Eavesdropping at a half-open door

“one has to teach the skill of reading even to those who are no longer illiterate”

“uncultured readers… with a vague knowledge that there is something else here, and enjoying the text like someone eavesdropping at a half-open door, glimpsing only hints of a promising epiphany.”

Umberto Eco, on literature, pages 171 and 219.

Some days I have the confronting feeling that I’m a beginner in something I’ve practiced daily for almost six decades. Then I tell myself to stop being maudlin and self-indulgent, and just get on with it.

Morning List

I have tried to make visible the work of reading. I have complained bitterly when I found reading challenging. I have made reading the foundation of every day. I write about attentive reading, focusing on every line and word… but lately I’ve wondered – am I getting all I can from all this effort? In particular, am I making connections, building usable knowledge.

I note correspondences as I go, and the use of indexing glyphs in my notetaking has been useful in later consolidation around particular ideas. Possibly I need to be more alert to the need to extend my glyph set.

In my last post (7-Jan-2020) I tried to link books and authors with fabric swatches. That was step one in an experiment.

The previous data viz experiments were generally useful, giving me space and time to think, seeing from different angles, generating some surprises… I decided to look at where I was spending time reading, and to search for rhythms and flows in the mix of reading. Keep mine-ing the existing tool set and stash. The brief developed:
* Start recording time spent reading.
* Repeat the scarf form. This time with weaving.
* Begin simple, with options to elaborate as the process continues. So plain weave. I put a 2 metre warp of black cottolin on the 4-shaft table loom, a straight threading.

The result is a record of four weeks of reading – 30 November to 27 December. Information encoded:
* Length of weaving is proportional to length of reading. Four centimetres = One hour.
* Beginning of day is marked by 5 picks in cotton – white on Sunday, then darkening greys reaching black on Saturday.
* Indicate book by weft – torn fabric strips.
* Most reading was done in my workroom. If outside the house, a supplementary fine coppery weft was added (“sunshine”). If bedtime reading, a supplementary weft of silvery white was used (for the moon).
* When a book or essay was finished (not many were), mark by 5 picks in red cotton.

In the detail above you might just be able to see the cotton picks at the beginning and end of the day. The book swatches all look quite different when squashed down and used for weft.

In the morning I read Umberto Eco for 45 minutes. John Berger accompanied me on the bus, and in a cafe waiting for CPR training – a total of 50 minutes and a glint of sunshine.

Jane Hirshfield *Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World*

At that time I was reading Jane Hirshfield before sleep – hence the loops of white rayon. I wasn’t taking in much, just trying to find the flow, to get an overall sense, hoping to learn enough to be able to read it again with more understanding. Thirty more minutes, and a total of 8.3 cm.

Classic uses of a data visualisation are discovery (learn something new) and storytelling (communicate ideas). I can’t claim either here. Using standard viz software I would have waited to collect all the data before even starting, then probably run a variety of statistical analyses, experimented with multiple chart types, maybe colour themes and scales, transformations, brought in other data sets for context or comparison… There’s the faintest hint of this in the fringes.

By amazing chance, the number of warp ends was precisely four times the number of days woven. So each piece of fringe is one day. The fringing shown above records the total amount of time recorded reading each day (range from 0.67 to 2.75 hours). At the other end of the scarf the number of books read is shown – from 1 to 4 each day. Note the same information is already encoded in the weaving. This is simply a different chart type.

plump folds, showing more of the fabrics

Despite the proportions, the resulting textile can’t really be called a scarf. It does not drape softly and warmly around the neck. However while it sat on my desk over the last week, I came to love its edges. And to appreciate that “not drape-able” could also be described as “sculptural”

So perhaps wearable sculpture.

When you’re juggling lots of things…

…some get dropped.

This ikat-ish project was last seen as a damp warp back in May.

