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gauze peek

I've been making good progress on China Leaves, and hope to have it off and washed this week. Meanwhile, much non-loom time is being spent scanning slides for a weaving presentation I am giving next week. These things always seem to come up so fast! Since I'm spending all this time fussing with images anyway, I decided to give you a few pictures of one of my textile passions: gauze weaves.

In most weaving, warp yarns are parallel to each other, and never change lateral positions in the cloth. Gauze weaves, by contrast, are based on the warp threads crossing each other. They can cross in various arrangements-- one over one, two over two, almost any combination you can imagine. The cross is held in place with a weft pick. On the next pick, the warps return to their original position, so they never fully twist around each other (quite distinct from tablet weaving, though brief descriptions may seem misleadingly similar). The picture above shows a gauze with 2x2 crossings.

Because of the crossings, wefts cannot be beaten in as closely as in plain weave or other structures. This forces the weft to undulate when gauze is combined with non-gauze structures. Even simple arrangements, such as the blocks of plain weave and 1x1 gauze crossings shown above, can make unusual fabrics; curves are not so easy to achieve on the loom.

Crossing warps force the fabric to collapse in the weft direction. Different gauze structures have different densities when they take their final shape after relaxing. These densities can be used to create elaborate patterning. This green structure is comparatively simple, but you can see that some areas of the fabric are very open and others more compact.

Gauzes become especially fascinating when combined with energized yarns in warp or weft or both. They can create holes, circles, or a base for hexagonal designs. (Hexagonal designs are also very hard to achieve on loom with two sets of perpendicular elements.) The more I learn about gauzes the more potential they reveal. This extremely short description is only to give a taste of what they are like. (All photos are from my reproductions and experiments).

shameless consumption

Work continues on Big Blue, the unphotogenic everlasting project. Meanwhile, I was hit by a sudden craving to make an aran. (It's doubtful that I'd ever finish an aran, but it does no harm to swatch cables every so often.) I took out one of the Walker Treasuries from the library and have had several pleasant hours leafing through cable possibilities while sipping iced tea in this sweltering heat. Conincidentally, this weekend I got a letter stating that my student loans are at last paid off. HOORAY! One less monthly bill. Wow, ten years went fast. In order to celebrate, I decided to buy all four of the Walker Treasuries, volumes I've been saving up for for some time. Can't wait to have these four as part of my textile library.

stashed comfort

Every so often my fingers get an itch. They just want to be in something, even without a project in mind. Lately they have been longing for the Bosworth spindles, and I went through some bins last night looking for fiber to spin that would suit my mood. I didn't feel like silk. I didn't feel like playing with alpaca, or brown wool. Niggling at the back of my mind was the suspicion that I had something somewhere that would satisfy my restlessness. At the very bottom of the bottom bin, well obscured with wrapping, I found this.

Ahh. My colors. Soft merino/kid roving. Quite suitable for the lovely spindle I plan to use. I feel better.

Last year at SOAR I succumbed to several packages of Deb Menz batts, and spun these:

I'd like to knit something with them, though I don't know what. Would there be enough for a vest, of a short fitted kind? A scarf this color wouldn't be too useful to me. They are lovely complex autumn shades. Maybe a sideways knitted vest, and if I run out I could fill in the underarms with another yarn, perhaps spin up some of the immense pile of brown wool. (What was I thinking in my early spinning life, accumulating so much brown? Even if it *is* merino!)

Cambridge History of Textiles

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to discover in a local library The Cambridge History of Western Textiles. This is a relatively recent book, published a year ago. For various reasons I am becoming more and more interested in the history and development of textiles, and the brief browsing I've been able to do through these two volumes is tantalizing. No book, even with 1400 pages, can cover all aspects of this subject in detail, but it will at least be a starting point for further research. I am very glad to see a collection like this--I've long wished for the textile equivalent of those "History of Art" or "History of Architecture" tomes.

At this point in time it is easy for us to forget what a poweful force textiles were in European history. Right now we take for granted the availability of cloth of all weights and all colors and all fibers. There was a time when competition for certain dyes was fierce; when cotton was a novelty; when in planning an ocean expedition, one had to give thought to commissioning the sails. The yarn for which would have all been spun on a drop spindle. I'm looking forward to learning more about these topics, which right now are blurred into the rest of my vague conception of European history.

I'm especially interested in the state of textiles at the time the New World was being discovered. Three features in particular: lace, knitting, and ornamental borders.

Early colonial portraits in Peru show conquistadors wearing lace cuffs and collars; lace is especially prominent in clerical portraits. Where did this lace come from? Was it ever made in Peru? Did indigenous people ever come in contact with it?

Religious paintings from the same time often show figures in robes with borders. This is not surprising, being the style of the age, but what is interesting is that the painted borders are remarkably similar from painting to painting. There's a type with gold scrollwork leaves, and a type with diamonds. There are intricate twill borders being woven today in the highlands of Peru, and I think they are evidence of european techniques meeting indigenous aesthetic. I'd like to find more information on just what kind of woven trims were in use in the 1500s and 1600s.

And knitting... a structure that seems so obvious today, even has connotations of home crafting... it boggles me that the Peruvians, with all their incredibly intricate textile structures, never discovered knitting themselves. They only began to knit when the Spanish began bringing knitted items. And I wonder who, in that mess of soldiers and priests and adventurers and (ahem) women, was actually knitting? And in what style? And where did they learn it? From the Moors? How did they hold the yarn?

