top, I would have four loose ends there. Nothing to slip the rod into.


CROSSES AND FALSE CROSSES

Here at the top right you can see the cross. The funny cross thing at the left is called a false cross. If you wind one end at a time, you shouldn't get this false cross. But as soon as you start winding multiple ends at a time, you get it.

This false cross should not create a problem. The only thing I have to remember is to put the rod through that first big opening on the left. I will discover, as I raddle, that I have loops that hang free of the rod. Then I have to carefully put them back on, making sure I get all the loose loops.

Also, I have to factor in to this calculation the fact that each total round (bottom to top and back again) results in 8 warp ends having been created. This means that the total number of ends in a bout must be divisible by 8.

SIX BOUTS WITH DIFFERENT NUMBER OF ENDS

Figuring out all these things, I have had to make the bouts with two different numbers of yarns. Four bouts have 96 ends each; two bouts have 88 ends. Arithmetically challenged, I took quite awhile to work this out and then to double-check my figures.

The coffee cup is very important in this process.

A QUESTION

What if, despite the best of calculations, I have one or more bouts that I simply cannot make end where they began? With these I just close my eyes to the problem, and wind back to the beginning anyway. This would, of course, give me more warp ends than I needed.

What to do? After threading, just drop those extra warp ends off the back of the loom.

P.S.

I do other weaverly things in this room as well. To the left, where you see just a corner of an orange chair, is the area where my cone- and ball-winding takes place. Also my skein winding. You can go here to see the cone-winding process.


Related Post: More on False Crosses