I wound the dried yarn into a cake, then wound the warp using the warping wheel with little excess loops of yarn where I tried to get each end to line up according to the plan. This went moderately well. My ties to resist dyeing weren’t exact distances apart, then there was some slippage and various inaccuracies in handling, not to mention yet another muddle in my calculations (I really need to learn to read the planning notes I make. Going by memory, I gaily changed from 25 to 20 to 24 epi, and ran out of yarn while warping. Nothing like necessity to encourage flexibility!). Given all that was going on I decided to hand stitch the shibori threads in the finished cloth rather than adding extra warp ends to do the gathering.

Here is the warp shown from the back of the loom. The edge areas are narrower than intended. It’s not a great photo but you might be able to see that overall arrangement is not too dissimilar to the sketched plan. The dark dashes kind of line up – viewing from a galloping horse in the dark may assist in seeing it.

The actual weaving was straightforward – plain weave in undyed 20/2 silk. I had enough warp length to do a little extra to use in sampling the next steps.

I did running stitch up each side of each red/orange stripe and gathered tightly, then dipped in a mix of yellow and brown dye and steamed.

It’s ugly. So, so wrong. The colours don’t work. The values don’t work. The patterning is a mess. There is no particular definition or variation in the brown. There are all the technical problems in winding the warp already mentioned, plus the previously dyed areas bled.

20110702_vangelder — Lydia Van Gelder. Twice Dyed #8

I based my efforts on a piece in Lydia Van Gelder’s Ikat II. I didn’t expect it to be the same of course – “slightly” different levels of expertise (!), plus I was working from a photo and deliberately changed a few of the things I saw/understood, let alone the things I didn’t see/understand. I’ve included a shot from the book, which I think fits within fair use.

I was careful to wash the actual scarf before gathering and redyeing – there was no sign of colour in the water. I used the same stitching. I had some ideas to try in the hopes of a better result. The photo shows the gathered cloth ready to be soaked and dyed.

Then I dropped the ball. I put it to soak (a couple of hours is good), thinking I would have time for the dyeing later that day. Time passed – two weeks worth.

This morning I finally brought myself to look at the sorry, soggy thing. The soak water was a pale blue. The dyes had clearly bled and run. In a spirit of “let’s just get this over” I went out to the garage, grabbed the bordeaux dye stock and applied it, undiluted, with a brush. I’ve been writing this up while I waited for it to steam.

…Next day…

What do you think?

For me it very nearly works. All the dyeing errors are still there, but not so intrusive. The narrower range of colours helps. The stronger value of the overdye and its horizontal tendency gives some balance to the verticals. In person the fabric has a nice sheen, drapes well and is very soft and smooth to the touch. (I ended at 24 epi for the 20/2 silk plain weave).

I don’t love it, but I expected to hate it.

For my own memory, rather than that the world needs to know, what else has been happening the last few weeks:

Visiting The White Rabbit Gallery, a collection of contemporary chinese art plus lunch at the Mission Restaurant under the Ng Gallery nearby, rounded off by a quick visit and some remnant-box-diving at Elsegood Fabrics (can’t find a working website, but come out of the restaurant, walk across the laneway and you’re there). I’m usually a bit wary of contemporary art (I like happy and beautiful, not so keen to spend leisure time with tortured, depressed or self/society-flagellating). The current exhibition here had lots of beautiful, including very interesting textile work, with intent and meaning but not dark-dark-dark.
Nalda Searles drifting in my own land exhibition at Mosman Art Gallery. Really beautiful, thought provoking textile artworks. Nalda had come over from WA and gave a floor talk – to quote the website “revealing the imagery and processes that have informed the art practice and vision of one of Australia’s unique and evocative practitioners”. And they didn’t over-promise. Nalda spoke very directly and personally. Plus lots of people to natter with afterwards.
The poetry of drawing – Pre-Raphaelite designs, studies and watercolours at the Art Gallery NSW. Stunning details and pattern-making. I always find it interesting to see preparatory work and all the adjustments and changes in the finished artwork. Sample, sample 🙂
The Sydney Craft & Quilt Fair – lots of inspiring work, talking (on the ATASDA stand and just running into people) and just a touch of shopping.
Family lunch (my original nuclear family) at Ottomans for mum’s 83rd birthday, which was so nice I took Geoff and the boys (current nuclear family) there this week for Geoff’s 55th.
Some clearing and re-arranging in my workroom-formerly-known-as-the-dining-room. The idea was to display as much as I could of previous work and larger samples (smaller odds and ends of sampling are in folders) – basically to remind me of possibilities and actually use the samples actively. The photo shows the area behind the loom, with two of the five hangers.
Mending socks – yes, there was enough to make this a separate item. I knit socks for all the family and with colder weather arriving there has been a mini-avalanche of holes to be darned and toes to be cut off and re-knit.
Plus bellringing, work, gym, shopping, cooking, laundry…
Which may not sound much to some, but I really like lots of quiet time pottering around by myself and all of this in a couple of weeks is … phew.

