Weaverly

By Water and By Fire

The handspun yardage was cut off this morning, washed, and is hanging out to dry on the deck. 

It's all handspun wool and wool blends, both warp and weft. Plain weave.

That was the water part. Thursday we drove up to Asheville to celebrate an anniversary. 

Here are the rapeseed fields on the Biltmore estate. Rapeseed is the stuff they use to make canola oil, I learned. 

One of the gates near the main house.

Now for the fire part. We spent the evening viewing installations of Chihuly glass art on the Biltmore property. The strategically placed lighting enhanced the glass in a dramatic way, both outdoors and in. The next picture was just as the sun was going down.

Here's the only indoor installation.

My personal favorite was in one of the ponds, and the water added greatly to the effect with mysterious reflections.

Click here for more information about artist Dale Chihuly and for more information about Chihuly Nights at Biltmore, take a look here.

Warp Love

From time to time it becomes necessary to deal with the odds and ends of handspun wool and wool blends accumulating in a big basket in my studio. That's when I make a mixed warp and weave it off in plain weave. 

Designing a randomly mixed warp directly in the rigid heddle is such fun! It's an extremely right brain activity.

 

Moments in Time

The penultimate rigid heddle class was last Wednesday. It was a busy day, and everyone worked on their pick-up patterns. In the final class, we'll talk about alternate warping strategies. The time has really flown by! Thanks for the picture, Patti.

The deflected double weave scarf was cut off, washed, and dried. The wool/silk shrunk hardly at all, not what I was expecting. I think a more open sett in the wool parts would have been more dramatic. But I still like the final effect. The fabric has a luscious hand.

A Commitment

After due deliberation, I selected sample number 6, with draft corrections of course, and tied on another warp, this one with peach cotton and burgundy wool/silk, for a longish scarf. It's so loud that I almost have to dim the lights to weave on it! 

A closer look:

In the evening, reading short stories of Mavis Gallant.

Wash Day

After I washed all seven samples of deflected double weave, it was fascinating to see the results. Here are the scans of the cloth, in triplets. Each triplet shows, from left to right, (1) the original sample as cut off the loom; (2) the front of the sample, after washing & drying; and (3) the back of the sample. Click to enlarge.

The samples were woven on a 16-shaft dobby loom, with 10/2 mercerized cotton, blue & yellow, in warp & wefts at 30 epi and 30 ppi.

 

Two of the samples showed liftplan errors, which I was able to correct for future weaving. The errors didn't show up during weaving, but were very evident after washing.

What I found especially interesting was that the reverse sides were often quite different from the face sides, in very unpredictable ways. 

One More

It's like eating chocolates.

Hard to tell how much is left on the warp beam. I might be able to eke out two more samples.

Two More Samples

Deflected double weave in cotton. It seems that two a day is my limit, in between other tasks. 

They remind me of a tile floor. Click to enlarge.

But after they are wet finished, all bets are off.

What Goes Up Must Come Down

Yesterday, at spinners' day out, Ruth and I chose to do our walking through Falls Park, and wound up at the new trail extension, the Cancer Survivors Park. There are trails, bridges, gazebos, waterfalls, and flowers galore. Here are Ruth and me on a lookout area, casting our shadows.

It was really hot, even in the morning, and we eventually found a shady bench in Falls Park for our spinning. In the afternoon, I continued weaving on the rigid heddle loom. This project is a result of stash-diving: a little bit of silk & cotton knitting leftovers, a few yards of handspun wool, and some fabric strips. I was practicing my leno moves so that I can teach them next week.

This morning I finished warping the dobby loom with some cotton for deflected double weave, a structure I have long admired but never tried for myself. It is addictive!

Sixteen shafts. It will be exciting to wash the sample and see them do their magic.

Here We Go Again

A small sample warp.

 

Delight in Small Things

At a certain time of day in summer months, the light comes through my kitchen window at just the right angle to throw a shadow on the cabinet, highlighting the collection of little animals resting on the window frame. "Remember me?" they say.

While downstairs, where the light is dimmer, I'm rapidly using up the odds & ends of yarn on bobbins, randomly weaving stripes, hit & miss.