Brocaded bookmark
I have been weaving many bookmarks for the guild's fund raising project. I was inspired by this beautiful cotton that I found. I only had white I put on a monochromatic warp planning to do varoius kinds of inlay/brocade common on warp-faced cloths. The DMC is glorious, smooth and shiny and works well in this dense warp. This is a technique I have seen in Guatamalean textiles , using every 4th warp as a tie-down and alternating the tie-downs. There are no technial problems but it does not look good. I think that the technique is too chunky for the size of the bookmark. I will reserve this technique for larger cloths, maybe on a more rustic looking foundation.
tunic
This was inspired by the 3 panel huipils of Guatamala and the brown cotton textiles of Mexico. Two warps, first one 3 yds for the central panel, and 5yds for the two side panels. Yarns are natural cotton flake and a tiny sand colored boucle of color-grown cotton. The brocade(overlay-underlay) with the tiny boucle yarn is very nice and all the designs are derived from an X.
Inkle - Brocade Experiment
So my first inkle project (see 37s here) worked beautifully. Now I'm off to explore other patterning techniques; and, well . . . .immediately ran into a snag.
First - I'm so taken with the warp colour combination a light plum border with a natural centre (sounds like a fruit candy no?) that I'm hesitant to "ruin" it by adding a pattern at all.
Second - I must be mis-reading the instructions in Helene Bresler for doing the brocade warp float technique because two attempts so far have had to be un-done sending me back to the research table.
If I can get the pattern to work - the colour a fuschia like red will be really attractive on the band. Can anyone point me to an online vid or post (with pictures) of this technique?
Addendum (31 Dec) ******
Thanks to some very helpful tips - I think that I'm starting to get the hang of this. My first "pattern" is a bit wonky but it's demonstrated that I can indeed "do" the technique. Now if I can just do that cute little duck on page 101 . . . .
***** 2 Jan 10 ***********
Ok! so. . . I'm getting the idea and have made an 8 pointed star, and a duck . . . well, not so much a "duck" as a very pissed off chicken. More details of the process and the learning curve are available here. Now for some lettering.
Silver Brocaded Tablet Weaving
This project is my first attempt at silver wire brocaded tablet weaving. The pattern was drafted from the Birka finds (#22). The black silk is from my stash. The tablets are alternately s-and-z threaded and are turned continuously in one direction until twist builds up and then reversed.
The wire used is 2 strands of 34 guage fine sterling silver wire.