Fake ikat scarf

Last week’s ?? warp is now a not quite finished scarf (slightly damp, fringes to twist) and I’m very happy with the result.

With such stretchy yarn I took the standard weight off the back beam tensioning lever (thingy – too lazy to look up the correct name) and used a much lighter fishing weight. Using the avl warping wheel to get an ikat-ish effect in the warp worked well enough for me. There’s a lot of shifting around (I suspect I didn’t identify the repeat plus there was variability through the skein of hand-dyed yarn), but enough blocks of colour to give the desired result overall.

After washing my sample of 9 potential wefts I was surprised by my final choice – “sweet pea”, which I would describe as a fuschia. The purple which was my favourite on the loom drabbed down the shifting colour stripes and didn’t add anything to the purple stripes. The brighter colour gave a spark and warmth to both. The texture given by the twill also suits my taste. It’s more visible at a medium distance than I anticipated – I thought it would be a kind of extra as you got close – but I like that colour isn’t the whole thing. The twill also gives a wobbly edge to the stripes and the whole scarf, which appeals to me.

Overall a good result, lots of lessons learnt and lots of leads for future exploration.

On a related note, this week my copy of A Fiber Artist’s Guide to Color with Laura Bryant arrived. I’ve watched it all once and will be watching again. I always like reading and learning more about colour, and to have a weaver’s presentation is a real bonus. Her own work is amazing – complex double weave with very complex colour.

A [insert adjective here] warp

Don’t jump to conclusions – so far all adjectives are appropriate for polite company.

My husband’s was “pretty!” as he wandered past. It’s Araucanía Ranco Multy from Chile, 75% wool, 25% polyamide, around 344 m/100gm. I wanted to try adapting Bonnie Tarses’s “almost ikat” technique to use the avl warping wheel. See Bonnie’s YouTube tutorial, and her blog. I combined the multi-coloured yarn in stripes with an almost-solid skein. I’ve been reading Lydia Van Gelder’s Ikat II – a beautiful book with great projects to guide experimenting with ikat. I’d like to try incorporating some elements or loose interpretations in my work, and this seemed a good place to start.

The yarn brings up another adjective – “bouncy”. It was sold as sock yarn and is spun quite soft and lofty. I did a couple of samples on my ashford table loom with no difficulties, but on my big noble floor loom it’s hard to get enough tension to form a shed without a lot of stretching. Plus I noticed a lot of fluff as I was threading and sleying, so I am dubious about “durable”, at least when used as a warp.

“Puzzling” refers to weft selection. In the photo there are 9 different colours of wool weft (Bendigo Woollen Mills Classic 2 ply). I want a slightly weft dominant fabric (trying to make the most of the shifting colour), in a twill (for drape). I like the idea of some secondary patterning, so I’m using herringbone twill threading and lift. (not exactly. It’s a straight 8 shaft twill with lifts that make it act like a 4 shaft herringbone threading). “Uncertain” relates to me – I don’t how much of the above is rubbish.

Which brings us to “stalled”. I’ve run out of weekend, plus I want to cut off and wet finish this first little bit. I did sample earlier, but a bit too small, with different colours plus at 15 and 20 ends per inch rather than the 18 epi which I’m actually using (since my 12 dpi table loom reed is busy elsewhere).

