I'm keeping busy this January between school, the new studio, and weaving. This week I've been organizing my new studio and getting exciting to finally have a dedicated space. I've also almost finished weaving my table runner but I hate it when my loom is bare so I switched over to designing my next project.The new studio is mostly complete. We had a long and heavy rain storm and found out one of the windows in the new building leaked. They came out and fixed it but now we have to wait for it to dry completely before we finish the painting and finally the window molding. In the mean time I organized all of my yarn up in the attic. All of my books are on the work table awaiting a huge bookshelf. And all my gadgets and looms are in the spots ready for assembly. There's extra stuff in there right now too since Danny's studio isn't complete yet but soon!! I'm weaving the plain weave portion of the table runner, or the back portion however you want to say it. Since I'm using doubled up thread it is a little slower than I usually go but I don't mind having something to weave any time is nice. Now I have about 10 inches left and I hate the idea of not having anything on the loom so I started designing some napkins that may or may not be napkins and may or may not match the table runner, ha! Basically, I took the pattern from Handwoven (Royal Table Runner N/D 2016) and I wrote down all of the blocks. Since it's an overshot pattern ever pair made a block so I had 8-7 , 6-5, 4-3 , 2-1 , 1-8 then made a simple block pattern. From there I used my fancy Fiberworks software to turn it into a Summer and Winter weave. Basically, I have the same pattern from the table runner but it is now turned into a napkin. Figured an overshot napkin would just catch on everything and I wanted something that would be structurally sound and show off a motif. The thing I'm worried about is the density. Summer and Winter tends to make a firmer fabric and I don't like the idea of napkins that hold their shape when wiping your chin. When I did my napkins last year with 20/2 cotton verses 10/2 cotton I turned out loving the 20/2 so much I gave up making the 5/2 that were apart of the experiment. That is why I'm a bit worried that a summer and winter weave might be too dense. With that said I'll be using a 10/2 warp and 20/2 weft. So maybe it will work out just right, except with Summer and Winter the weft threads slide behind each other almost like a doubleweave...but even then I'm dealing with a faux 10/2 weft (20/2 threads sliding next to each other). Hmmmm.... I wonder what would happen if I used the sewing thread for a weft??? Suppose I should at least warp the loom before I start over thinking the project any more.
Happy Weaving!
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Last night we made a fire in our hearth and, though I loved every second of it, we found out our chimney needs cleaned very badly! While watching the fire for the little bit I got I made more Celtic knots, learning about Romilly Allen's basic blocks.I'm in chapter 5 now of 'Celtic Knotwork' by Iain Bain and he is describing a person, Romilly Allen, who has defined a method of drawing knots by using simple blocks then repeating them or mirroring them. It's a wonderful concept, and rather similar to working with blocks in weaving but I digress. Iain covers only 8 of the blocks that Romilly discovered in his work, and he explains that there are thousands of more blocks that Romilly goes over. Here is block 1 and the variations of itself I played with. Looking at this I could also connect more of the centers and have a completely different look. Here is block 2: Having blocks that you know by heart would be very helpful when you start creating your own designs, so i love this method. I did have to laugh when the author talks about how he designs his own Celtic knots only to find out it was done 1,000 years ago already. Yep, know how that goes!
So that is what I'm up to, oh, and I'm still weaving away on the table runner that will be finished here in a few more days barring any other life events. We landed back in Santa Rosa on Thursday and I finally get to start weaving on the warp I made before we left. Now I have to decide what my weft yarns are using yarn that I can still get to.We left Washington at 9am on Thursday and drove straight through to our home. Since we had two cats I really didn't want to figure out a hotel room and both of them very much wanted to be home. Turned out that there is an 'Atmospheric River' going through California during our drive so we drove through the pass north of Redding, CA with high winds, rain, and too many semi trucks. We finally made it home around midnight where I got cleaned up and instantly fell asleep! Before we went north I had warped the loom with a table runner project I found in Handwoven Nov/Dec 2016 issue called the 'Royal Holiday Runner.' (this link goes to the Handwoven WIF library, not sure it works without a subscription??) I've been looking at this runner for a long time because I love the color play with the intricate patterning. Oh Bother! Looking at this image and relating it to what I have on the loom shows me that my yarn sizes are still off. Ugh! Since we're still in the midst of building my studio my yarn isn't readily available so I decided to use what was in the house and what was on my 20/2 or smaller shelf (since that was easy to get to). The warp is 10/2 cotton yarns and I got to use up some of the cones, woohoo! The background weft is sewing thread doubled and some 20/2 cotton yarn, and the pattern weft has been changed a couple times. First it was a variegated yellow/gold 5/2 acrylic yarn and now it is 10/2 cotton yarn doubled up, and now that I'm looking at the published image maybe I should change it again.
Guess, I'll continue to weave with what I have chosen as my weft and if it still doesn't work out at least I'll get some stress out with weaving something.
I do like how this project has you weaving up the overshot and then half way through you switch to just a plain weave with the main background weft only. Then you fold it in half and you have a backing already made in your chosen colorway. Great idea! Though I think I will want a longer table runner so I may just weave all the warp up in overshot and then find a fabric with similar colors. Or maybe make another warp and use the rest of the yarns to make a separate plain weave fabric for the backing. We'll see how much warp I have. Guess, I have a knack for half Saori weaving and half precision weaving! Ha! |
Author: Vader
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