Colors of My Valley #4 Indigo & Woad
Making decisions on how to place blues and greens in a satin and plain weave scarf. Limited colors on each presents a planning challenge on how to distribute the colors. The greenish grey on the left is green acorns. It is the neutral that I will use as weft. Silk is Habu A-4. All colors natural dyed with woad, japanese indigo, and acorns
I decided to keep it plain and simple and just use the stripe satin with the plain weave. The stripes are too strong for the curves and don't add anything. I think curves should be in a solid color warp with another color weft. Surprisingly enough in the sample you can see that the acorn color I planned to use as weft wasn't effective so I decided to add to the indigo theme and use my japanese indigo weft. It looks much better. Final piece is on the loom and I am winding another warp to tie onto before I cut and photograph the indigo/woad scarf.
Colors From My Valley Series #1
Using Habu silk A-4, working thru sett and yield sample scarf. I have a series of natural dyes from my valley dyed on this yarn and I want to do a series of scarves. This scarf is a warm up to "learn the yarn" and design for it. Sett, Drape, Color..... this particular warp is done for only one scarf using my 1 oz skeins of oak leaves, various acorns and wild madder. This will tell me how much yarn is used in one scarf so I can design with what I have on hand! Color challenge, I ran dyepots "without" planning for the final project so it will be a challenge to use up the colors I have done. Here is a link to where I put the yarns up on line....
Satin Floral
This is Habu's silk NS 18-J, the weft is a double lao reeled silk, like Habu's A13 Akagi hand reeled. Note the lao double pirn shuttle. Yarn is natural dyed, red is madder, the brown stripe is my attempt at black...couldn't get there this time, was a mix of agarita (yellow), madder (red), indigo...the elusive black! My dye blog is here.
The silk is in a 30 dent reed, sleyed two per dent at 60 epi. This is a sample length to test satin drape for some shawls. This particular length will be cut up (sniff) into 34 samples for Complex Weaver's 24 more or less study group sample exchange. More on Complex Weaver's can be seen here. I welcome any comments from more experienced weavers on how I can change my straight draw to mix up the pattern. I am learning slowly and surely to trust the treadles but my hands really TWITCH for the pick up stick!
Linen towels
The draft is from the Swedish book Vävglädje från Vävmagasinet.
I had been wanting to do them for a long time, and they came out quite nice.
The straps are woven on an inkle loom with a slightly coarser linen
5 end satin to curve
My Complex Weavers sample for a study group. It is a 5 end sample that morphs from a satin line to a curve. I studied about satins in the bibliography in this sample and learned about clean cuts and curves. The photos loaded show the front and back of the sample textile. Much as this hurts I will cut this up into 36 small pieces to submit to the sample exchange. However, this means I will get back 34 samples done by other weavers that I can learn from with their references. Two of the samples go into the Complex Weaver's Library. That library is located in the US and in Canada.
I've tied onto this warp and will be going from 30 epi (tencel from Heritage Yarn) to 60 epi, and learn the joys of working with tencel from Just our Yarn. Will post after I learn from this warp.
Please note I am experimenting with uploading a pdf and might have to reload info as I see how this works. This pdf is loaded here on the Drafts tab
Please note that I used a lift plan and this upload function does not allow me to enter the word lift plan so I entered "24" treadles , count the rows of lifts on the pdf sample page to see how many lifts there are...rigid heddle and pickup people can use each row to pick the same pattern on the lift plan.
Here is a link to Complex Weaver's, you can lurk as a member for years to get a grip on weaving, they have groups that study plain weave to other more esoteric items: www.complex-weavers.org/stdylist.htm Please note you must be a member of Complex Weavers's in order to participate in any study group.
Satin gamp
working thru satin basics for study group, hardest part is finding a selvedge weave. Have reserved 4 shafts for selvedge and using 20 shafts for pattern. Starting to regret I just did not use a floating selvedge.
First part is 5 end satin progressing from weft to warp face
Second part is 8 end satin progressing from weft to warp face WITH plain weave.
Cover photo shows front and back
Have not yet decided on final gamp for group, having two much fun wandering thru satin land. Constraint is a straight draw and designing within 20 threads.......on a black warp! This is why we call it a sample!
5 end satin gamp
preparing sample gamp, this is the first draft to understand satin and how to design with it using warp and weft faced, final product will also include half units, working within a 20 shaft constraint, used additional 4 shafts for selvedges. At 30 epi, the design is very small within the cloth. photo to follow under my projects after I've played a bit more.
After a bit of reflection this draft is ALSO me trying to figure out if the wif function is useful on Weavolution!
note 1 I am using a pegplan which will allow me much more design options, the draft entry program only allows me to enter a # of treadles and not the words peg plan so I am just entering 24 to enter something
note 2 wif upload only allows a tie up wif, not a peg plan, don't drive yourself crazy trying to understand the tie up, I'm really using a lift plan
Double happiness symbol
This is the double happiness symbol which is used for wedding well-wishes in Chinese. I created it using Alice Schlein and Bhakti Ziek's techniques outlined in The Woven Pixel as an 8-end satin against a 6-shaft broken twill.
Because the draft doesn't display gracefully, I've included a .jpg of the draft as well as a photo of the woven fabric.
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