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Sunday, February 1, 2009

One Step Forward, Two Back...Three Ahead...

So this is a 'state of the studio' address :)



Above is my Louet Spring, 'Lilibet' and she has been languishing with a double weave sampler. This picture was taken few days ago and I now have the double weave sampler woven off. The end result is I will warp up and weave another double weave project soon but this time use 2/8 cotton over the cottolin I used this time. I have downloaded some neat workshop notes from Double Weave pro, Paul O'Connor and will try his method. But for now, the next warp going on this loom is white 2/10 tencel and a huck lace pattern for a shawl. That will be inspiring for me to weave. The warp is all wound and ready to go.

The fine huck lace in bamboo on the Louet Jane ' Cricket' is sort of in limbo. I moved it out of the way to get the old loom dismantled and off to it's new home and I just haven't picked up where I left off.
Why? Its because of this project on 'Emmatrude':

I want to do a shawl project, using tencel ( I have scads of the stuff!) so I chose my colours and even ordered a particular dye lot batch from Yarns Plus to ensure I had enough. Worked out my colour scheme, my draft, my project width and all particulars. I started to wind my warp and one colour, my main colour was *not* the 2/8 I was using but 2/10 instead. I had stored it in the wrong storage box!

So now I had to go entirely with the other taupe colour throughout and just skip the other. I wound the warp and was winding it on the loom. It just didn't excite me, but I got it all on the sectional anyway.


I even threaded it in the elaborate M's and W's. Sleying went well. Two per dent in a 12 dent reed. Tied it up and sat down to weave. I had forgotten to take the front apron rod over the back of the knee beam. Seems all the messages I was getting and ignoring were coming with a firmer 'oomph' now. If I had to untie, to fix the beam problem, then why not fix the entire problem? Okay. I replaced the cross once more, untied, unsleyed, unthreaded, then one by one I snugged each bout back into it's one inch section on the sectional beam. Then I unwound the three stripes and removed them and wound new replacements. Then started the process all over again, but now going ahead. Why all this? We'll take a look at the colours:


I've used this colour combo before to good effect but for some reason I placed taupe inbetween the red and black. It did nothing for the red at all. But I had thought " the black weft will fix that". Here it is on the lease sticks waiting for threading. I persevered despite that feeling something isn't working here.


Here's my spinning chair all set up for the threading:


So was it worth it? I feel much better with the new look and it was worth the changes and the work. You see I also changed my mind about the treadling as well. It was originally going to have a 'Coast Salish' Aboriginal feel to the colours and pattern. The colour change meant the advancing network twill treadling that created tall feathers was nice but it wouldn't work given the colour change. I opted for a complex M's and W's treadling with runs to and fro. No interruptions, phone calls or distractions... again.


Lots of impact now! The wimp factor is gone. :) So a closer look at the pattern...

Knowing my love of pattern, would it surprize you to know that you are looking at three repeats of a straight run of 1 to 12 on the treadles ( see bottom of photo) then from that point up to the fell is ONE repeat of the main pattern. It reminds me of some of those beautiful Nordic sweaters with the intricate pattern work. The true inspiration for this style of bands came from my viewing the stunning work of Master Weaver Inge Dam. Please look at her amazing work and you'll see the effect she achieved. She weaves with tablet bands incorporated into her weaving. This concept came to her through the study of textiles found in Iron Age sites in Northern Europe. While I'm not ready to attempt card weaving on the loom *yet* I thought this gave me the same look until I'm ready to try the technique for myself.


In the mean time I hope that my weaving time in the next few days is smooth sailing and trouble free. (touch wood)

10 comments:

  1. Love your work! What a story. It does sound familiar to me. By the way, why does you blog list have a year-old-post from me. Also thanks to your blogroll I discovered Dave's new url. I hadn't been getting any posts from him; now I know why! I might possibly do the blogroll thing since I found yours so helpful!

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  2. Hi Peg,
    Dave changed his page and web address and I was able to move with the change. In your case, it would seem that your feed is not working properly and hasn't been for a year. It's not just your feed to me either, but anywhere I cruise if they have a link to you, it's a year old. I manually come and visit :) If you click on the blog roll link, it does take you to your page which is then current. Perhaps check your settings? I thought it might be caused by the other feed possibilites you have listed at your site.

    The blogroll is actually fun as you can see updates right away and it has the nifty benefit of introducing viewers to pages they may not find otherwise and so it seems to be a nice sharing feature.

    As for the weaving... well, after a while you have been at it long enough to get a 6th sense of when things are going well and when they are not. I should have listened sooner!

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  3. Hi Susan, I have just spent an undetermined amount of time looking and trying, and thinking, and I've made a change which I think now should be right. You might try subscribing again if you think of it. I do appreciate your coming manually to my blog!

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  4. Susan,

    That shawl is gorgeous! I'm in awe!! I want to just keep piling on adjectives, but Jim just got home, and I have a batch of fresh-baked brownies.....

    I'll be back in a bit!!

    Sue

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  5. I'm back!

    Thanks for the link's to Inge and Paul's websites. Amazing work that they've both done. There is so much to learn in weaving!

    Good to see the state of your studio!

    Beautiful, spectacular, amazing shawl!! Love it!

    Sue

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  6. Your post's title sounds like a dance...cha-cha-cha! Fun to see what's on each loom. I love the Ms & Ws in tencel. Lovely! Inge is an old acquaintance of mine and I've admired her work for a long time. She's such a dear but I think I'll stick with weaving on the loom or on tablets SEPARATELY. Trying to do them together makes my brain hurt. Your fabric is a perfect compromise, Susan!

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  7. OMG - it's BEAUTIFUL! Wow! I mean knock-your-socks-off gorgeous! :)

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  8. Very interesting peak into your studio! I think I'm going to go revisit double weave someday soon. I only had a brief introduction in a class I took, and downloaded all of Paul O'Connor's workshop notes then. But I've never really looked at them! So much to weave with so little time to do it in.

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  9. Susan, I love your shawl warp........very fun to hear the loom antics of others, very familiar. You do such a wonderful job of posting to your blog - very educational and inspiring.

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  10. Your shawl is beautiful!!!!!! Thanks for the links. Both are very interesting. What a great studio.

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Thank you for visiting... I love to hear from you! Sorry about the comment moderation but I will post them quickly. This is necessary to screen out some nasty spam. If you can't read the numbers in the little box, then click on the "circle with an arrow" and it will give you another. Keep trying until you get one you can read okay? If you wish a reply back from me then either check back here, or leave someway for me to contact you. My email address is available in my profile. Thanks for reading my blog, Susan