Weaverly

Another Monday

It seems to be spinning weather. I enjoy sitting on the back porch with a spindle and some wool, and enjoying these beautiful October days.

At some point the wool will be used for deflected double weave, perhaps like this draft.

My aloe plant has taken off and seems to be thriving. 

When I go outside and look up, I am rewarded with pattern (here with the color removed).

And in the Department of Books, I have just finished reading a novel penned by my neighbor, Joe Epley. It's about the Revolutionary war in the mountains of western North and South Carolina, and entitled "A Passel of Hate." A great read!

A Matter of Scale

You've seen this woven pattern before, dear reader. Clockwise from lower left, 16/2 cottolin at 40 epi and ppi, then 8/2 and 6/2 cotton at 20 epi and ppi, and still on the loom and under tension, black 2-ply handspun wool and orange cotton at 16 epi. Deflected double weave. Each warp tied on to the previous one. 

The orange and black cloth will shrink up quite a bit after cutting off and washing. Patience, patience.

Tonight after dinner this is what I saw out the back door. A nice reward for the day's craziness.

This has been a banner week for book arrivals here at the home place. I don't know where to start!

Now approaching the dozen mark of the Covid Diary series. This is #XI on the loom.

And here is #VIII after washing & steam press.

 

There's enough warp left for one more. Then I'll be ready to embark on a new project. I believe I've spent enough time on this topic.

I've branched out into other reading. Just finished Jane Urquhart's The Stone Carvers, historical novel about making a life in art. 

I See the Moon

I see the moon; the moon sees me
Under the shade of the old oak tree.
Please let the light that shines on me
Shine on the one I love.

That's the version we used to sing around the campfire at Girl Scout camp, and I'm sticking to it.

I look at the sky a lot these days. It's the one vista I have here that is limitless. 

Here is yesterday's morning sky, just before I set out for a walk. It did not rain on me, I'm happy to report.

Also yesterday, for some reason there were more than the usual number of fungi around the trees. This was the most humongous one I saw - it was about two feet across. 

For some reason it was the same colorway as the Covid Diary VIII just finished. That was purely accidental. Or was it?

I'm now up to the eleventh in the diary series. Here is the beginning of Covid Diary XI on the loom. It's more somber in tone than its precedents.

I attended a virtual watercolor workshop this week and brought in some flowers to draw. They lightened the mood. Bruce and I enjoyed photographing them, and then I did a few (unremarkable) watercolors. 

I had much more fun messing with Photoshop. My days of designing for the TC-1 (jacquard) came into play here.



In the department of books, current reading includes John Barry's The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History. On the same topic, Katherine Anne Porter's Pale Horse Pale Rider. Also La Peste by Albert Camus in English translation as The Plague. That concludes my pandemic-themed reading for a while. I'm now reading some historical fiction about the American Revolution, which I'll report on later.

Now back to the loom, as soon as we deal with a smoke alarm which went off in the middle of last night. False alarm. But lost some z's. 

Misadventures

Way back in the last millennium I wove some pieces based on the printed word, a nod to my interest in font design and page layouts. I decided to revisit this study last week. The structure was to be double plain weave on the dobby loom and I started by weaving some small samples for determining sett & yarn choices. I wanted to use cottolin for its scrunchy texture, similar to my favorite sketchbook paper. One of the weft yarns was a red cottolin of uncertain provenance. After washing, I had an unpleasant surprise. The red yarn bled badly. Glad I sampled.

The sample on the left is at 24 epi each layer, total 48, and the one on the right is 20 epi each layer, total 40. I liked the looser one best, so that is what I chose. I warped up with pale gold and chocolate brown. I made a number of threading errors and had to redo several times. It was a humbling experience, but it took my mind off the news. I finally prevailed. Here's a view at the back of the loom after warping. 

Fortunately there's plenty of warp for more sampling. I discovered a sleying error (see red arrow) and had to resley the righthand section. Um, that's an error you expect to see in Weaving 101. Bad doggie.

Got that sorted out. Tried some different weft colors & materials. 

