Making

As promised, I'm now working away at the loom and churning out cloth.  It's only fair that I provide some proof.

Yes, dear Sara, I went with purple/blue.  While I'd gotten a lot of prodding from others that the blue/jade or purple/jade would be so stylish, I knew I'd get no joy from either the weaving/sewing or the wearing.  If I'm going to make yards of this stuff, and create a garment that (hopefully) I'll wear for a lifetime, the least that I can do is make cloth that is pleasing to my eye.  And my hand.

I did, however, make one concession and that is in pattern.  There was another in the gample (still using it!) that I liked more, but it didn't really have the look of a plaited twill.  So, I went with this:

It's an 8-harness, 10-treadle pattern.  Threading is straight-forward (straight twill) and treadling is simple (straight-treadle) and the fun is in the tie-up.  I'm pretty sure that this is one of the tie-ups I did on my own, rather than one drawn from either Strickler or Oelsner, but that really doesn't matter.  What does is that it's interesting, easy to weave and makes a lovely finished fabric.  Complex, but not.

And, I'll leave you with this - proof that there's a person actually doing the work.  I didn't know this was happening, but it was there, so I'm sharing it.

The weaver at work.  And oh, how happy she is.  :-)

Details

So what I posted yesterday was a sample from the beginning of an 8-yard warp.  Or, at least, the part of the warp I painted last summer with Sara was 8 yards long when I measured it out before painting.  I padded this painted warp bout out to around 6.5 inches wide with stripes of Harrisville Highland Blackberry and Aubergine, and planned to weave this off as warp-faced plainweave with Aubergine Highland Shetland, about half the grist of the Shetland.

I wanted to sample weaving occasional weft-faced, weft-float stripes, in kente-ish fashion, so I set up the loom using the draft from Suzanne Halvorson's Handwoven article, Kente-Inspired Scarf, in the March/April 2013 issue.  Here, the contrast weft floats over three ends at a time, which worked well in my sample, I thought.  From the bottom up, the three weft-float samples were gold and purple Paternayan needlepoint wool (all three strands together), a thin red rayon mill end, and a pukey flesh-pink silk singles, Fiesta's La Luz (oh, look, they called the colorway Champagne; I'm never drinking anything that color).

The texture of the Paternayan wasn't different enough from the ground warp to stand out as much as I wanted.  Also, the bright gold was too bright and too monotone; if I went with this yarn, I'd overdye and tone down this color (and every other bright/light color I would have used of this yarn, as I was thinking of using many different colors, depending on what the painted warp was doing at a particular point).  This sample weft also made clear to me that while going from selvedge was interesting, it might be cool to have these weft floats go only partway across the warp, or cover only part of the middle of the warp.

The red rayon was much better, but I quickly wanted a thicker yarn.  A quick toss of one bin turned up two skeins of the silk La Luz.  This texture I like a great deal; the color not so much (did I mention puke?) and again I think I'd prefer a less solid color, although the little dark warp-wise shadows help this yarn out more than they did for the wool.

Here's the sample after washing:

The differential shrinkage between the ground warp and the weft floats is tolerable, but note at the top of the photo how the solid Harrisville Highland stripes shrunk lengthwise more than the painted warp bout.  That's because the painted warp yarn had been washed, but the Harrisville hadn't.  When I wound on this striped warp, there was about a foot too much of the Harrisville at the end, even though I'd measured off 8 yards.  I don't know if this will be a pain in the final finished fabric; we'll see.

Kicking and Screaming

After a six-week or so hiatus, Our Heroine returns to the fray.

Stay tuned.

Decisions

It's time to fish.  No more cutting bait, no more sampling.  I need to get the warp on the loom and woven off so that it's down to assembly and writing before we head off to pick up the AVL on the 22nd.  That weekend will be gone, so I need to make sure I'm in good shape.

That said, I've been looking hard at the gample (see?  new word!) I did this past week and it was absolutely the right thing to do.  My beat was much better and more even (and I'm also reminding myself that a 20" warp is a different beast than a 9" warp) and the patterns are now evident in ways they'd not been before.  So, first off, some pictures of each particular treadling/tie-up:

In all versions, the warp color order, from left to right, green-blue-purple.  And, I treadled each version in all three colors, green-blue-purple, before changing the tie-up/treadling pattern.  Squares were 3" wide by 4" tall on the loom.  Or as close to that as possible, and woven as a balanced fabric - 30 epi/ 30ppi.

