Weaverly

More Lampas

With no ceremony (I usually like to round up anyone nearby and have a glass of wine), I just took the scissors to the warp and voilà: 

I guess this qualifies as a selfie, as those are my very own feet. At this distance, the color choices look a little better than they did on the loom. I will hem them, put them on the wall, and then look at them from the next county. Then perhaps I'll feel better about the colors.

Here we are at the sewing machine, and a view of the lampas on the wrong side. That sinister looking tool is very handy for keeping my fingers out of harm's way while sewing. 

I'm now weaving a third lampas piece on this warp. I've added ties to the areas that previously had double weave. This will become more apparent when the piece is off the loom and washed. 

The colors change dramatically at different times of day.

Reds & Blues…& Greens

No work gets done on Sundays until after the Grand Prix (in season, of course). Yesterday's race was held in Hungary.

Then I started a second version of the lampas project. This time I varied the sizes of the blocks, and tried a variegated handspun wool as the pattern weft.

I'm not too sure of the wisdom of my color choices in this one, but it's still too early to tell.

A beautiful gift of 2 ounces of Qiviut is drying on my back porch after a warm bath to remove some dust & dirt. It has expanded into quite a large volume. I'll be combining it with brown Shetland wool for spinning. 

In the department of books, I have just finished reading The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty: A Novel by Vendela Vida. If I had to describe it in four words, I'd say clever, funny, intense, and dark. Recommended.

Old Friends, Best Friends

Yes, it's time to weave lampas again. After I finished working on the lampas monograph (see sidebar), I put lampas aside for a few years. Then there was a pandemic. I consoled myself with some old friends. As I recall, there was lots of chocolate.

And long walks close to home.

But a few days ago I was surveying this evidence of stash-busting in my garage:

And a little voice said, "it's really time for more lampas."

And so I put a new warp on my 8-shaft loom...

...and started sampling lampas blocks. Warp is a mixture of 10/2 cotton and 8/2 tencel for the primary warp, and a fine wool/tencel blend for the secondary warp. The weft is 10/2 cotton for primary warp and sport-weight 2-ply handspun wool for the secondary weft. 

The structure for the primary blocks (ground) is plain weave, and a jeans twill for the secondary (pattern) blocks. Shafts 1-3 for the jeans twill, shafts 4 & 5 for Block One plain weave, shafts 6 & 7 for Block Two plain weave, leaving me a handy shaft 8 for a selvedge. There is some tying going on in the secondary blocks (so there's no true double weave here), which is causing some blips which I'll have to address later. Also a few misbehaving selvedges. But this is a first run I'm showing you. 

Nice to see you again, Lampas, my old friend!

Department of Books

I just finished reading Plunder: A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure by Menachem Kaiser.

4-Shaft Joy

The final three towels from this little draft are washed & dried. 

I am thrilled to report that I love them. They are thick, squishy, scrunchy.

The black & white version is especially delicious. It's a kind of texture plaid.

The rust one is striped.

And for the last one I used up all sorts of bobbins, both cotton & linen. A hit-or-miss mélange.

Here's the result:

And finally, a group photo of all six squishy towels in the series:

They're roughly 22" x 26" finished.

While all this towel happiness was developing indoors, we were having violent thunderstorms outside. I managed to dart out long enough for a few quick snapshots. Yes, the strange light made my white hydrangeas look green.

Stay safe, everyone. And drink plenty of water.

Too Hot to Think

The heat is not as bad here as elsewhere, but it does slow me down a bit. 

This used to be a color that cheered me up, but now it's almost too much.

I toned that color plan down a bit for a new warp on the dobby loom. Loom had been sitting naked for a while. 

Straight draw on 16 shafts, nothing fancy. Just to keep her clothed. This is #12808 from handweaving.net. It has a delightfully pebbly texture on the front.

A night view.

And now for something a little cooler. To me this says melting snow. #7467 if you want to try it out.

I found the following two pictures from an old blog post that was written but never actually posted. Oops. It was from a field trip to several antique stores. Very spooky stairway. I did not go that way.

But I did go upstairs.

Department of Books. I just finished reading Donna Tartt's The Secret History. 

Hemp, Campari, and Other Good Things

A couple of days ago it was cool enough to walk on the Trail in midmorning..

...but not today. I did get my greens in with this snapshot in my breakfast room (a.k.a. dining alcove). The greens are from the extraordinarily healthy hydrangea just outside the window. I didn't know it would impede my view when it was first planted, but that's OK. It's actually quite fun to watch its daily progress. 

The three towels from the previous post were cut off, hemmed, and washed, and they are posing here for their group picture. From left to right are the white and green wefts, and the natural hemp weft. 

My favorite is the hemp version. It feels like the kind of towel you would use to dry off a baby after her bath. No babies hereabouts, but you get the idea. Here's a closeup. Click to enlarge. 

I retied the treadles slightly, and started another towel with a black weft this time. Tromp as writ. Here's a warp drawdown of the structure.

And here it is on the loom. 

I completed the weaving this morning before lunch, and this afternoon, after a quick shopping trip to pick up a bottle of Campari, I started the following with a rust cotton weft. It just occurs to me that there's an interesting connection here.

In this version the tie-up is changed again and I am using a simple rosepath variant in the treadling, for a striped towel.

P.S.

I posted the wrong draft at the end of my post a few minutes ago. Above is the correct one. 

Slicing and Dicing (Long)

This is long. Sometimes ideas take a long time to come about. They hide in secret places.

This particular idea was born in two cones of bleached white 10/2 cotton in my stash, still wrapped in shiny film after many years. Time to attack them head on. 

I wanted a substantial warp, not my usual dribs and drabs of samples, and I wanted the weaving to be comfortable and easy. I beamed the warp onto my LeClerc Nilus, a workhorse 8-shaft loom (of which I have only four set up). Here are a few views from the back.

And the front, with 2 1/2 pound weights attached to the warp four chains. 

We take a pause to go grocery shopping. I did not buy these cakes, but I always pause to look at the display. If you're thinking stripes and block arrangements, there's fodder here.

Back in the studio, the 700 warp ends are threaded and slayed. Slow but steady wins the race.

Another day is done. The moon last night was hidden by clouds at bedtime, but showed her face for a second or so.

You are probably curious about what will happen on this warp. I've been tinkering with 3- and 4-shaft weaves, and I finally settled on this one. I guess you could call it an amalgamated point twill. 

I wanted the original trial to be all of white yarn, warp & weft alike. Looking for maximum texture expression here.

It's very subtle. I think washing will enhance the structure considerably. I think. I hope.

Then I tried to weave it with a green weft. Warp patterns narrow, then wide, repeat. Same for weft direction. This snapshot was accidentally taken in monochrome mode, all black & white, but no matter, you get the idea.

Here is is with the green weft. Click to enlarge.

Then, surprise! All of a sudden it is supper time. I am washing the strawberries, then see that my sous chef has chosen an old dishtowel for today's use. Very old. It's actually a sample of pick-up broken twill, which had made its way into the towel drawer, as many old samples do hereabouts. From about forty years ago. Pre-computer assisted weaving. What goes around comes around.

Department of Books: I just finished reading A Game of Hide and Seek by Elizabeth Taylor (not that Elizabeth Taylor, the other one).