awayuq

andante

Amazing how one short travel interlude can cast ripples of disarrangement weeks ahead. Lots of things intervened with the ordinary fiber activities. Including my own stupidity in scheduling an appointment last week during the usual Tuesday knitting time. As of this morning though I am happy to report that the lastest weaving sample is beamed, threaded, sleyed and tied on. Ready to start weaving.

I also got out the bolt of muslin and tore several long strips 18" wide. I'm going to fiddle around and see if I can't come up with some uses for narrow yardage other than the well-known ethnic shirt look. It's a bit tricky trying to drape stuff on yourself with only one pair of hands. I have to keep reminding myself that it's only muslin, it's ok to make a mistake! That's what muslin is for.

another sample

After finishing a bobbin of the green-blue flax and mulling things over, I created a small sample warp using my handspun and some off-white linen singles from stash. The singles are about 20/1 I think-- I have so many unlabelled cones it's not even amusing. That's what comes from accumulating mill ends. Anyway, that yarn is about 52 wpi, and the handspun is much thicker. The idea for this warp is to create a fabric with solitary threads of the handspun against a background of the finer linen. The handspun will be sleyed by itself in an 8-dent reed; each thread of handspun will be surrounded by 20 threads of plainweave, and inbetween the plainweave sections will be stripes that can be plainweave, basketweave, or twill. I'm aiming for a little bit of laciness around the handspun, perhaps even enough to let the kinky energy play, and some laciness inbetween, with the basketweave.

This warp is still on the warping board, and I might not get it beamed too soon, because I am going to Ohio this weekend to visit family. Short trip-- fields! Flowers! Woods! Each time I go back I am apalled at how many more strip malls there are, but my father's house is in an area still relatively unscathed, and in any case it's much much much less crowded than the city where I live now. (Why am I living in the city again? Oh yeah, I have a job. I keep forgetting.) Besides all the perks of a home visit, such as spending time with my Dad, seeing old friends, taking walks in the woods, taking naps, and breathing clean air, I hope to visit my favorite clothing shop. It's downtown in the village where I grew up-- you might not expect such a lovely and fashionable boutique to be located in such a tiny midwestern town, but over the years I've gotten clothes there that I love until they wear out. With luck there will be a nice infusion of new spice into the wardrobe for fall. And a friend offered to take me canoeing! Don't let me forget my swimming suit.

setting a difference

The wool samples are off the loom. I am definitely a wet-finishing woman: it's not finished until it's washed. Even things that will be treated as dry-clean only get washed when they come off the loom. Here you can see what a difference a few ends per inch can make. And what a difference a rainy day makes for photo colors--weird! The colors below are much more accurate. All the pieces above are from the same warp. Left to right, 15 epi, 12 epi, 10 epi. Unwashed, the 15 feels like a scratchy board; the 12 feels itchy but hopeful; the 10 feels like a window screen.

Washed, each one starts to charm. The 15 is still rather stiff and dense; I'd use the twill fabric for a heavy jacket or a blanket. I might try a 3/1 twill too, rather than 2/2, or an 8-shaft crepe at this sett. The 12 is a nice all around wool tweedy twill. It could be used for a skirt or jacket, but I wouldn't try welts or lapels. The 10 is soft and cushy and delicious. I wouldn't sew anything out of it, at least nothing that needed much cutting, because it's too loose. But as a shawl or a scarf, it would be wonderful. It was the last piece I tried, and I had some warp left over, so I did some experimentation. This is a nice exercise, to try to come up with different treadlings directly at the loom, rather than playing with drawdowns. I did some standard crepes and twills, but my favorite is this one:

The colors interact well, and the stripes form a nice change in texture as well as color. This fabric would be wonderful as a shawl (if only I had a wider loom!)

There is color-and-weave in all the twill sections of each sample, but you can hardly see it, the values are so close. I don't think I'd spend the effort to weave yards of the color effect in these shades; the pattern is lost. From a distance the twill lines are more prominent than the colors. The yarns, btw, are from WEBS.

photo catch up

I love these frogs. I love them so much that I once bought several yards of this fabric and took it home and found out I already had a length in my stash. They are waiting to be made up into a sundress. Another recently finished sundress is made of this rayon
it doesn't really flatter my figure; I think it falls under the Useful Clothes heading. The kind of thing that is handy to have as a beach coverup, or to run out into the garden early in the morning to pick peas, or to lounge around in after a hot day when you don't feel like putting on anything constricting.

