Author(s)
14475

Comments

Sun, 09/01/2013 - 20:16

Bonnie Inouye (not verified)

In the image I see after clicking on this draft, the first and last treadles are tied to shafts 1 + 4. It is highly unusual to tie two treadles the same instead of using the first one again as needed. And it will slow the weaving because there are many places in this draft with the same shed repeated- you have to go around a floating selvage to keep the weft from coming out. Are you sure that you did not intend to have one of these treadles lifting just one shaft, or one lifting shaft 1 and the other lifting 4?

Bonnie

Wed, 09/04/2013 - 01:28

ken

Hi Bonnie,

First I want to thank you for taking the time to look at my draft. I started drafting and weaving in January of this year, so I'm just starting to get my feet wet with more design. I find I enjoy the design part almost as much as the weaving itself.

I see what you mean about the redundancy of treadle 1 and treadle 4, although i don't understand what you mean when you said that it would slow my weaving. could you explain that to me?

so far it seems that everything I've done has been a twill, so I'm always using floating salvedges.

How does this weave structure look to you? I don't think that there are any floats that exceed 3.

Ken

Thu, 09/05/2013 - 21:22

Bonnie Inouye (not verified)

You do not always need floating selvages with twills. They do slow the weaving. Most professional weavers do not use them. I had to add them once, about 3 years ago, when I switched to honeycomb on a warp that also worked for other structures. I have been weaving since 1967 and cannot remember another time when I had to add floaters.

The places in the draft where you use treadle 4 followed by treadle 1, or 1 and then 4, will look different from the rest of the cloth because these two picks are identical. If you used a thicker weft there, instead of the same weft twice, you can imagine how this would make a horizontal line across the cloth each time. Perhaps this is part of the look that you want?

It is so much fun to make new drafts!

Float length is easy to check with weaving software. I always consider floats in relation to the epi and ppi of the cloth.

Bonnie Inouye       www.bonnieinouye.com

Fri, 09/06/2013 - 18:03

ken

Hi Bonnie,

Thanks again for your feedback. I havent given it any thought with regard to the thicker weft, but i like the idea of horizontal lines. Those would occur every third and fourth pick correct? 

When  considering floats in relation to epi and ppi what should I keep in mind? My friend Gary said he doesn't like any more than 4 floats because they would more easily snagged, so I have always kept my floats around three to four. The only time I used longer floats was when I did a test piece for overshot. Since I'm leaning more towards  doing mostly lapghans, do you have any suggestions?

Since I do mostly twills, how would I go about that without using floating salvedges?

 

Ken

 

Fri, 09/06/2013 - 19:57

kerstinfroberg

I'm not Bonnie, but: float length is about *length* (in whatever system we use for meauring), not about how many ends/picks it floats over. With (say) 10 ends per cm (approx 25 ends per inch, I think), a 5-end float is 1/2 cm (sorry, being metric I have provlems to convert to your fractions...), and therefore not a problem. However, using 1 end per cm, the float would be 5 cm (2", I think) - and would therefore *be* a problem.

Conclusion: "it depends" :-)  !!

 

Unlike Bonnie, I have *never* used a floating selvedge, so I can't give any advice on that... (like Bonnie, I use several structures - )

 

Wed, 09/11/2013 - 03:19

Bonnie Inouye (not verified)

Thanks, Kerstin! I was not able to respond for a few days- moving from Colorado to Maryland, then driving 3 hours south for a special birthday party (twin grandchildren turned 4), etc.

Yes, float length is really about the actual length.

With some of my currently favorite weave structures, I have more warps per inch than wefts per inch. A 5-thread weft float is not very long when measured because it crosses 5 threads that are close together. I am currently using 48 epi on the loom that has a warp now, so that is 5/48 of an inch. But I might avoid 5-thread floats in the warp because a warp float passes over 5 picks which cover more space.

Sometimes you can control the floats at the edges of a twill by paying attention to the direction of the shuttle: start on the other side and see if that helps. With a 4-shaft twill, straight treadling, you can make it work. With other twill variations, add a little basket weave to the edges. This has been discussed on Weavo several times.

Bonnie

Number of Shafts
4
Number of Treadles
4
Publication Date
9/1/13
This Draft is from
mydesign