From the day I started my warp face adventure in October of 2010, my goal has been to do designs with a solid background. Warp floats became my best friend. I discovered that alot of contemporary weavers do not fully explore this 'not so difficult' technique. But of course, I had to have a striped or dotted background. This drove me to distraction in the beginning. But soon I began to realize that working with them gave me the ability to do my own design work. After a time I didn't even seem to notice the stripes...BUT I stilled longed for a solid background.
I knew about double weave, but couln't quite wrap my brain around it. So after several very small attempts I dove in whole hog. I also threw out a couple of VERY LONG, VERY FINE warps in frustration. The designing was challenging. But I persevered. I not only conquered double weave, note the guitar strap and camera strap in my projects, but came to love it. Unfortunately I still hated using VERY fine warps (mostly because it is so hard to see them), and had no need of the VERY thick fabrics that the #3 cotton was producing.
Then one day I was reading in the backstrap group here and discovered a thread on Double weft double weave. This meant only thickness in some places. My 1st attempt was really awful, probably had alot to do with using fine threads again... when will I learn? The edges where the plain weave met the double weave were atrocious! But my second attempt was awesome (note the red and white piece pic above). I also discovered in that little red and white piece how much I LOVE TRUE WHITE. It really made the designs pop. My edged were the plain weave met the double weave looked o.k., still not great but liveable. I learned that you can conceal them nicely with strategic warping.
Then I discovered that my beloved scrolls don't have to be rounded...they can be square scroll, interlocked they are called 'Greek key'. Hmmmmmm, back to the warping board. Couldn't find a chart on diamond paper, so I graphed my own. This piece is the result.
It is still in progress as I have also been doing alot of spinning in anticipation of doing my first backstrap piece with my own hand spun cotton. Together with the fact that I sometimes find following a pattern tedious. But I really love the look of it and can't wait to start another.
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