Bristol Maximus in Supplementary Warp

This has been a long time coming.

Back in February inspiration struck – could I represent complex bellringing methods using supplementary warp floats?

I did some sampling – the idea held some promise if only I could get the right sett. Advice from Liz and the weaving group was very welcome.

In March I was dyeing yarn, then redyeing!

Next step was warping using my new AVL warping wheel. It went very smoothly, onto the sectional beam for the ground warp and the plain beam for the supplementary. Tension held nice and even throughout weaving 🙂

However the weaving didn’t go well. The first few centimetres looked streaky, obscuring the patterning.

Weeks passed, some pleasant (Forum in Orange), some less so (virus in tummy). Finally I bit the bullet, and on Monday unwove all that had been done and resleyed.

Weaving restarted, all looked well – until I realised I had mucked up the ringing pattern.

Deep breaths.

Unwove.

Wove.

Yes!

There is still some streakiness, but the patterning is clear and readable (I tested it on the other ringers this morning). The hand and drape of the cloth is good and with finished measurements 184 by 19.5 cm plus fringe it’s a great weight and size to wrap around the neck in Sydney’s autumn.

I was able to include 4 leads of Bristol Maximus – a ringing pattern with 12 bells. The brown ground cloth squares show the path of the treble (highest note) – it follows a path ringing first, then 2nd, then first, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th etc, forming a jagged but regular line going from 1st to 12th and back 4 times. The blue supplementary warp float blocks show the path of one other bell – it could be any of the other 11 bells since they all follow the same Bristol Maximus pattern, just starting at different points (it’s a bit like 4 people singing “row row row your boat” in rounds). If you’re a ringer and the photo doesn’t quite look right, the pattern is mirrored and doesn’t start exactly at a lead end.

After all the palaver it was pleasant to weave. I did some experiments at the end of the warp to see if I could further reduce the streakiness and did manage to get improvements, but only with a lot of fuss lifting and manually clearing sheds that I didn’t actually weave in order to keep the ground and supplementary warps in proper alignment. Given I like the final scarf, the cost/benefit of the extra fussing isn’t worth it. Maybe playing around with reed size and denting would be useful if I revisit this.

Denting issues

I got the warp on – all seemed to go well. Wove a few test centimetres to check threading. It looked OK, but somehow a bit streaky. The pattern definition wasn’t as good as in my samples. Perhaps it was the closer values of the foreground and background colours. Obviously the sett had changed – the samples were 40 and 30 epi, with the new reed I had changed to 36 epi.

The photo shows where I stopped, while partway through hemstitching. Clicking will get the larger version, and I’ve arrowed the two single blue ends which outline the edges at the pattern reversal. The one one the right shows clearly. The one on the left is almost completely obscured. Plus there’s a general streaky and lumpy effect going on.

I’m using a 12 dent per inch reed and each of my warps (ground and supplementary) is 18 ends per inch. The ground is plain weave on shafts 1 and 2. The supplementary is on shafts 3 to 15, but in the area arrowed they are all on shaft 3. All the supplementary ends lift with shaft 1, unless they are involved in one of the float areas.

Sometimes figuring things out in weaving does my head in, and after stomping around the house a while I decided to post about it – partly for advice, partly because just sorting out the question can help find answers (I tend to see this blog as my work diary, which happens to be public and occasionally of interest to others – though I’d be surprised if anyone gets this far!). The incomprehensible sketch (playing with yet another new toy, a wacom bamboo tablet) helped me see the problem. The ground warp is 18 epi in a 12 dent reed, so 2 ends in one dent, 1 in the next etc. The supplementary warp is 18 epi, so 2 ends in one dent, 1 in the next. The way I’d done the two warps I ended with a total of 4 ends in one dent, 2 in the next. So there’s some lumpiness!

