Weaverly

Origami Bag

Some recent short woven pieces are becoming origami-style bags, or what are now termed "bento bags". Do a search, and you will find hundreds of examples and instructions galore on the net. These bags are really easy to sew, and quite useful around the studio (and at the grocery).

The requirements are simple: a piece of fabric three times as long as it is wide.

The asymmetric stripes in the warp take on interesting relationships after the folding.

In the book department, I just finished reading a pretty good police procedural, Peter Robinson's "Aftermath." Fair warning: lots of blood and gore, but the characters are well developed and the story cleverly plotted. Take this one to the beach. Summer will be here before you know it.

Order Out of Chaos

I've enjoyed the straight threading on 16 shafts so much that I decided to tie on a third warp. This time I emptied a collection of bobbins wound with 10/2 cotton, held three at a time with two other 10/2 yarns, a light blue and a light green, for a random warp. The colors were selected in no particular order, just as they came to hand. Moreover, only half the warp was wound, with a cross at both ends, and the warp was folded in half, so that the color order fell out to be more or less symmetrical.

The tying-on stage looks like a horrendous mess to the uninitiated. 

But when all the ends are tied, and you give the warp a good shake and a spanking, order starts to emerge.

The knots have passed through the reed and are approaching the heddles. Looking better.

Here's a view from the back of the loom. The sight of a well wound warp is a treat to the eye.

The weaving of a set of towels has begun. The hems are straight twill in 10/2 cotton. The body of the towels is a slubby linen-cotton blend in point twill. The twill is one which could be woven on a point draft on nine shafts, but it fits perfectly on the straight draw on 16 shafts. This is such a versatile threading!

A closer look. The pattern shows up well in the center section, but tends to get a little lost where the stripes occur in the warp. I rather like that. What do you think?

Huck Hack

This new warp has three yarns: natural 10/2 cotton, pale green 10/2 cotton, and 16/2 natural hemp. They were held together as I wound the warp, and picked randomly as I tied them on to the existing warp, which was in straight draw. The first piece I wove was a crepe.

I then tried some pseudo-huck drafts, which I devised to more or less fit into the straight threading on 16 shafts. Here's the first one.

Then I thought of trying a lace effect, but again something that would fit into the existing threading. Here's what I came up with.

And here it is on the loom, with a hemp weft.

 

Removing the color from the picture, you can see the structure a little better.

And here it is after cutting the fabric off the loom and washing, drying, and steaming it.

Time to take a break from the loom. A blue heron strides along the stream bed as it enters the lake. 

Getting Warped

This week marked the first session of my brocade class at OLLI. These weavers are not novices. I didn't have to spend a lot of time explaining warp, weft, shed, and all the other arcana of weaving. We just dove in. All hail the rigid heddle loom.

As you can see, we share this room with the chess classes.

Each warp is a different color. That wasn't planned, it just happened.

I think collectively we walked several miles.

A very congenial group of nine.

Meanwhile, back at home, the long warp on my 16-shaft loom has been finished, cut off, washed & ironed. There are three long pieces of cloth and a few little samples at the end. I really enjoyed all this sampling on a straight threading!

A gray day on my walk. I think the tower is leaning. Some people agree with me.

In the woods a lot of brown, but it makes the little bit of green all the more startling.

The purple cabbage relatives in the Furman Garden supply a welcome jolt of intense color to the winter landscape.

I just finished reading "First You Write a Sentence." by Joe Moran. I found it entertaining and highly useful. Thanks for the recommendation, Carla.

A Dilemma and Two Birds

The samples have been washed and ironed, and a dilemma arises. The samples are both from the same threading but the warp yarns are different. The one on the left is more pleasing to my eye and the one on the right feels better in my hand. Must think about this some more. Ground rules: I want to make this decision without buying more yarn. Hm-m-m. What Would Mary Atwater Do?

Heading out on my walk. Wear a jacket? Not? A peep of blue.

Took off the jacket half way. Sun came out. The blue heron is standing on the log usually covered with turtles. Is that a good sentence? You know that the heron is not covered with turtles. 

The black swan came out of the lake and waddled toward me. It makes a sound like a kitten! 

A surprise. I've been hanging some old weavings. I found this one, based on a photo of the Savage River in Alaska, in a storage box. It's dated 2005. I hung it on the wall over my bobbin winder. Surprise! It gets good light from a nearby window, and suddenly I saw it "in a new light." It has a depth I never noticed before. I enjoy seeing it first thing in the morning when I go into the studio.

