Weaverly

More Spring, a Towel, and a Heddle Vista

Ruth introduced me to a delightful place for a woodland walk just up the road. It's the Bunched Arrowhead Heritage Preserve, and as the name implies it contains a trove of Bunched Arrowhead. The BA's do not appear to be out just yet, but I hugely enjoyed the walk through fields, woods, and swampy parts. Spring!

I cut the first hemp towel off the Nilus warp, gave it a good washing & drying, and took it out on the porch for a photo. The cloth was quite stiff on the loom, but after its bath it feels soft and squishy, a perfect towel!

It's very vain, and wants you to see a few more pictures.

And a close-up, of course.

I usually don't like to cut off the projects one at a time, but I couldn't wait to see the finished towel. There's really not too much loom waste here, just a couple of inches lost to the re-tying. Now it's ready for a second towel, for which I have just enough hemp left in my stash.

On the dobby loom, meanwhile, I just noticed the intriguing arrangement of heddles as seen behind the reed. It's a kind of echo of the threading arrangement, and in certain times of day it looks just like the organ pipes on a large chapel organ. Or so it seems to me.

Snapshots

In odd moments between food preparation and general merrymaking, I did get a little bit of weaving in this week. It's amazing what you can accomplish in stolen moments.

The current crop of amalgamation samples is off the loom, hemmed, & washed. A couple of quick snapshots:

The same draft for all, but the weft colors varied widely. This one in aubergine is my favorite.

Just finished reading The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers by Maxwell King. Not my usual read, but I did enjoy it. A special surprise: Rogers's early music mentor at Dartmouth was Kunrad Kvam, later my beloved choir director for the Voorhees Chapel Choir at Douglas College in the late 1950's. 

 

Color Me Crazy

Since we last spoke, I wove two more samples on the amalgamated warp. This time I went for weft in what I thought were really unharmonious colors—at least unharmonious on this particular warp. First green and gold: 

It turned out to be well balanced, and I quite like it.

Next was purple and gold, and I expected an especially jarring result. Kinda like football team colors. Much to my surprise, this is the best one of the lot. Of course the jury is not in for real until these are washed & dried.

Now that the end of the warp is near, I'm collecting the usual crop of warping paper. 

This next picture courtesy of Bruce, who had a front row seat at my presentation "My Weaving Life So Far" last Thursday at The Woodlands. The talk got good reviews, and my friends and neighbors asked some good questions at the Q&A afterwards. Now I'm officially credentialed as "that weaving lady."

Plaid and a Small Spiral

Just a few more peeks at the striped amalgamation warp, before the holiday craziness begins. Here I'm experimenting with weft colors. I'm going for shocking, not mellow. 

The espresso machine in the Café is now operational. The barista is showing off.

Multitasking Lite

There was actually a sneak peek at my most recent warp in the last post -- it was a coiled-up warp chain. Said warp has now made it onto the dobby loom. A view yesterday from behind the heddles:

...and here it is in front, ready for action.

And as of this afternoon, some progress is being made. Amalgamation on 16 shafts. I'm sampling various colorways, and so far this is one I like:

Did I tell you about Friday's hike at Raven Cliff Falls? It was a winner. We didn't get close enough to the falls for a fancy picture, but trust me, it was a beautiful hike and a gorgeous day in the woods.

At this time of the year I feel especially lucky to be living in South Carolina. 

Back in the studio, taking a break from weaving, I spent some time on the computer, messing about with non-parallel interleaved threadings. This one needs work, as it has several overly long floats, but I think it has promise. 16 shafts.

Now for the Department of Books. Recently finished reading Fates and Furies, by Lauren Groff; All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days, by Rebecca Donner; and The Narrow Road to the Deep North, by Richard Flanagan. 

Friday Entertainments

Getting in a walk is a little tricky when it gets hot so early, but I did sneak in a stroll around the lake a couple of days ago. Lucky me--the lilies in the koi pond are magnificent. 

Back in my studio I did some doodling with networked rose path. Do you catch that segue?

Here is the initial.

And here is the resulting draft, treadled as drawn in, with four different 16 shaft twill tieups. Click to enlarge.

Here's a closeup of a single iteration.

Now about that word iteration. What I actually mean is a single repeat, but if it's single, it's not a repeat, right? Any help here, English majors?

On the Trail

Yes, I did stop and read this. But so far they haven't started renovations, and I continue to walk the trail with no interruptions from heavy machinery. Yesterday I was shocked (but not surprised) to see an entire camellia bush in bloom along the side.


And a tree just bursting into bloom near the baseball stadium. Tomorrow it will certainly be covered with blossoms.

At another part of the trail, this time nearer to Travelers Rest, was this curious ghost bicycle. Click to enlarge. Cycling is a risky business around here. So is being a pedestrian. One must be mindful. No cel phones!

And if you're looking for weaving content, no worries. Here's an odd little 8-shaft draft with amalgamation. I may even try to weave this one. But not quite yet.

Max float 4. Four repeats shown.

Jin

The eight shaft table loom has been sitting naked for too long. After lunch I said "enough is enough" and wound a short warp of two colors of silk noil. The yarn was hiding in my stash because I had always thought it was too fragile for warp. But today was a day for seizing opportunity. It seems to be working out OK.

The structure is called Jin, another name for turned taqueté. The warp is 2 colors alternated. The weft is a handspun wool/silk blend.

Here is this morning's sky with a view toward Paris Mountain from my front porch. I'd like to say it was my color inspiration, but such is not the case. Mere coincidence.

Choices

In all, I wove seven samples on the hemp/linen warp. They differed only in the tie--ups used. After washing & ironing, I picked the three I liked the best and scanned them (samples # 2, 4, and 7). Here they are shown alongside their drafts. The center column shows the face of the cloth and the right column shows the reverse. Click to enlarge.

As the warp drawdowns presuppose a black warp and white weft, and the actual cloth has a light warp and dark weft, the reverse of the cloth more closely resembles the draft. The face of the cloth is what was uppermost as the cloth was on the loom. There is no right or wrong side.

The jury is still out, but I'm thinking I prefer sample #7 the best. It has the most contrast and clarity of design. 

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.