So I could redent to even it out with 3 ends per dent – 2 ground + 1 supplementary in one dent, 1 ground + 2 supplementary in the next. I suspect this will help, but not solve my problem. The threading has ground ends alternating with supplementary ends – eg 1 3 2 3 1 3 2 3 1 3 2 3 (1 and 2 ground, 3 supplementary). That is, the supplementary ends sit either side of the ends on shaft 1, rise and fall with it, and are sometimes dented with it. So I think it’s in the nature of things that they won’t necessarily sit nicely side by side. The current craming isn’t helping.

If I had an 18 epi reed I could dent: 1 in one dent, 3-2-3 in the next etc, and overall maintain my 18 epi per warp (the ground warp 1 end per dent, the supplementary 2 ends every second dent). But I don’t. And I’m now in frugal mode (all those new toys to pay for), even if such a fine reed is available and such spacing didn’t give me warp abrasion problems.

Hmm…

The post that got away

Last week’s post didn’t happen. It was a distraction from the weaving that wasn’t happening, but I was waiting for some brighter weather to take (distracting!) photos. Being in a frugal phase I now offer last week…

Here’s some impressive weaving I noticed recently – a building facade, part of the revamped Centrepoint Tower building in Sydney. The artwork is by Dani Marti, who created a woven rope sculpture which was then cast in glass-reinforced concrete. There are some more photos and information here (click on “Construction” at the bottom to see the original work) and here. I haven’t been able to find out anything about the patterned glass canopy, but to me it looks a bit like a weaving drawdown. (photo to come??? – in the meantime check the links – I think they’re worth it.)

On the home front, there’s nothing going on with the supplementary warp project – the new reed is still on its way, the new warp is still damp. While waiting I’ve been doing some dabbling.

First up was braiding or kumihimo, using a beginner’s marudai I got secondhand from the guild shop. I’m happily improvising the rest of the equipment while I try out this craft.

Photo shows marudai (the stand that holds the braid while you are working), the improvised tama (weighted bobbins) and my first two braids. For more photos and info see wikipedia. The teal warp-faced weave is my backstrap attempt.

I’ve also been played with backstrap weaving, following Laverne Waddington‘s brilliant instructions. So far I’m only partway through step one – backstrap basics on WeaveZine, but at least I have the satisfaction that despite significant tension issues the second half of my first weaving was much better than the first (which does set the bar very low indeed!).

Now fast-forwarding to today’s exciting episode…

In the last few days the sun has come out, the dyed warp has dried, the new reed has arrived (I’m very happy with the service from Luke at Independent Reed Co – no website but email indreed at bigpond dot com dot au.)

Yesterday I wound the dry silk/merino supplementary warp, using the AVL warping wheel and chaining off the sections so I could put it on the second back beam. The winding went well, the beaming got ugly at times – but it’s done.

The photo on the left shows the two warps, the silk for the ground cloth on the sectional beam, the silk/merino on the plain warp beam which is a bit lower. I’ve only used the second beam once before, for the deflected double weave scarf, when I made a total hash of it – hopefully this will weave up more easily.

I’m currently threading and so far it is going better than I expected. I’ve put the two warps on separate lease sticks, one set hung high, one low behind the heddles.

Working from the front, it is not too bad to reach both warps and select the alternating ends I need. With recent projects I’ve become much more careful of counting out the heddles I’ll need, moving un-needed ones out of the way, and pulling out sets of threads and heddles to work with. It seems to keep me more accurate, giving additional check points along the way. Just hope writing this doesn’t jinx me!

Doup leno scarf

While I’m busy doing, correcting and redoing my sums for the next warp, here is a previously unblogged project I completed last November (about the only thing I managed in Liz Calnan’s class at the Guild that term).

Scarf details: warp Bendigo Woollen Mills 2 ply wool. Weft Bendigo’s Mirage, a mohair / wool / alpaca mix that seems to have dropped from their line.

The warp is in stripes – plain weave and leno. From Liz’s notes, “Leno is an open weave structure, with warps twisted around one another”.

Pictures could help. This is from the first little sample I did, using the scrappy yarn bit at the beginning so it is easier to see. Ignore the “oopsie” bit! One is the sample, the other the same photo with markings added.

