Winter motif

 

'failure #2'

This is the second 'failed' attempt to weave this design.  And, it's why I weave 'samples', sometimes full-sized!

There are a few 'technical' issues with this project, and I was very grateful I wove it before I started the 'actual' items.

Number one issue is the combination of a 'fancy' twill with a centre field.  The fancy twill is an 'advancing' twill, and when you try to weave a 'standard' plain weave, the result is basket weave in areas where the advancing twill is threaded.  

I actually preferred this because it would take up more than plain weave (although less than the twill).

It also tracked in the centre field, but I don't worry too much about that considering that it tracked consistently across the area.

But then the different areas also tend to beat in differently.  This sample is #2 because I changed from 32 epi to 30 epi, hoping that would allow the centre field to beat in more closely.  But it also meant the borders would beat in more, too.

So I played with the beat, trying to figure out if I had to change the beat to 'firmer' for the centre field area.

Then when I was weaving it, something 'off' kept catching in the corner of my eye.  I couldn't 'see' it when I looked straight at it, but it kept nagging at me.  So I cut off, intending to wet finish it in hopes of seeing it 'better'.  But I could see it fine *on the wrong side of the cloth*.

Back to the desktop to open the files and try to figure out what I'd done, and sure enough I had not done the tie up correctly.

But doing this exercise gave me a lot of information - some of it anticipated, some of it a 'surprise'!

There is nothing very much 'wrong' with it, except that once I saw the 'errors' I had to stop and fix or adjust what I was doing.  

This type of 'error' makes the textile a 'second' in my mind, but I will likely use it as a 'gift'.  I have several local friends that have no compunction to take my 'seconds' off my hands.  :)

I'll be honest.  There are times that I don't fix minor errors.  Some of them are only 'visible' to me.  So, no, I don't fix every 'flaw'.  Our ancestors probably didn't have a lot of time to fix minor errors that would not affect the function of the textile.  

But in some instances, like this project I'm working on now, I *must* come as close to perfect as I can humanly come.  

And, now that I'm  no longer relying on weaving to produce much of an income, I have the time to make the effort to be as finicky as it takes to nudge the needle closer to 'Nearly Perfect'.  

I have now produced two examples that I consider 'close enough' to Perfect that I will finish the rest of the warp in tea towels.  Which will likely be available in my ko-fi shop in the new year (hopefully by then the Canada Post labour negotiations will be resolved...)