Hiatus

 I fell and had a brain bleed.  

It looks like I can go home today.  

And Now, Twill

 

before compression

 after compression

Yesterday I did the twill example.

Now, plasticine isn't a true example of what happens in the cloth.  Plasticine is, for one thing, not thread but plastic and 'stickier' than yarn would be.

But when trying to upscale to show what happens, I had to make choices about what to use to illustrate the effects.

The thing missing from this example, is, of course, the fact that the threads did not get agitated so that they could move to areas of least resistance.  The plasticine has zero twist energy so there is no hidden 'engine' driving the movement of the threads in the cloth.

Even so, the before compression looks 'thready' while the after looks more cohesive.

When I pulled the 'finished' samples off the plastic, they did, in fact, stay together, not fall apart like they would have done without the compression.

I'm not saying all cloth needs compression.  All I'm saying is that weavers need to consider the role of compression in the wet finishing process, then do what is 'best' for their cloth.

After doing a Zoom lecture last week on wet finishing, I'd like to bring the options and advantages of wet finishing to the attention of all weavers.

To this end, there are the classes on School of Sweet Georgia and Long Thread Media, plus my book, Magic in the Water.  The current book doesn't have the actual fabric samples, but close up photos of the samples.  The original copies of Magic do come available from time to time, usually in weaver's estate sales, and they usually sell for about what the person paid for it.  If you can get it for less, you should buy a lottery ticket.  :D  Or get the book without the samples as per the link above, either pdf or magazine format.

Hard to believe it's been 22 years since Magic was published...

Under Pressure

 

plasticine woven into plain weave*

after compression

I bought some 'proper' plasticine yesterday and today I rolled out some 'threads' and wove a bit of plain weave with them.

The goal of doing this little experiment was to try to show how the threads flatten and spread out into the empty spaces between each other when they are exposed to compression.  They also get squeezed together and 'lock' into each other, like a log cabin with the rounds of logs notched so that the structure becomes a lot more stable and secure.

The other thing that shows quite clearly, I think, is how the two sets of threads undulate as they curve around each other.

Now, plasticine isn't thread, but the point is, it behaves in much the same way once woven and compressed.  I haven't tried lifting the compressed sample off the table yet, but I suspect that it would not immediately fall apart like the uncompressed version would, now that the warps and wefts are locked into each other.

In this photo the crimp that develops in the threads after compression is clearly visible.

And this is why I am so careful with my terms.

Wet finishing - the very first time the woven web hits water, gets scoured and agitated, and even, perhaps, compressed.

Hard Press - is not ironing, but the application of pressure to the cloth while still damp from the initial wet finishing.  You *can* apply compression later, but it is easiest done while still damp, in my experience.

No, I don't use a pressing cloth.  Yes, I apply the sole plate of the iron (with a Teflon cover) to the cloth.  Yes, this increases the shine in the cloth - if it isn't desired, you can spray the cloth down after compression and the threads will absorb the water and swell which will lessen the flatness of the surface and reduce the shine.

Hard pressing is not a difficult job, but like so many other things about weaving, a time consuming one.  If you have a lot of pressing to do, put on some lively music, or an audio book, or binge watch a favourite tv program.  Keep pressing until the impression of the iron is no longer a sharp imprint.  

And a reminder that the majority of fabric in a fabric store has already been wet finished.  If it has not (and there are some off shore manufacturers who don't) it is a really good idea to run the fabric through the washer/dryer (as appropriate) and apply a good hard press to it before starting to work with it.  Because one of the things that happens in that first exposure to water is the dimensional loss - something you want to have happen *before* you sew something with it, not *after* you've spent all that time sewing the thing.

*I plan on doing a twill example, but rolling the plasticine out into 'threads' is hard on my hands, so I'll do that tomorrow, maybe...

Reflections on Failure

 

So, if yesterday's 'experiment' was such a failure that I am looking to re-do it, why did I share it?

Because that's what life and learning is.  Failing, re-thinking, re-doing, until you get the results you desire.

After the failure yesterday I found a home for the 'bad' plasticine I'd purchased, and checked at a local toy story for the 'real' stuff.  They carry it and I'll go get some and re-do the experiment.

What the 'failure' did was show me that what I was thinking was possible - I just needed different materials in order to make it work the way I wanted it to.

And this is why most experienced weavers tell new weavers to sample.  I can tell people what I do, but then it is down to the person doing it to do what they do - and what they do might be different in some way.  Their loom may be different (have a lighter or heavier beater), they may have different shuttle handling capabilities, the yarn they are using might be a different quality, etc.

The only way to know what your results will be is to...weave it.  Try it.  Find out.

Pretty much like life.  And probably why so many 'fairy' tales have some sort of reference to textiles - Hansel and Gretel (in one version, they have a ball of yarn to mark their route through the forest), Sleeping Beauty (pricking her finger on the spindle), the Swan Princes (where the princes must collect, spin and weave nettle shirts for her ensorcelled brothers to turn them back into human form) Rumplestiltskin (spinning linen into gold) etc.

There are so many lessons 'true' for weaving that are also 'true' for life.

Learning from your 'mistakes' - or poor choices - is just one of them.  But a very valuable lesson when all is said and done.  And sometimes you just don't know that you have made a poor choice until you weave (or do) the thing.

So, no, I wasn't discouraged, or even particularly displeased that the experiment didn't work.  I found out that it *could*, if I had the proper materials.  