Looking at the markings, in blue and orange at the right we have two standard plain weave warp threads. They sit nicely side by side ignoring each other, each one going under and over weft threads.

In green and pink we have two pairs of leno warp ends. While weaving the green thread of each pair was pulled under the pink thread and up to form the shed. The weft was put across, holding that twist. Then the green thread was allowed to return to its normal position next to the pink and up – another weft across, and that position is fixed. I set up the pairs so that in one the green starts on the right of the pink but is repeatedly pulled to the left then allowed to return to the right, while in the other pair the green started on the left and is repeatedly pulled to the right. The green threads wobble left and right over the weft all the way down the cloth. The pick threads wobble around, always underneath the weft. The weft holds in the wobbles. This allows a very open but still stable cloth. In this particular scarf the weft is the star, and the leno area adds a lot of textural interest. Liz had a bundle of samples, many with the wriggling, wobbling warp threads the main interest. Different relative sizes of yarns give very different results – a huge area to explore (yet another!!).

There are a number of ways to pull the warp threads out of their position and form the twist. First, simple and flexible, is doing it by hand, as in my sampler of finger-manipulated weaves. There are some good photos and explanation in Robyn Spady’s article on Weavezine. Bead leno uses beads or pieces of drinking straws to connect two warp ends – when one is lifted, it pulls the other with it – I think! That’s based on an article by Kathryn Wertenberger in the November/December 1989 issue of Handwoven. I’ve also seen photos on a few blogs – here and here.

I used a third method – “doups”. A doup is a carefully measured loop of yarn, say a nice strong cotton. I was going to try some diagrams, but why re-draw the wheel? Check out Irma Spaargaren’s article on Weavezine. In words, the pink thread is stationary. It just sits there and the weft passes over it. The doup is attached to a shaft, goes underneath the stationary pink thread and loops around the green thread on the far side. For one pick the doup shed is left down, the green thread is lifted in the normal way and the weft passes beneath it. For the next pick the doup shaft is lifted. The doup pulls on the green thread, taking it underneath the pink thread and up. The weft goes over the pink thread and under the green one – but this time the green is on the other side of the pink. Repeat as required.

Some random notes from my project:

* doup length is vital. It needs to be long enough that it doesn’t prevent the green thread’s standard lift, and short enough that when it pulls the green thread around and up you have a shed big enough to get through. And if your doups are slightly different lengths your shed and life will be miserable.

* denting. I don’t know a general rule. In my project the plain weave was set at 12 ends per inch in a 12 dpi reed – wider than I normally would for the yarn, but I was considering the weft and the overall light goal. The leno pairs were in separate dents next to each other, with 3 empty dents between each pair. However no gap before the last pair and a plain weave area – I didn’t want the plain weave spreading out.

* I used my ashford 8 shaft table loom. I had the plain weave threaded on shafts 5 and 6, the leno pairs on shafts 7 and 8 and used shafts 1 and 2 for the doups (in Liz’s notes this method is from Monograph 32 – Tacker and Skowronski. The doup is attached to shaft 2 and goes through a heddle on shaft 1 before looping around the green thread). In theory it gives a slightly better shed, but the way I set things up, shaft 1 pressed against shaft 2 and tended to push it up, giving a teeny tiny shed. I ended manually pushing down on shaft 2 (tried weights but didn’t have the space), then using a pickup stick to clear the shed on ever second pick! It still grew quickly, given the grist of the weft and the light/loose nature of the design.

I really like the end result – a nice combination of various reds, some sheen and some fuzz from the weft mix, lots of textural interest, very light… and I’m expecting very warm given the air pockets – but there’s still a way to go before I give it a try. Sydney has rather a short scarf-wearing season.

Sampling supplementary warp

This title brings an unrelated-to-weaving smile. I had years of elocution lessons – “six silly swans swimming in the snow” and my husband can still judge my tiredness by the amount of lisp…

Focus. Yes. (now everything has an ess, and this was not deliberate).

Ahem. (OK. better.)

