Gearing Up

 

I have finished weaving the samples I need for the two articles.  I think.  I will know better once I've done the wet finishing if I need to do more.  Perhaps these samples will raise more questions and I want to see if I can find an answer.  Or I will see an angle I hadn't considered before that I want to pursue as part of this exploration.

As it happens, I don't need to weave ALL of the samples now - I have lots of samples from my teaching days that I can drag out to use as examples.  But I had some very specific subtle effects I wanted to really take a very close look at and see if those slight differences make much difference to the cloth.

But there were certain aspects that they wanted to examine that I really hadn't done, in an organized fashion.  I mean, I have opinions!  Of course I do.  But they want to provide answers that are based on some experimentation, not just my best guess.

And of course, now I hit the 'wall' of indecision, of doubt.  

I spent some time drawing up forms so that I can record the details of what I do.  I just need to clear the decks so that I have room to work.  Plus it will take some time over several days because of course the samples will have to dry.  They also need to be clearly labelled/identified, and I've come up with a way to do that so I can keep track of them.  Because they don't *look* very different and once wet finished I suspect they are going to be difficult to tell apart.

(I'm not saying who or when until I finish the work and have it approved...)

In the meantime, I'm examining an aspect of textiles I've noticed but not pursued in an organized fashion.  And that feels good, to finally have the time to set aside, weave the samples, then wet finish them, and then sit down to really examine them to see - if I can - what has happened.

Wet finishing is such a magical process.  There are all sorts of ways to carry the process out, and all sorts of variations, given how many different fibres there are to weave with.  I won't try to examine them all, but I will look at the 'major' ones.

And then people will have to do their own 'research', their own 'experiments' and see what happens when...

The side benefit to doing this series of samples is that I finally thought of a way to explain in a clearer way how compression works in textiles.  As usual, the effect is generally quite subtle, and in many cases not really seen - unless you look really closely.  

Once I've got this writing behind me, stay tuned for a tutorial on compression, hopefully in a way that clearly shows what happens when you interlace three dimensional 'rods', then compress them and how that affects the textile as a whole.