This version has a more distinct horizontal/vertical look - and it also has a waffle-like texture that's quite different from the other two.

And here's an example of what I mean about a fabric being "hot".  That value difference between the light green and either the blue or purple is significant - and the purple/green zinging off of each other really tends to overwhelm the pattern.  Comare the upper left with the lower right - and, most intriguing, the top middle with the lower right.  Neat, huh?

A better look at the waffle-like one - I think either of the two-color versions would work well.  But, I'm 99% sure that this one is the winner:

It has the plaiting effect that Anita wanted, quite strongly, but when viewed from a distance, it doesn't get too crazy.  And, it's in line with the Pantone colors that she wanted.  I've plenty of both colors to make this happen so no worries on that front.

So, whaddya think?

Progress

Deadline weaving continues over here - it's another vest but this time it's specifically for Handwoven.  I was asked to follow the Pantone "Winter 2013" color palette and I boldly chose a set of three colors from Jaggerspun in the 20/2 Maine Line wool.  I had planned to take a page out of Sara's book (article) and use two colors that are close in value to get a more interesting warp.  That resulted in choosing a purple and a deep blue.  For the weft, I wanted a high-contrast color and I settled on a very light teal.

Next was some quality time looking at plaited twills from a variety of sources.  This was my Saturday:

A combination of FiberWorks, Olesner, Strickler, a few Handwovens and various other weaving books.  I'm so glad that I have a good library on which to draw - it makes a world of difference.  A few hours later and I'd worked up a series of potential fabrics based on an 8-shaft straight-twill threading.  So, time to wind the warp and get moving.  Lickety-split, I was done weaving on Sunday afternoon and then I washed and finished the fabric.  I'd even tested two different setts so I could be sure of the fabric.

Yeah, I can hear it now.  You're already saying it to yourself, "What was she THINKING?  Plaited twill?  In THOSE colors?"  Well, Pantone was thinking along those color lines, and in principle it seemed like it could work, but once I got the fabric off the loom ... ugh.  Suffice to say that it would be fashionable but most assuredly not something that I wanted to stare at for the next four weeks, much less wear for the next 20 years.  I was pretty despondent on Monday.  So, I got out my calculator and spreadsheet and confirmed that I could squeeze out another sample and still be able to choose any combination of colors I wanted for warp/weft.  I threw on another warp - this time, each color by itself in a wide stripe so that I could do a little gamp.

Smart girl.  Should have done this from the start, and "note to self" in that category, but I'm much, much happier with all these possibilites.

Here's the whole shebang - and now you can see, perhaps, why I think that greenish blue is just a bit "hot".

None of the green ones are particularly horrible - and that bit in the lower right corner is woven off with 20/2 silk, you know, for science! - but absolutely not "me".  And, for something that's going out into the wild, I think it's important that it be something that I like and not just something that the customer wants.  Otherwise, what's the point?

So, the decision now is whether I want to use the purple or the blue as the warp.  The fabrics are distinctly different - and switching them out, warp vs. weft, gives different looks, but all of them are worth going after I think.  Even the monochrome ones are interesting - but they'd be a bear to weave.

Yeah, huge sigh of relief over here.  I'll make it.  It'll be tight, and I can't get distracted, but I'll make it.  Then again, I've got these headbands I've been knitting ...

I'm Weaving, Honest!

Yeah, it's been a little while since I've posted, but it's not for lack of productivity.  Since finishing the sample for Jacey, I've been clearing the decks (both physically and mentally) in prep for the Handwoven work.  None of it is particularly inspiring, but I'll share it here just as a talking point.

First off, placemat samples for the shop:

The owners are always looking for simple rigid heddle projects and these fit the bill nicely.  Big, chunky cotton (machine wash and dry!) and a little bit of finger manipulation to make it interesting.  The pattern is an adaptation from The Weaver's Idea Book to use yarns we carry, so the write-up is just enough to describe the yarn substitution changes.  I liked these, actually, and they were my first chance to make use of the table loom.  Total overkill for plain weave, you might say, but I liked the fact that I could just flip levers and not worry.  And no mental stress when learning the quirks of the Jane.  These go to the shop today.

Second was the end of the Long Towel Warp.