I’ve spent some time the last few days seeing if my bus inspiration actually holds water – will the design be readable and will the cloth drape for a scarf?

Here’s version 1 on the loom. Base warp is 20/2 silk. Supplementary warp a silk merino 2 ply, 650m/100g (the supplier closed her small dyeing business a while back). Sett 40 ends per inch (20 of each warp type), except in the selvedge area and breaks between pattern areas. The threading is pretty much the original idea seen at the bottom here, but with variations on the number of supplementary threads per block. From left to right I tried 3, 4, 5 and 1 threads. Weft was 20/2 silk. I didn’t pay much attention to picks per inch – just standard comfortable not light or heavy. As I was weaving I tried a few different numbers of repeats/length of warp floats.

Version 2 had warp unchanged, but 60/2 silk for weft.

Here are versions 3 (at bottom) and 4 on the loom. I resleyed to 30 ends per inch – 15 background warp plus 15 supplementary. I also added some undyed merino-silk to the selvedge/pattern break areas, so they would feel more consistent with the rest of the cloth and cope better with the more open sett. I made a major hash of this, threading the new warp ends in with the same heddles as the base cloth. Plus the back of the loom became a rats nest as my supplementary warp got short (I was using thrums from Geoff’s scarf). Not a pretty sight (the camera seems to agree – the colour went very odd).

I kept to the 20/2 silk for weft, but tried both my default beat (which worked out around 17 picks per inch) and a deliberately light beat towards the end (around 11 picks per inch on the loom).

The washed and pressed samples together – left to right samples, 1, 2, then 4 above 3.

All have good definition of the design, with the brown float/white background/mixed plain weave areas clear, even in the unpleasantly sleazy sample 4.

The big issue was getting a nice scarf drape. I really like the final sample 1 cloth, but it’s too firm for the purpose. I’d like to return to it another time, maybe as part of a light jacket (the patterning could be a bit strong all over).

Sample 2 draped a little better, but not enough plus I think the finer silk brings a slight harshness.

Jumping to sample 4, this actually feels nice but is crazy-sleazy.

So, we have a winner. Cue close up of sample 3. Overlook the fact that end-of -warp issues have introduced a few oddities. The drape and hand are nice, and (I hope!) suitable if not perfect for a scarf. The floats cover the background quite well. There is some deflection of the warp and weft around the background areas. I rather like the irregularities – not sure how much will be in the final, given a better tensioned warp. In any case the pattern is quite distinct (it’s not any actual bellringing method, just playing around).

Colours are chosen, so the next step is calculations of lengths and weights for dyeing.

Colour gamp shawl finished!

It’s done – 66 x 252 cm finished and hemmed (around 26 x 99 inches)! That’s one big piece of cloth to call a “shawl”, so it’s lucky I’m on the tall side.

Seen flat it doesn’t work for me – it looks like a picnic table cloth!. In a jumble or draped on a person it looks more interesting. That’s basically because I was focusing on its future use as a referencing and design tool, at the expense of the design of the particular piece itself.

Of the 63 colours dyed, seen here, 62 are used in the shawl (oops!!). There are 30 warp colours and 45 weft colours, including 13 colours in both warp and weft. That’s 1,350 colour combinations (possibly 1,194 after subtracting the duplicates if I’ve got the sum right) from the original 3 dye colours used.

At the detail level I find it fascinating. My original goal was to explore the different effects available by mixing colours in the dye versus optical colour mixing in the cloth. I think it’s going to take a long time to explore the answer(s), plus how far they can be generalised. For example, I find myself drawn to the chromatic neutrals (subdued almost greys, the result of including all 3 dye colours). I think they are beautiful in themselves plus work very well as a unifying and enhancing element as weft across a wide range of warp colours – which could probably be predicted, given the shared dye colour “parentage”. I wonder how far I can take that with a different range of original dye colours.

Some detail shots to finish. Regard the colour on your monitor as indicative only. I haven’t played with the colour in the software at all, but I’m seeing the photos on 2 screens at once (laptop plus a separate screen), and the colours displayed are quite different – rather a jarring effect.