Big Blue Orenburg continues; he is not forgotten, but since recording progress on that bundle of dark lace isn't very interesting I bring you some recent swatches:
one of some fair isle patterning in traditional shetland-like wool yarns and one aran swatch, also in wool. The top cable is one I think I'll use as the center cable in my sweater. And speaking of sweaters, here's what a top-down sweater looks like at the very beginning:
Hard to imagine that this curly fiddly bit of short rowing and staggered cast ons is going to be a lovely smooth shoulder portion of a lace sweater. Over the weekend I started this three times: the first time I didn't like the width I was coming out with, even though I'd measured gauge carefully. The second time I made it smaller but still didn't like it, so I recalculated everything and this time I think it is just right. One nice thing (or not, depending on what you want from your knitting) about top-downs is that most of the fiddly stuff is at the beginning. You figure out the most difficult parts, the neck shaping and shoulder shaping and armhole calculations at the start, and then you can just knit gaily along in your desired pattern, making such sweaters very good meeting knitting or commuting knitting. Last night I reached the pick-up for the sleeves, so once I center the lace pattern over the shoulder all fiddlies will be done for a while. This is a good thing, since I find that I tend to make mistakes on Big Blue when I bring it to knitting groups and such.

Moving back for a moment to the fair isle swatch, here's a photo of a sample tweed warp with the same yarns: warping only 100 threads is amazingly fast! It's easy to forget how quick warping can be, when you work with threads at 30 epi and up. I threaded a straight draw and plan to experiment with a color-and weave effect from Ann Sutton's Color and Weave book... the goal here is not innovation but to get a nice, workable tweedy cloth. Oh! And the reason there's room for this warp on the floor loom? China Leaves is done! Front
and back
The fabric has a nice hand, I just wish there were slightly more of it, because with only two yards I'm not sure what to do. I could always weave more fabric of a coordinating design, but I'm not sure I can count on getting around to doing that. It might be fun to have a sort of swinging vest, with the sides of the front using different faces of the fabric.

a little list

I've been lazy about taking pictures lately, but that doesn't mean nothing has been going on.

First, I did my talk on gauzes-- with, I dare to say, moderate success. I was very impressed by the weavers in the class; they asked sophisticated questions and it was clear that they have a lot of weaving experience and expertise (probably a lot more than I do). As a bonus, I got to attend the rest of the guild meeting-- the lunch and afternoon lecture-- and it reminded me how much I enjoyed being in a weaving guild when I was able to attend. I'm dismayed that I haven't joined the local guild since I moved to Boston. I think I will, now that I've seen what quality weavers are there... but it's still frustrating that I can't participate because of the scheduling. They meet during the day, in a place with no commuter rail access. What'a a working woman to do? One of my big gripes with the weaving world is that every so often the big discussion blows around--you know the one, it goes Why Don't We Have Any Young People In Our Guilds? Why Don't Young Women Weave? But the scheduling continues to be during the day on a weekday, in places inaccessible to people without a private vehicle. I'll save the full rant for another time.

The long weekend was gorgeous, and in a desperate attempt to hold onto summer I made a sleeveless sundress for the last few warm days. The fabric is a batik rayon in dark red, with some beige and brown, an appropriate summer-into-fall scheme. It's very comfortable, but alas! Because I made it so simply, just a straight cut tank top with a skirt, I look like I'm wearing a flour sack when I put it on. I've been wearing clothes long enough to know this-- however dissatisfied I am with my shape, shapeless clothes do not help. So I think I'll insert a drawstring, or a sash of some kind to cinch in the waist at the back; that improves the silhouette dramatically. I cut out another one, of a green cotton with frogs on it maybe I'll get that done and wearable before the temperature drops too far.

And as for knitting, you can take it as given that Big Blue O continues. I've reached a point which may prove to be difficult; a place in the middle where I'm past the midpoint but not close to Almost Done. The pattern has nothing new, it's now mirroring itself around the center, so there's no change in stitches to look forward to... the milestone of the middle has been passed, but I'm not near enough to the end to gain eagerness from imagining how soon I can start the final border and what it will look like when it's finally off the needles. This is the grim, grinding stage where only patience and perseverance will help.

While I gather those resources, I did a few other samples: one of some cables in crunchy cream wool, one of fair isle patterns in shetland from some cones on the shelf. I have always had a dream of weaving tweed for a skirt and jacket, and knitting a fair isle sweater out of matching yarn. You can ask me about it after I meet the patron who will obviate the necessity for the day job. Until then, swatching does no harm, right? Both samples turned out lovely, and I've spent several evenings deciding on which cables to put together for a sweater, and charting out the pattern. This will be a top-down aran, and before I begin the sweater I will make a big swatch of all the cables together, so I can see better how to place the neck and all that.

