Magic in the Water

shawl woven with rayon

Yesterday I had the experience of seeing the Magic in the Water in action.  I've been preparing an article for Handwoven (to approve - or not) and working from my stash. 

In The Intentional Weaver I discuss many of the considerations that go into the creation of a textile and while I have touched lightly on some of them for the article, the thought processes go way beyond what I could fit into a magazine submission.

The final step in changing the yarn into a cloth was the wet finishing.

The web was very stiff because I had built the cloth quite densely, relying on a) weave structure (twill) and fibre (silk) to lend their flexibility to creating a cloth with drape.

During the planning phase of designing, the density changed several times, from 24 to 30 to 32 to 36 and finally to 40 epi.  Yes, all with the same yarn.

I didn't weave a sample because I had other experience with 20/2 silk, plus I had some woven samples that I referenced.  One reason for keeping samples - so you know what you have done previously and the results that were obtained.

The above photo is not the cloth I'm talking about, just there to reference drape in the finished cloth.  I won't publish any photos or details until after I find out if the article has been accepted or not.

Since Mary left I've been trying to work on things that have looming (pun alert) deadlines, and the article seemed the most pressing so what little I did yesterday was to get the scarf fringe twisted, then wet finished.

Now that Puff is being taken apart, I am back to using the little flat bed press, which doesn't do nearly as good a job and takes three times as long.  But since I'm no longer producing for craft fairs...

So I used the flat bed press, carefully straightening out the curl at the selvedge, then when it was nearly dry went to the ironing board and hand iron where I polished both sides of the cloth.  We want to see shine when we see silk, so developing that sheen was an important final step.

The only thing left to do now is trim the bits off the ends of the twisted fringe, review my written notes, and then save the files to a thumb drive and package the whole works up and into the mail.  With two weaving workshops coming up in two and three weeks, I needed to clear the decks so I could concentrate on getting ready for those.

Plus I would like to get back to weaving.  I have barely touched a loom for two weeks.