Undulations - real and perceived.

Side 1 4CDW Reverse 4CDW

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Ripple Scarf

(Sometimes Blogger drives me crazy - I cannot put these photos in the order I would prefer so I will leave them thus and give up!) Please view the photos in reverse order to make sense of the text.

Neki and I have been talking about texture in weaving. This helped me remember a scarf I wove a few years ago - the aim of the exercise simply was to produce a cloth with texture. Many weavers have done this much better than I have ever managed but I was quite proud of this result. I am not quite sure at this distance in time exactly where I got the idea. I think the original fabric inspiration was a 3/1 , 1/3 striped fabric of Bonnie Inouye’s. Since I used 3/1, 1/3 twills often in my weaving it was an easy design to play with, and even easier to weave. The warp was a fairly loosely spun cream wool, 2/18 or thereabouts, (as you can see this was well documented!) and the weft was a more evenly spun 2/24 wool. The secret to the ripples is in the afterwash treatment. After milling, I hung it from the clothes line (quite wet) and tied a half full milk container of water from the other end and pulled the scarf into shape as it dried. Then of course, no pressing! This scarf is so soft and warm - it is one of the few I still own but I am pleased that I managed to hang onto this one.

My next piece is, in some ways, much more interesting – it has marvellous ups and downs but is a smooth piece of fabric. I do hope you can see these undulations in the photos. The structure is one of my favourites – four coloured double weave. The yarn is 2/20 cotton – the musk pink thread in the warp is unmercerised but the other three yarns are mercerised. I am not sure why or how I managed to acquire that musk pink (and I had a kg) but was over the moon to discover I could mess around with its ugliness as well as I did in this piece. Colour is so intriguing!

From the time this fabric started to appear and I realised what was happening I was smitten . From then I felt that I only wanted to weave cloth with hills and valleys. I have not always been as successful as I would like. Whereas sometimes it occurs without even trying - on other occasions it can take a great deal of effort. It all seems to depend on a mysterious interaction between colours (both hues and values) and structure. I have also achieved the effect using a shadow weave structure and 6 colours. It is just magic that sometimes you can make all these elements sing in tune.

From this one warp and a variety of weft colours I made a series of table runners with coordinating plain weave serviettes . Some of the colours had deeper furrows than others. Not sure I have any photographs of them, unfortunately, as I have given away all those runners and this is the only scrap left.

On the Loom once more!

The loom is singing along again this week. Although I had not done any weaving I was thoroughly sick of looking at the black and white warp . It has been on the loom for almost two years.

To finish quickly (and start a new warp sooner) I decided to use one colour only in the weft - three coloured double weave instead of four - and produce a series of samples. After two inches with an Iris weft it was Marine's turn. What a shock! After weaving to free up the loom I was suddenly interested in what was coming off it! There should be just enough warp for fabric for a vest. It is interesting and is a lovely indigo colour.

Embroidery is not at a complete standstill - I am slowly stitching a second version of the May TIF and enjoying the process no end. However the June TIF is still only an idea.

TIF Colours for March

Wow! I am so excited -I love the colour palette that Sharon has chosen for March TIF - it is a favourite of mine.

I went to my fabric stash - this is a stash of my own handwoven fabric, not very large but all off my loom! - and found this double weave fabric that is a wonderful match. The fabric is woven in 2/20 mercerised cotton I have shown the threads used. The warps were Cherry and Grass and the wefts, Marine and Cream, according to the yarn chart. Once again I marvel at how wonderfully colour mixes in woven textiles. When I am designing I get a fair idea of the final colours using the software; however they are rarely the same as in the actual woven fabric. This is, in part, due to discrepancies with colours as they appear on the computer screen and colours in real life and, in part, due to my inability to reproduce the colours in exact RBG numbers. More often than not I am agreeably surprised with how the first few inches turn up.

Now a decision needs to be made - embellish some of this fabric using the theme "concentrating on the fine detail" or make another embroidery in those wonderful grape and green colours.

I have finished my biscornu from last month's challenge and will publish a photo in the next day or so.

One of my favourite fabrics

Thankyou to everyone for the thoughtful comments on my TIF piece. I continue to be amazed by the variety of techniques used for the first month of the challenge.

As promised yesterday I posted a photo of a fabric I wove in the 4 colour double weave technique in 2005. It was for a weaver friend who made a lovely jacket with it for her daughter's wedding. An enlargement of the photo shows the separate threads in more detail.

The colours used were purple, grass, terracotta and fire Interestingly, while these were the yarn manufacturers names for the colours, the purple was identical with the DMC 333 and fire, with the thread I chose for the flower centres. It is easy to see why the colour interactions in this weave fascinate me. Since this fabric was not for me I needed to weave a series of samples using the colours in different orders in the structure . The set of samples is all I have left but I can still spend time enjoying the clolour play. When I was looking for a suitable photograph I wondered how long it will be before I can return to the loom - I have a lovely stash of colours and a good selection of drafts ready to go.

Colour is so wonderful and, while I still haven't managed to solve the reason I froze with my design for January, I am looking forward to Sharon's selection of colours for next month.

Four coloured double weave

The first image is of the vest fabric where I used 2 grey wefts - the second uses a pink and blue for the wefts and a different treadling sequence. With the enormous hiatus between weaving the two sections I am not sure how much warp is left . There may be sufficient to try another combination of colour and treadling - I hope so. I guess one could call these "full sized samples" - the only size I seem to produce these days for my weaving. Since I use 2/20 mercerised cotton for most of my weaving I am comfortable with how the yarn will weave up and the only surprise is how the pattern turns out on the loom as opposed to the computer view. My designing is done on PCW and/or Weaveit Pro.

Meanwhile I keep practising my embroidery stitches!