To keep my very energetic brain focused on a single task I've developed my own little outline for each weaving I do.
Each category has a book attributed to it and can always grow as my abilities grow allowing me to stay focused while also doing four things at once. Hahaha! For this weave I'm doing an outdoor pillow. That means I'll want something sturdy and wear resistant. The draft should be closely sett without any potential snags on the fabric. The color I decided for this project will be in primaries since I'm still in chapter one of the Color and Fiber book. Which holy cow that book is dense! nd the last element is design, which the chapter I'm reading now is all about lines and angles. So I figured something with a simple angle would be perfect.
With those parameters I've come up with a wool pillow in a 2/2 twill using multiple shades of blue in the warp and a rust color for the weft. Maybe not perfectly primary colors but it's what I had in my stash. Then, I began warping the loom with the various blues. Then the fun begins! My angled ridges aren't perfectly straight lines but this wool yarn is very forgiving so I bet in the end it will look perfect. Also, if you notice the lines aren't at 45-degrees to the selvedge and that's because the weft yarn is slightly thinner than the warp yarn. And since I want a sturdy fabric I'm packing the weft yarn in a bit making the angle to the selvedge about 30-degrees. And finally, I have to do the close up picture because I love playing! Happy weaving!
-Val
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This week I finished 7.5 yards of silk cloth. It is soooo supple!! When I took it out of the dryer I couldn’t stop draping it over everything. Before I threw it into the washer though, I noticed there was an iridescence to the yarn. Not sure you can truly see the play of light on the picture above but I'm mentioning it since the book I'm reading, 'Color & Fiber' by Patricia Lambert et al. Talked about iridescence being attributed to the diffraction of light. "The intense metallic colors of iridescence seen in some birds are produced by the diffraction of light through millions of slits or holes in the feathers." I'm thinking the silk yarn I used was thick enough that is had several 'slits' allowing the light to play on a single silk strand. However, once I washed it the yarn tightened and some of the light play was lost. This natural diffraction of light is very intriguing to me because it makes fabric look rich and luxurious so I will most certainly be playing with silk again in my future. Alas, let's look at lots of pictures! Here the fabric is still on the loom. And after I cut it off the loom... And a picture of the weave really close up because I like playing with my camera :) Oh! and of course my adorable dog who was super excited that I was leaving the loom to FINALLY play fetch. That's all for today. Happy weaving!
-Val Today I decided to work on a project that has been sitting on the loom for several months. It's the warp from Jennifer Moore's Double Rainbow class. (Hence Rainbow Bright!) It was a good class though I can't truly judge since my energetic personality doesn't do well in front of a Zoom screen, but alas, the ideas were wonderful and the techniques enlightening. Before I took the double rainbow class I finished the 4 shaft sampler from her book 'Doubleweave: revised & expanded'. Practicing the double weave concept before hand seemed helpful in understanding the evolution of the colors and blocks used during the class. Any way, after lots of samples I finally came up with something I would like to make. A continuously growing rainbow of blocks that will eventually become pot holders (maybe, I'm only 80% sure they'll be potholders). To make this rainbow in the weft direction there are a lot of color changes, but like I said the yarn is beautiful! Considering this project has been on the loom for more than a month already I'm not sure when it will get done, but hey I worked on it!
Here goes!
Recently, I decided to quit my job and begin doing what I honestly cannot stop myself from doing, Fiber Arts! I don't think there has been a time in my life when I didn't have a fabric craft that I was attached to. But it didn't really cause me to become a true textile addict until around the year 2012 when I found out that my needle work could be completed on something called an embroidery machine. From then on it was like bee to honey, I could not be stopped. From the embroidery machine came my revisit to sewing but this time with garments (before that it was typically bags). From garments came a curiosity of where my fabric originated. That's when I picked up hand spinning and animal husbandry. Well, I just raised a couple of bunnies but I hand spun all they gave me! Then with a plethora of yarn I tried out crocheting and knitting. And I have no idea what is wrong with me but knitting and crocheting didn't fascinate me for very long. However, upon meeting some truly amazing weaver's I did find something that fascinated me. In fact it dazzled me so much with it's ability to relate to my original love of needlework and sewing that I decided it was time to quit my job and see what the heck this beautiful craft had for me. Yeah, leaving a nice paying job with benefits and securities is difficult, probably not smart, but the older I get the more I realize that 'smart' is just a made up word with billions of meanings. So alas, I may not be conventionally smart with a great job but maybe I've become emotionally smart by paying attention to what I naturally do on a daily basis. And those are my rantings, with more to come! Hopefully, with lots of photographs for your viewing pleasure. Cheers, Val |
Author: Vader
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