Which brings me to another point... I realized recently that just about the only sweaters I finish are those I do from the top down. I've never been the kind of person who can follow a recipe without tweaking. Seaming isn't a problem for me, I don't mind doing it, but somehow I just can't follow most patterns, it drives me nuts. Maybe because I'm always trying to take yarn off my overflowing shelves, and make it get the same gauge as something with quite a different character, which inevitably leads to frustration. Maybe too because so few patterns are sized for petites, so I have to do length adjustments on everything no matter what gauge I get. And partly because, sorry, but so many patterns are written so poorly, and the flat pieces don't seem to me to take advantage of the shaping possibilities inherent in knitting. So for now, instead of forcing myself to follow a pattern, I've decided to allow myself to be inspired by published things I like, but to be realistic and design my own top downs if it's something I really want to finish and wear. To that end, I did some calculations for a lacy sweater in fuschia alpaca... the bottom back has been languishing for many months now. I just can't see putting a seam in the middle of a lace motif when it would be so easy to do the thing in one piece and make the pattern continue without a break under the arms! My design is clearly based on the pattern I was unsuccessfully trying to follow, but in the process of sketching it out I made some alterations: set in sleeves instead of dropped shoulders, a deep scoop neck, maybe even frills on the cuffs. This is the sweater on which I'll figure out how best to place the pattern on those initial shoulder rows, to make it come out nicely at the neck, and how to manage the sleeve cap as the stitch pattern progresses. Things which, come to think of it, will be very good to figure out before attacking the aran.

And by the way, if I never finish any of these sweaters, I'll still have learned something, and the swatches were fun, and that's fine with me.

awesome!

I've been going over my gauze samples and photos intensely over the past few days and remembering why I love them so. I mean, how cool is this?? How often in the weaving world do you get to make real *circles*?!

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).

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.

a book and overshot

Over the weekend I read, or at least intensely browsed, a book I bought several months ago: "Doubleweave", by Ursula Arn-Grischott. It focusses on 4 - 8 shafts, so it's not necessarily a reference for the compu-dobby crowd. But I found it very interesting. Lately I've been more and more intrigued by cloth which gets its personality from materials or new twists on simple techniques, rather than structures needing many many shafts. There are lots of color pictures in this book, and they are worth perusing. It's inspiring to see different faces of "simple" doubleweave: the austere clean squares of say black and white linen, and the crazy collapsing of ribs and folds in wool. The drawdowns are well done, especially if you have trouble visualizing doubleweave: she draws the actual interlacement of threads, so that you can tell what is on the top and what is on the bottom. There are many references for doubleweave as a structure, and this is probably not the book I'd turn to in order to write out my threading. But I would open it to trigger new ideas and help along the what-ifs.

(And she does note that some of the very earliest--and, may I add, most complex--doublecloth is from Peru. In singles cotton, with intricate interlocking designs.)

Well I don't know whether it's a reaction against having been out of my home country for 6 weeks, or a desire to reassure myself that I can still work out a threading draft, or a feeling that I have to perfect the basics of western style floor loom weaving... I wound and beamed a warp over the weekend. And what will it be? Overshot. ?? I'm as puzzled as you are. Ordinarily I don't like overshot much. And I have no idea what I'm going to do with the finished piece, unless there is enough to make a pillow. For some reason, I just wanted to do overshot. I spent some time in the studiio, gazing at lovely shelves of cotton and wool, put on the tea kettle, pulled down Davison... made myself a cup of green tea, and found myself staring at a page I'd marked long ago, a design called "China Leaves". With a sort of tweedy green cone of shetland just in the corner of my eye. Why struggle? if it turns out to be only a sampler, so be it. At least I'll be weaving! I am sure I'll learn something.

In fact, I've already learned something: a sturdy warping board with long pegs is a joy to use. This is the first warp I've wound since buying my new warping board, and it was great! I could fit the whole warp on in one winding, no need for two bunches. The frame stayed stable, the pegs didn't shift. Now that my warp is beamed, I can see that the length of all the warps is pretty much even. For years I had warps that would be longer at one side than at the other-- no tension problems, just a difference in length. I now realize this was because the pegs of my old warping board weren't straight. I'm the last person to speak against homemade tools, but sometimes it is worth it to buy things from a maker who knows the full requirements of an object. I am forever grateful to the friend who made me tools and started me on my weaving path, and I recognize the time to retire things that have outlived their usefulness.