Weaverly

Course Correction

“The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft a-gley.” ––Robert Burns

An hour before I was scheduled to begin my Zoom seminar on Amalgamation with Complex Weavers, there was a community-wide power failure hereabouts. The Internet went down, too. Three hours later, power was restored. The Internet went back up an hour later. Note to self: there are some things over which we have no control. Get over it.

Then... I went ahead and presented my Zoom seminar anyway, to an audience of 0 persons, and recorded it to the cloud.

It's up there! 

Meanwhile, I had a cup of tea,

...gathered my wits,

...and I'm ready to tackle my next warp.

Local Color

This morning, before it got up into the triple digits, I walked in the woods parallel to the Swamp Rabbit Trail. There's always something to see, whether you look up, or as in this case, down. 

These are not colors I usually choose, but today they appealed to me. I added them to a 4-shaft draft I am playing with. 

No true tabby here, but there could be a sort of m's and o's variation. Think about it.

A UFO Comes Home

This yardage was languishing on my sewing table for months, and I couldn't stand looking at it any more. Time to finish it.

I cut it in half, put two selvedges together with a flat-felled seam, and voilà, a new tablecloth.

I am enjoying the humor of it and wondering why I didn't get around to finishing it sooner. 

And miracle of miracles, I was even able to find the draft in my project notebook:


Well, not exactly. I only used the point twill treading portion for the tablecloth.  That gave it a textured stripe effect.

But here's another piece from the same warp, in this case with the block treadling:

––––––––––––––––––––––––––

In the Department of Books, I finished reading E.H.'s A Farewell to Arms.

 

Further Stash Reduction

It so happens that I have no more empty bobbins. This is a supply chain issue. Weaving comes to a halt until I do something about that.

Fortunately, I have a lot of yardage left on the natural warp on my 4-shaft loom. I took all the half-full bobbins and lined them up in a vaguely pleasing color sequence. They're all cotton or cottolin, in similar sizes.

There are about 3 dozen total. I'm about halfway through. So far the stripe arrangements are pleasing.

I get better results when I don't overthink my color arrangements. Your mileage may vary.

The weave structure is a variation of a twill amalgamation on 4 shafts. Yes, it is possible!

It's an original draft. Feel free to borrow; all I ask is that you give appropriate credit if you post or publish.

This & That

Thank you, everyone, for your interest in my publications, particularly the newest, Amalgamation.  The best way to contact me for orders is through email, not in the comments to the individual posts. My email link is in the sidebar, to the left. If you leave comments on my blog without your email address, I can't respond to you!

Warping again. It keeps me grounded during these awful times.

For those who have asked about the weights, they are called SoftGrip Hand Weights. These particular ones are 2.5 lb. each. A quick internet search will bring up many suppliers. Or you could use milk jugs filled with water, or cloth bags filled with rice. But these are not as messy. Just sayin'.

Sample, sample, sample. Red cotton and yellow rayon in the warp, purple cotton weft

Interleaved non-parallel threading in ProWeave software. If your eyes are sharp, you can spot Uncle Potch's self-portrait on the far wall. Potch was my father's brother. The whole paternal side of my family came from a town in Europe called Lvov, now known as Lviv. 

You've all got your own favorite organizations for support of Ukrainian refugees, but here are two suggestions:

International Rescue Committee

HIAS

Straight Lines and Curves

No shortage of straight lines this morning at the Sustainability Center. More broccoli to come.

And for curves, I give you these...

...or these.

Meanwhile, I am still enjoying weaving dishtowel-sized samples on 12 shafts. This is a waffle variant.

And yet another waffle weave variant.

I don't know what you would call this. It started out as a 7-shaft point twill, and I amalgamated it & came up with this. OK, let's call it a crepe. Wet finishing will tell us more.

Another oddity which will  metamorphose into something very 3D. 

In the Department of Books, I have just finished reading Lucky Us by Amy Bloom. I loved her novel Away when I read it several years ago, and this one is equally good. 

New Amalgamation Tool

For all you fans of handweaving.net (and I hope that's most of you), Kris Bruland's new amalgamation tool has just gone live. Go to the site, log in to your account, and have the best weaving hour of your life. Kris has produced an intro video which will get you started. 

I'm having a great time creating new drafts with this tool. It's not the same as working in your own software, but is an interesting extension. The more the merrier.

Here's a 16-shaft draft I came up with in 5 minutes, based on draft #54019 in handweaving.net, using the amalgamation tool. 

New Perspective

Yesterday on the Swamp Rabbit Trail I started to see all the creeping vines. I know they have been there all along, but perhaps I was not as alert to them before. This makes me think it's time for a new warp.

It is very unusual to see the trail this deserted. The cyclists won't be out until later in the day.

The crinkle scarf is cut off, washed, and hung out to dry. The narrow sections of handspun wool singles shrunk nicely. The rest of the scarf is linen.

Another linen scarf, this time without crinkles. This one's 100% linen, with an amalgamated twill draft.

And a little something extra today. A jacquard sighting in a waiting room. I can't really see the structure, but I can envision it being woven in doubleweave.

Finished reading The New Land by David Stewart.

Possibilities

The sky this morning, just after the rain stopped. Lots of possibilities.

Into the woods. I spotted these little beauties again, off to one side. You really have to be paying attention. 

Carolyn says they are Helleborus. Such a grand name for a shy little thing.

On what remains of the linen warp, I'm trying a little experiment with energized yarn. The larger segments are amalgamations with a linen weft, and the narrow stripes are a basket weave variation with multiple strands of overspun wool singles.

I'm hoping that the real drama will come about in the wash, as the wool singles release their energy and shrink up. 

Just finished reading The Charleston Gambit by Stuart Bennett, an excellent historical novel about the Revolutionary War in the South Carolina backcountry.

Complex Weavers Seminars 2022

Registration is now open for Complex Weavers Seminars 2022 in Knoxville, TN, July 10-13. I will be teaching a seminar via Zoom: Amalgamation Celebration. Go here for more information and to register. 

Amalgamation is wild and crazy! Join the party.