I hope these books will have some answers. Even if not, I'm bound to pick up some interesting ideas on the path from ancient Egyptian linen to Marimekko.

huilloc hat

This summer I visited a village with some outrageous textiles I particularly like. There are pictures here. Some people asked about the hats, which are described in a little more detail in this post. At the time I didn't have a picture of the top of a hat, and I now offer you this one, so you can see what I mean about it being decorated with braid. This is a hat bought in the market of the village. The people who live there were buying them too, so I presume it is the same as what they are wearing in the pictures. Though of course new, and therefore brighter and not dirty.

knitting groups

In my efforts to get back to Normal Life, I decided that yesterday afternoon I'd head over to my Sunday knitting group. A group of very talented and wonderful people whom I love. But. I may not be going there as often in the immediate future, because it took me *an hour and a half* to reach the bookstore where we meet.

Sometimes public transportation sucks. I walked to my closest T stop, and there were--surprise!--no trains, because of construction. A shuttle bus was waiting instead, to transfer would-be train riders to a station where trains could actually be found. I almost turned around and walked back home. Once on the bus, I reflected that at least there were no kegs of alcohol in the aisles, or chickens or pigs. It took oh, only about twice as long as a T ride, what with stoplights and picking more people up and dropping people off, to get to the transfer station. At which point I waited, and waited, and waited, while 6 trains that were *not* my train went by.

I love the T when it works. I am fully in favor of public transportation whenever possible. But this bookstore is all of maybe 4-5 miles from my house! I could have walked faster. Enroute I'm thinking you know, I've had it with screwy transportation situations for a while. I just can't take any more. Granted this is not a bus wobbling along a corkscrew tightrope of an unpaved road with a river valley a mere 500 feet below, but I'm just sick of it all. I'd rather be at home with a pillow over my head, or in the office struggling through spanish books. Boston has a unique talent of making places that are close on the ground very difficult to get to. Sometimes it seems that there are places you really truly can't get to from here. Not without a helicopter.

Fortified with iced tea, I did finally make it to the knitting group. It was great to see everyone, and see what they are working on, and feel welcomed home, and catch up a little bit. I do love that bunch of knitters. But, friends, if I don't come that often, you'll know why. Transportation frustration overload. It's not that I love you any less. It's just that at times, life seems too short to invite irritation.

a rash of alterations

Each time I alter a garment I feel inordinately virtuous, because I hate to do it. I would rather make something from scratch than redo a hem or sew on a button. Bizarre but true. Therefore I am extremely proud to relate that yesterday I shortened *three* skirts, transforming floor-length lampshade styles into pretty garments which reveal the fact that I have not only ankles, but calves. (Did I mention that I am short?) Some of these skirts are simply Useful, but one is a recent gift from Mom, a wild striped bias-cut thing with an asymmetrical flounce. Fun. Flirtatious. Perhaps even in style.

china leaves

I changed my mind. I do like overshot. I am enjoying this pattern very much.

The first weft I chose, a very nice wool, turned out to be too large to square the pattern easily. Resleying would have made the ground too sleazy, so I turned to the shelves for another pattern weft, and came up with this mercerized cotton. The ground warp and weft are 20/2, the pattern weft is 10/2, sett at 30 epi.

The selvedges aren't great. I thought I was being clever by using shafts 5 & 6 to thread a plain weave selvedge, but in fact the pattern weft pulls a little bit and leaves a gap between the patterned area and the selvedge. Next time I'll just put a plain twill edge, it will be more stable and consistent with the rest of the cloth.

I'd forgotten how lovely it is to watch patterns emerge. And speaking of next times, I took down The Complete Book of Drafting to see what it has to say about overshot. It reminded me of so many things! Four blocks on eight shafts, manipulation of halftones... for clothing fabric I rather like the idea of halftones weaving in every block except the pattern block. With the right weight and colors you could get a subtle shimmery pattern, with floats not too long. Tencel perhaps? Linen? Tencel and linen! I've been reabsorbing Davison, and since I'm happily using two shuttles, something I've long eschewed (why? !! it's way faster than knitting or pickup!) I am inspired to also graze on drafts for shawdow weave, summer and winter, and anything Bateman... if I can stop in time, I'll use the end of the warp for some sampling. I seem to recall that somewhere I've seen an overshot treadling for lace effect, but so far all I've found in my home library is examples of overshot as honeycomb. Where in the world did I see that? Did I imagine it?

all tied up and ready to go!

I finished threading! And sleying, and tying on and tying up. A loom with all its warp yet to be explored is so allluring it makes my shoulder blades itch. (You know, that's where the shuttle throwing motion starts...) I could try to find more words about how exciting it is to have a warp on the loom, and how I haven't been home a week yet, and how I even skipped running this morning to finish sleying, and thoughts about where my bobbin winder might be-- but I am more interested in actually weaving at this point. Being a structure person the first few inches of warp are usually the most intriguing. I can't sit still any more. I'll let you know how it goes.

in real life

Here's Big Blue Orenburg, halfway done. You can see why photographing is such a problem. Besides the usual I'm-unblocked-and-invisible tendency of lace, the whole thing is scrunched up on the short straight needles, making a true understanding of its size quite impossible to capture. Here I could digress upon the difficulties of two-dimensional representation, something that has been a lot on my mind recently, since I just got back from a country in which flat spaces are very, very rare. Instead however I offer you a couple of pictures of small portions of the whole, stretched out as well as can be managed by a photographer with only two hands. This particular design is full full full of "peas". My next Orenburg will have to include a wider variety of stitches. I like the peas, but I could use a little relief now and then. That picture is a corner of the shawl. Here's a look at part of the medallion near the middle: There is something extremely comforting about diamonds in squares in diamonds in squares. This shawl is fully aware that it does not appear to its best advantage in its current state, but I felt that reaching the middle should be marked in some way. Once it is finished and blocked in all its glory, I can remember fondly the days when most of it was invisible as the long chains of stitches slipped from needle to needle...