Settled on pearl gray and dark green. I was going for the look of old ledger paper, and I think we're there. The turquoise lines are a nod to margin rules.

So far so good.

Just finished reading Camus's The Plague, in English translation. I think I read it before, in college, but I don't remember any of it.

Morning Light

When I go into the studio first thing in the morning, sometimes I see this:

The light is so alluring that it's impossible to leave, and I just have to sit down and start throwing the shuttle.

The weft in this case is a melon-colored cottolin, a shade of yellow very different than the acid yellow in the warp. It's just enough of a difference to show the pattern in the center area, but it's not overpowering.

Sidelighting enables you to see the pattern more clearly. 

In other matters, I've just learned that Janet Phillips's new book, Exploring Woven Fabrics, is now available at a pre-publication price. I love her previous book, Designing Woven Fabrics and I'm looking forward to this new one. Janet has a genius for combining simple weaves into complex-looking fabrics. More info here. 

Corrections

Fans of Amalgamation: you've been generous with your comments and corrections. Please check the sidebar, under Other Stuff, for updated errata files. I hope there won't be too many of them! 

And now moving on to the next warp.

Eight shafts, amalgamation, cotton, 20epi. Stay tuned.

Rays

If I get out really early, I catch the ray effect of the morning sun. In these fraught days it seems as if a message is being sent. 

Maybe that's a little fanciful, but when it's just me and the trees and the birds, I tend to think that way. 

This evening the solstice will be here, and then we'll tilt the other way.

These views are brief, but so joy-inducing when they come.

Back in the studio, I put a new warp on the dobby loom. The amalgamation samples told me what I needed to know regarding sett; I put on a wider piece this time. It meant shuffling around some heddles, not a pleasant task, but necessary. There were a couple of sleying errors, but eventually everything got sorted out. The border leads gradually into the main motif.

I decided to use two strands of 20/2 cotton in this double shuttle as the weft. I wanted a dark weft, but not dead black. This is a bobbin each of dark blue and black. Click to enlarge. In the picture you can't see the blue, but it's there. Well, maybe you can see it.

Managing the double weft is a bit tricky, as it tends to leave little loops at the selvedge. So you have to keep an eagle eye on the web as you weave. Yes, like a bird of prey. And I'm using a temple. It has sharp teeth.

________

Just finished reading The Untouchable, by John Banville (one of my faves). It's a novel loosely based on the true story of an art historian turned spy, and his unraveling. 

Book Sale, and Two More Samples

Lulu's having a 15% off sale today. The code is FIFTEEN and it expires at 11:59 PM today (I assume that means EST), June 19th. So if you've been thinking of ordering a copy of Network Drafting or The Liftplan Connection (see BOOKS in sidebar), this might be a good day to do it. Just sayin'. 

Two more samples are completed on the hemp & linen warp. The differences are subtle, but interesting. It's all about tonal values, which come about with changes in the tie-up. The natural warp and red weft are constant, but the structural changes shift the tonal balance.

Where lighter areas bump up against darker, the design outlines are crisp, but where they shade gradually from dark to light, the lines are less distinct. 

Minute changes in the tie-up change the patterns dramatically because of this dark/light push/pull. These are visible in the computer drafts, but come to life so much more in the woven cloth. 

Closing In

As walking out in public becomes more and more fraught, I find myself spending more hours at the loom and at the computer. That's not the best thing for my physical body, but I do enjoy the extra time with the threads. You know what I mean. I know you do.

I won't show you a picture of what's on the loom, because it hasn't changed much from the previous post. 

Then again, maybe I will! It's my blog. I can change my mind and I make the rules here.

So here's what's on my loom:

Shadow weave. I fiddled with the draft for so long, and when it was as good as I could get it, turns out it is almost exactly the same as one of Marion Powell's. This book is a treasure. My copy is old, well worn, and falling apart. 

Shadow weave makes me wonder about adding end-and-end color alternation to some of my amalgamation drafts, so here's an experiment from this morning (click to enlarge):

Compare it with the structure-only version of the same draft.

Well, I feel better already. Happy weaving, folks. Be kind to each other.