It's my own adaptation of the Keep It Simple towels and there are 13 of them there.  Plus some other treadlings because I was losing my mind after a while.  Also, a bit at the end to keep as a sample for color possibilities in the future.  I'll be cutting apart and hemming these babies this weekend (one or two are already sold to my neighbors) and the rest go into the bin for Art Fair.  I'm more than half way to my total, so two more long warps and I'm done.  I think I'll make it.

Separately, I've been knitting like crazy on a Knit, Swirl! sweater.  It's big, white, and there's lots of mohair.  The knitting will get done tonight, then I can wash and block over the weekend while the weather is good.  It'll also serve as a foil for getting the sample warp on and off the loom for the vest, washing Edith (finally!  It's only been a year.) and generally trying to ignore the fact that I'll have a lot of time to myself next week.

And who thought that Plaited Twill would get my brain pinging so hard on Blocks?  It's just crazy making, I know.  I think I need a separate brain for percolating and one for actually weaving.

One Down (well, almost)

As you so rightly point out, Lynn, it's May.  The good news is that this means we're smack in the middle of Q2 and I'm not yet totally hosed when it comes to getting things done.  And, with the added revelation that my two article pieces aren't due until July 1st, I'm breathing a big sigh of relief.

I'm going to go ahead and put the project notes for Ply here, with a mind toward keeping a virtual record and having a link to which to point people if they end up asking about it once the magazine comes out.  And, here's a picture of the finished piece:

Ha!  Fooled you, didn't I?  I'm such a stinker that way.  On the other hand, I can show you a picture of this:

an empty loom.  I cut the finished piece off yesterday morning before heading in and the only thing left to do before finishing it is twisting the fringe.  Initial plan was to borrow the fringe twister from the shop yesterday but I forgot it - so that's on the list for tonight.  I did, however, wash the sample and I couldn't be happier.  It feels magnificent and I think it's just lovely.  So, for posterity, here are the details:

Yarn:  2-ply point-of-twist-spun English BFL combed top
Colors:  Warp left natural, weft dyed light turquoise to match the "mood board"
Grist:  approx. 5,000 ypp (roughly 18/2)
Sett:  30 epi, three ends per dent in a 10 dent reed
Beat:  30 ppi (as much as possible!)
Warp Length:  3 yards
Warp Width:  200 ends, 6 2/3" in the reed
Woven Width:  6.25" on the loom, 6" off the loom (unfinished)
Woven Length:  72" on the loom 69.5" off the loom (unfinished)

Sample post-finishing:  5 3/4 - 5 7/8" width.  I think 5 3/4" is where the FO will end up.

Pattern is a 4-harness "Fancy Twill" that is a mixture of Network and Advancing Point twills.  Treadling is all Advancing Point twill.  I'll be supplying a .WIF along with the article text.  The design was a compromise - but I still wanted to give 4-harness weavers a nudge.  Jeane called the design "sophisticated"; I'm mentally transferring that to "complicated", but I don't think that's true.  We'll see how it goes.

Separately, Jagger called me back this morning (still processing a lovely female voice attached to the name "Chuck") and they're popping yarn in the mail today for the vest.  I'm going to say a bit more about it here because it's not finalized (colors are, but still) and the planning stage is important!  We've settled on an 8-harness plaited twill from A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns.  There are a few that are related to crepe weave and that should yield a good fabric for sewing.  I'll do a short sample warp to make sure I'm happy with sett and then off to weave.  A test-drive in Fiberworks gives this:

I'll most likely turn the draft once I settle on a fabric because I want something that'll be quick to weave off and not prone to mistakes.  A complicated threading is fine; but straight treadling makes for quick work!  The warp will be two colors, wound together and threaded semi-random.

If I get the fabric done quickly, I'll head down to Palm Springs for a weekend with Jeane and we'll sew together.  She gave me high marks on the first vest, and a few tips for improving the finishing, but they require pattern modification and I'm a bit loathe to do that on a piece that has a deadline.  I'm totally happy to just make what I've already made, with a minor improvement in execution, but it'd be nice to update the pattern in general.

So, that's where things sit.  This week will be weaving off that loooooooooooooong towel warp so that I can reclaim the Gilmore and, hopefully, put on a cotton warp for an origami shirt.  I need to make that so that I can test-drive for my Summer Project.

All this weaving has made me deliriously happy.  I can see real improvements over where I was even six months ago - and that is chalked up to actually making stuff.  Don't tell Sara, but I think she's right.  Even if it's not perfect, it needs to get finished.  Because that's when we really start to learn.