I'm busy tomorrow and have a visiting weaver coming on Friday so it will likely be Saturday before I can do the next iteration of the experiment.  And that's ok.  It is just to satisfy my wanting to be able to show what I mean, not just talk about it.  If I can't make it work, it will be back to words.  But not everyone learns just by words alone.  So I hope this will work.  At least I will have tried.

Failed Experiment

 

plain weave, not compressed

plain weave, compressed

I have been thinking for a while how I can illustrate what compression does to cloth and came up with the idea that I could 'weave' some plasticine 'rods' into plain weave and then compress them to show what happens when threads undergo compression during wet finishing.

Unfortunately the plasticine I had was really 'wet' and extremely 'sticky' and it was a nightmare to work with.  So it didn't work very well.

However, it worked well enough that I think if I get some better quality stuff it might show what happens in a more informative way.  I'll look around and see what I can find at a toy store or art supply store.

If you squint, you should be able to see that the 'threads' have flattened and spread out into the spaces between the 'warp' and 'weft'.  It should also be apparent if you look hard that the surface of the compressed example is shiny in comparison to the uncompressed.

If you don't succeed, try again?

Reflection

 

Maybe it's all the health issues I've been having for the past while.  Maybe it's the fact that the high school reunion will be happening next month (and I'm not going, even though I still live in the same town I grew up in - because I don't 'do' large indoor gatherings - because Covid), maybe it's just that I've reached 'that' age.

Maybe it's the fact that I wrote a 'memoir' last year and published it this year.  Maybe I just never grew out of the 'what's it all about Alfi' stage and I've always kind of, sort of, wondered why I'm here and what I'm 'supposed' to be doing.

I certainly have not chosen a life that society deemed was appropriate for me.  And even now there is a huge slice of the population trying to tell me again that - because I'm childless, old, and broken - I'm useless.

What value do we put on life?  Anyone's life?  Is ours the most valuable?  Maybe.  Mine is certainly of value to me.  But is it of value to others?  

Covid has caused a lot of people to ask themselves how much they care about themselves, and others.  And some of them just don't. 

Climate change is another turning point - literally.  On the news nearly every night there is a litany of 'unnautral' disasters - flooding, wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, landslides, sinkholes, diminishing glaciers, rising seas.  And every single night, the big 'news' is how governments are going to mitigate the damage, and never, not once, does anyone say 'wait, maybe, just maybe we should be working at fixing the problem instead of the symptoms'.  Instead one politician is stumping around Canada (and why is he doing that, he's not supposed to start campaigning until the writ drops) chanting Axe The Tax!

I'm far too old now to care much about what others think of me.  Maybe because I chose a different path while in my 20s and abandoned society's expectation that I would have 2.5 children, keep a spotless home, have a 9 to 5 job that was killing my creativity/soul.  

I watched my father die slowly from a nasty cancer, far too young.  And I asked myself, was I willing to put nose to grindstone and do what was expected of me or was I going to feed my soul and do what *I* wanted.

It didn't hurt that I could joke about it.  After all, you have to be warped to weave, right?  So I embraced that.  

I chose the road less travelled.  What I didn't expect to find were so many others who also found that road less travelled more interesting than what society had deemed imperative.

As I look back on my life, I have done more, accomplished more, met more people, been more places, than a blue collar kid growing up in the middle of the province had any reason to expect.

Regrets?  Well, I have a few, but I suspect that had I NOT chosen the road I did, I would have been a very unhappy person.  Instead I have helped, encouraged, and promoted others.  I have tried, in every way I could think of, to teach others, point them in the direction of more information when I could not provide an answer myself.  And every day, I get to create something new.  Something that has never existed before.  I focus on creating things, not destroying them.

And all in all, that seems like enough, even if I have to do it at a much slower pace than I used to be able to maintain.

Stay warped, my friends.  

Picking Away

 

Am making my way through the current warp.  Today I will cut off and re-tie and then it should take about 5 more days to finish the warp off.  So, it's time to start planning the next.

I have enough fine linen for about 6 warps and the current warp is #2, so I have some leeway to experiment and explore more of the fancy twills I enjoy so much.  This draft is a fairly plain one (so to speak) because I'm still dealing with uncomfortable pain levels that interfere with my sleep and therefore my brain is a leaky sponge.  No point in doing anything particularly difficult and invite catastrophic 'mistakes'.

This is based on a counter change kind of motif although changed somewhat in order to make it different from other iterations.

One of the things I enjoy doing is designing cloth with motifs that break out of the linear - undulations, to my mind, give a flow to the cloth.  And of course twills are more flexible than plain weave.

The challenge right now is that the linen is stiff and a lot thinner than the 2/16 warp, so I have been adding a bit of plain weave into the tie up which gives the cloth more stability.  So far I'm liking the results, so we'll see how this new one does.  

The colours will be the darker blue and the green for warp with the white linen weft.

On the writing front, I will be reviewing the 2nd article in the next few days.  I find giving myself some mental space before I try to do revisions gives me better perspective.  And another reason why I'm trying really hard to not run myself headlong into the deadline but get everything done in plenty of time.  Then the editor can decide if they are satisfied or if they want more changes, or more samples, or...whatever.

I also need to do something about a current headshot for the magazine.  I truly dislike photos of myself but the only ones I have are years old by this point and it's time I did a new one.  

In the meantime, I have one more towel to weave today, then cut off and re-tie.  And then if I have spoons left, I had a light bulb moment about how to illustrate what happens to the cloth when it gets compressed in the wet finishing.  Perhaps I will have the energy to begin setting that experiment up?

TBD.