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When you see a kite stuck in a tree where no kite was before, you know Spring is not far behind.
The amazing weavers in the rigid heddle class continue to push the envelope and are very comfortable with their string heddles. Click to enlarge.
In my own studio, I'm giving my fingers a rest and doing some more investigations of amalgamated drafts on the computer. Click to enlarge here too.
The last one reminds me of a game of snakes & ladders.
It has been almost a year since I last worked on my amalgamation samples. In the interim I've made a major life change and moved to a new home. My studio has been reorganized, and all my work flow has changed as well.
It's small wonder that getting back to amalgamation is a puzzle! Many of the concepts I thought were fixed rules have "slipped and slided" alarmingly. New combinations and variations have popped up, seemingly out of nowhere, and I am in a muddle!
But it's a good muddle and I welcome the new possibilities. How amusing that the major hurdle now is that both my multishaft looms already have long warps on them and I will have to finish these warps before I can test the new drafts. I foresee many happy hours of weaving ahead. The days are getting longer, and the added natural light is a bonus.
Click on the image below to "embiggen" it. No two of these amalgamated drafts are exactly alike, although some are similar. Oh, the joy of pixels!
We were very serious at first, as the subject matter requires intense concentration.
Then things got a little rowdy...
This is all in service of sending good wishes to Gail, our classmate who is recovering at home. Get well soon, Gail!
Over the past week or so I've done quite a bit of sampling, on several looms. On the 16 shaft lobby, I enjoy trying out some of the more interesting crepe weaves on handweaving.net, and I take the opportunity to use up partly filled, leftover bobbins. The warp is mostly bright red. The result: long fabrics with random weft stripes. These will be used for origami bags.
On the 8 shaft loom, a different (but similar) project is evolving. This 4" sample warp is more neutral in color & tonal value, several different cotton, hemp, and linen yarns, warped more or less randomly. Here too I am trying out interesting crepes, none with floats longer than 3.
I've found a few favorites, looking for drapability after washing & ironing, as the fabric is destined for clothing.
So back to the warping board, and a 16" wide warp. Here it is being beamed:
And now it's ready to go:
A glamor shot behind the heddles.
The weaving is underway. I will switch randomly among my three favorite crepe drafts and a couple of 2/2 twills, and three different cotton & linen wefts.
Well now, that's a lot of unexciting color, and the weather outside is foggy and grim. For a bit of good cheer, we headed out to our favorite stockiest and found some saturated color. This is not my beverage of choice, but it might be a good starting point for a new project.
This morning I sewed up two more origami bags. You can see a previous bag in this post. It's gone to a new home. The sister bags hung out for a while over a living room lamp, and then went outdoors for some more pictures.
They are especially handy as knitting project bags, carryalls for a trip to the library, or the farmer's market.
The warps are all the same. The weft on this one is black...
...and on this one is blue.
The weather this week has been crazy. First there were torrential rain and flooding, lots of mud, then a dusting of snow, and yesterday temps in the 70's. Today is cloudy and warm, and I was able to get out for a walk before the expected rain. My favorite tree was surrounded by ducks and geese, and a light dusting of children covered its branches.
Thoreau's Cabin sat in dignified isolation.
Apologies. This one was in the queue for posting on Feb. 5, but never got published. A little bit of huck, and some more spots. Enjoy.
The fourth, and I think the last, warp has been tied on to this old friend, a straight threading on 16 shafts. I've had a lot of fun with it.
After the winding on, I can enjoy the color gradations, here seen behind the heddles. The darker warp gradations are only along one selvedge.
Ready to weave.
The first few inches of the weaving. This is a simple dobby design from handweaving.net. I think it will showcase the ombré warp nicely.
A closer view.
And here's a funny picture. I put my smart phone underneath the weaving, to catch the reverse side, as it's much more interesting than the right side. I didn't realize that I'd taken a selfie in the process.
In our OLLI class, the weavers have completed their first brocade samplers. Here are just a few of them just after cutting off.
The weather was dreadful––torrential rains on Thursday––but most of the weavers made it to class.
And then on Friday, a bit of a surprise. Snow.
In spite of the weather, Patti & I drove up to Asheville to see the Downton Abbey show at Biltmore House. The kitchen was especially endearing.
The costumes stole the show, as you might imagine. The wedding gowns were luscious, but my fave was this woolen fabric in a suit worn by Lady Edith. It was described as a herringbone, but to my eye it was definitely a double weave, a plain layer ad a twill layer, interchanged. Click to enlarge.
Can't resist a sewing machine, any time, anywhere.
Dinner, anyone? Check out the damask tablecloth.
Back home, in the studio, I have finished hemming the most recent batch of towels. Some of them are Huck, some are various other weaves, all highly textured.
The striped borders are a little funky, but I am enjoying their randomness.
Spotted in a campus parking lot. I really can't say it any better:
Still working on the straight threading, 16 shafts. More huck. This one has warp floats & weft floats, so let's call it huck lace.
And here are weft floats only.
In rigid heddle territory, I've been working hard on perfecting a brocade spider. Not there yet, but improving.
The idea behind this grouping was to see how many structures & patterns I could weave on a straight threading on 16 shafts. The answer of course is "many." I worked out several huck designs that repeated after eight iterations, and some twills that were simulations of 9-end point threadings. There are also some overshot borders.
The hanging loops were woven on an inkle loom, using the same yarns in the towel. Here's a huck towel with an overshot border...
...and a closer look.
I was so busy at the loom that I didn't notice it was snowing outside (this was Friday) until Patti called me and told me to look out the window. That's what weaving does to you! But I do take occasional breaks. Here's the lake on my Saturday morning walk.
There was a huge flock of birds circling overhead. They were so high that I couldn't tell what kind they were. But I was glad to see them anyway, and I stood and watched for several minutes. Standing in one place and looking up is quite a balancing trick, I've found. It's especially hazardous if bicyclists are zipping by. But no harm came to any of us.