I wove it on my TC-1. The structure is "warp tapestry." Warp tapestry is a term used in industry to describe a form of double weave jacquard with a many-colored warp. It is not weft-faced tapestry as handweavers use the term. I no longer have the TC-1. Sometimes I miss it.

Tying On a New Warp

Some of you have asked me about my process of tying a new warp to an old one. Tying on is quick and easy if you are maintaining the same threading. The following snapshots are presented in chronological order. If you pay attention to position (front of loom, back of loom) you won't have any trouble figuring this out. Notice particularly where the knots are. Ease the knots gently through reed and heddles. It's more of a massaging action, not a yanking!

 

These are samples for a larger project. There are three colors in the warp. In the second sample warp I substituted an orange yarn for the turquoise bouclé. I loved the bouclé, but the color wasn't right. I think the substitution of the orange was a good move. There is some iridescence going on, which was my goal.

Eight shafts.

Lines

Lines. Straight, curved, tangled, interlaced.

It's great to have company. We take long walks. Here we are at the Center for Sustainability. Broccoli.

Here's Erik helping to untangle some connections. It's a fiber experience, in a way.

A long ride up the mountain on an overcast day. The bare trees on the top of Caesar's Head. Straight lines.

And on the loom, a sample. Three warps. One weft. Eight shafts.

Sampling

Time for a new warp on the 8-shaft loom. I want to do a parallel threading with three colors. I haven't done this in a while, and I'm using yarns which are unfamiliar to me, so sampling is in order.

A narrow sample, about 4 1/2 inches.

Looking good. The bouclé yarn muddies the pattern a bit, but I love the texture of the cloth. This will be a tough decision.

Here's an awkward shot of the reverse side.

Meanwhile, more patterning out on the Trail. Frost on the grasses this morning, but rapidly dissipated.

Stripes galore. Taking care there are no cyclists around while I take a few snapshots.

In the book dept, recently read: The Group, by Mary McCarthy; News of the World, by Paulette Jiles; Ash Before Oak, by Jeremy Cooper. Can not spot a trend here.

An Anniversary

For my first post of 2020 I'm taking a look back, way back. I began this blog twelve years ago, and have been posting more or less regularly, sometimes daily, sometimes weekly, for all that time, during good times and bad. It's interesting to see that my first post mentions a walk around the Furman lake. Of course I never dreamed that I'd wind up at Furman in 2020! Curious.

My original intention was to record my impressions of my weaving life and other thoughts that drifted through my mind. In my blog I wanted to avoid politics and religion, because there were (and are) plenty of other places on the Web to engage with those topics, if one wanted to. I always found weaving the perfect tool to bring comfort in difficult times in my life. Once in the Zone, whether at the loom, the spinning wheel, the warping board (and later, when binding books), the troubles melted away or anyway stayed in deep background. I thought there would be other people out there who would like to read about my activities. And there were. Many of you. 

I knew that most of my readers were lurkers (awful word!) and read the posts and moved on. That's OK. I'm mostly a lurker myself on the Web. Occasionally someone would post a comment, and I would be notified of comments by an email alert from Typepad. Sometimes I replied, sometimes not. I always appreciated the comments. They were like a little hello across the planet. 

Now here's the funny part. Recently (maybe during the past year or so) there were no more comments, or so  I thought, because Typepad, for some reason, ceased sending me the email alerts. I never thought to check on the actual blog page. But a friend told me yesterday about all these comments, and when I went back to the posts, and there they were! Comments galore, and comments on the comments. And no reply from me. You can imagine my surprise and chagrin. Had I known about the comments, I'd have chimed in! I so appreciate the comments, and they tell me that I am not shouting out into the void, but actually communicating with live people. So thank you, thank you, to all of you who have taken the time to comment. 

About politics and religion. We are living in such perilous times, that continuing to drone on about this or that yarn or my latest favorite weave structure seems dishonest, as if that's all that's on my mind. Occasionally issues of how we relate to each other as human beings spill over into my weaving life, and I find I must share them with you. Yes, it's my blog, and I can say what I want, as long as it's not harmful to another person. You, in turn, can read or not read, as you choose, and comment or not comment. 

So I will continue to post about Weaving. Pixels. Life. for the foreseeable future. Thank you for reading. And keep those shuttles flying.