Weaverly

All In a Summer's Day

Still in limbo. This is not the time to warp a dobby loom. But a rigid heddle loom is a friend one can pull out and warp at a moment's notice. It is pleasant to sit downstairs and weave while looking out at the garden.

Here's a closeup. Warp is wool, cotton, silk and the weft is my handspun wool/bamboo. It's plain weave with a bit of pickup thrown in.

It was raining last night. I watched the fireworks on the Mall from the comfort of my living room. 

It was interesting to note that all over the country, orchestras were playing Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture during the fireworks displays, celebrating our All-American holiday with music by a Russian composer, containing Russian hymns. And that many of our favorite American show tunes are the creations of immigrants to this country. Pause to reflect.

Hope you all have a good holiday weekend, and that you save some time for weaving. Or for whatever else makes you happy.

Another Kind of Rigid Heddle

Another type of rigid heddle is claiming my attention during these endless weeks of household limbo.This time it's the double-slotted heddle or Sunna heddle. The work of Susan J. Foulkes has been invaluable in my efforts. This is a backstop weaving technique. Always a problem of what to latch onto. I fastened a c-clamp onto a shelf, and that is holding.

These are my knees, and the backstop is at the bottom, out of the picture. Just learned about the bread bag clip. Where have you been all my life?

Here are the first few inches, mistakes and all. And it's a bit wobbly. I know-- practice, practice, practice.

Closer Is Better

Just off the loom and not washed yet, here are the two brocade samples, Theo Moorman style on the rigid heddle loom. The ground warp and weft are linen/cotton Duet from Gist, and the tiedown warp is 20/2 cotton. Ground 12 epi. The first sample (bottom of picture) has the tiedowns mistakenly sett at 3 epi. The brocade has a sleazy appearance. The second sample has the tiedowns sett correctly at 6 epi, and the result is much better. Click to enlarge.

In the Outdoor Department, we took a spin the other day to a lily pond with a lovely nature trail winding around it, which is maintained by the SJWD Water District. This was just before a thunderstorm came along. 

What I Learned

What I learned this weekend:

1. The hose on the vacuum cleaner won't suck unless it is attached to the vacuum cleaner.
2. I have enough sewing machine needles to last two lifetimes.
3. At age 80 I make more warping errors than I did at age 30.
4. Weaving-wise, there is probably nothing that can't be fixed, if you are persistent.

This new rigid heddle warp, with tie downs Theo Moorman style, has half the number of tie-downs I had intended. How on earth did that happen, except that I wasn't paying attention.

Well yes, we have a fix for that. Cut out the bad warps and graft in a new one. 

A little fiddly, but it works.

A Rabbit and Two Trees

Ohmygosh, this is so much fun. Here's a rabbit. One of Erica de Ruiter's designs. Perhaps I'm attracted to the rabbit because in a few months I will be living just a few steps from the Swamp Rabbit Trail. Lucky me.

In case you're wondering what the reverse side of the rabbit looks like. 

And now we have two trees.

The next phase of the sampling ought to be trying different yarns & setts. I think this technique would benefit from a closer warp sett than is achievable on a rigid heddle loom, but I'll keep tinkering with it.

A Butterfly and a Couple of Geese

More rigid heddle fun. These designs are from Erica de Ruiter's book, which I mentioned in my previous post.

You saw the cat yesterday. This morning I started the butterfly.

Here's the butterfly coming round the beam.

And of course I had to try the geese. 

Not surprisingly, here's what's happening on the back.

 

Cat

Another type of brocade, this one with the brocading yarn, or supplementary weft, going selvedge to selvedge. The instructions, and the cat with attitude, are from Erica de Ruiter's fascinating Tejido Huave and Beyond.

The warp is sett more densely than for balanced plain weave. There are two wefts. The secondary weft runs in the same sheds as the ground weft, except in the pattern areas. A pickup stick does the selections. Once you get the hang of it, the weaving goes quickly. 

Warp: 8/4 cotton, used double in a 12 dent heddle; ground weft, same cotton, used singly; secondary weft, my own 2-ply handspun variegated merino. Click to enlarge.

 

Slow Weaving

With my dobby loom temporarily inaccessible, I am doing a lot of slow weaving. Here's the end of the brocade sampler on the rigid heddle loom. 

I just cut it off, and as I'm doing the finishing, it occurs to me that it's very like the "Theo Moorman" sampler I wove 30 or some years ago. Here's the old sampler, found during the recent downsizing, somewhat the worse for wear, but you see what I mean. The ratio of tiedowns to ground is less in the rigid heddle sampler, but the structure is the same. The picture is turned sideways.

Also rediscovered recently is a 16-shaft napkin from when I taught a workshop in "overshot lace." The structure works best in monochrome, but a warp & weft slightly different in tonal value will also work.

Here's an example of an "overshoot lace" draft, this time for 8 shafts. 

Click on any of these to embiggen.

Geese

On my walk this morning I saw a new batch of these:

They're cute when they're little, but oh my…

And in the department of brocade, I continued on my second sampler and I'm getting better with diagonals. 

I also find that using variegated floss is very entertaining.

A closeup for you (click to make it even bigger):

More Brocade

Another batch of brocade samples on the rigid heddle loom:

A close up of transparency effect:

These are all woven with the assist of two pickup sticks and a set of string heddles. Awkward at first, but with a bit of practice it goes very quickly.