Over the course of my career I have spent hundreds of hours trying to explain to people what wet finishing is, why it needs to be done, and why I don't tell people to 'just wash it'.
I have documented the process, in print, in videos, in person and now, remotely.
I rather suspect I will go to my grave still telling weavers that 'it isn't finished until it's wet finished'.
Recently I saw some advice about how to 'wash' your hand wovens, with the advice that you need to do x, y, z if you want to keep your cloth looking like it looked in the loom.
I nearly spit out my coffee, but the whole point of wet finishing isn't to keep the individual threads looking like they looked in the loom, but to assist them in the transformation from individual threads to 'whole' cloth.
At a workshop I taught many moons ago, one student finally 'got' what the point was when they did the wet finishing and exclaimed that they now knew that they wanted to build the cloth they wanted so that it would be the quality of cloth they wanted *after* wet finishing, not make it look like they wanted it to look while still in the loom.
They finally understood the process of wet finishing was to bring those individual threads together as a whole. They understood that there would be dimensional loss, and how to predict how much that would be. And how minor irregularities - like reed marks, small beating inconsistencies - would be reduced if not eliminated. And that weave structures that relied on the threads moving to areas of least resistance would achieve that deflection - i.e. waffle weave, honeycomb, lace weaves, deflected double weave - and so many more would do that during the wet finishing.
If fulling was required, that happens in the wet finishing, not in the loom, and the web will absolutely be transformed.
This month I have given several Zoom presentations about Magic in the Water. It is an opportunity to explain the process, and even, in some cases, demonstrate what I'm talking about. I can show multiple examples of the before (loom state) and after (finished) results.
And show how the cloth improves via the interaction with water, agitation, and even compression.
If you want silk to look silk-like, then compressing it will develop the shine we all associate with silk. If you want linen to drape, wet finishing (and then using it) will develop your woven linen yarns into the quality of cloth we expect when we work with linen.
Potters have to fire their bisque to create 'real' pots. Weavers have to wet finish their webs to create 'real' cloth. Plain and simple.
In the olden days, the job of weaver and the job of wet finisher were two separate professions. In this day and age, weavers must also become proficient with wet finishing their webs.
If you want a copy of Magic in the Water (photos only, no actual samples) it is still available here in both print and pdf formats.
If you learn better through demonstrations, I have video classes at Long Thread Media or School of Sweet Georgia.
This isn't just 'my' advice. I was encouraged very strongly by several knowledgeable people to bang this particular drum - one a retired textile engineer emailed me to encourage me to keep letting people know about this final, critical step in turning individual threads into 'whole' cloth.
Allen Fannin and I agreed to disagree about a number of weaving type things, but he also strongly encouraged me to keep banging this drum.
And so I have. And so I will.
I'm still taking bookings for Zoom presentations. If a group chooses the longer 'seminar' format, I can even do some demonstrating. Otherwise, my video classes are where I really document the process.
But honestly? ALL of the seminars I have listed on my website are helpful if people want to understand the subtlety of the craft of weaving. Lately I have begun to realize that if a guild booked me for all of the topics at the seminar level, those 11 topics add up to a 'master' class.
Otherwise, my books cover much of the information - it's just that I can add more info, show samples, include more detail. The Intentional Weaver is a 'textbook', Stories from the Matrix is a collection of essays that includes many of the stories I would tell when I travelled to teach (and more), and A Thread Runs Through It (only available as a pdf in my ko-fi shop) talks about the reality of being a professional production weaver.
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4 comments:
I find it puzzling that anyone would want their finished fabric to look exactly the same as it did on the loom. Beginner's project attachment? After seeing the results of wet finishing on my projects, I count on it for improving the look, hand, and quality of my fabrics!
For me, it seems to boil down to the fact that the weaver simply does not know about or understand the dynamics involved when the interwoven threads hit the water for the very first time. So they work really hard to make the cloth look the way they want it - in the loom - and then when it changes during wet finishing, they are no longer satisfied with it because it no longer looks the way they want it to.
It's a bit like Magic, hence the title to my book. And why I try very hard to educate people as to the how and the why of it, and encourage them to understand the factors involved. :)
Towards the end of 2023 you gave an in depth presentation via Zoom to our B.C Handweavers' Guild. It was pure gold.
Seems to me there's too much 'casual' (wet) finishing information out there so I really appreciate your dedication.
I was weaving off and on from 1968 - 1979 and finishing info was bleak. Very bleak.
Yes, my experience as well. I really had to do a *lot* of 'experimentation' because there was very little information available.
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