Looking Close

 

Sometimes it's good to see close up what is happening.  To this end I have a digital microscope and a linen tester.  Each has its function, depending on what it is I want to see.

The digital microscope is great for getting a really close close-up, usually so that I can see the individual fibres.  The linen tester is better for seeing the cloth itself rather than the fibres.  It's not something I drag out very often, but there are times when it is perfect, especially this one which provides a scale to refer to as you look at the threads.

Right now I'm exploring something that has been in the back of my mind for a while - that is, draw in.  In my experience, it *appears* that there is a higher degree of draw in nearer the selvedges than within the centre of the cloth.  But the only way to know for sure is to take a closer look.

Yesterday I dug through my studio and finally found my linen tester (it's small so can 'hide' easily!) and took a look at the shawl that just came off the loom.  I wanted to see if I could prove - or disprove - my assumption about how draw in works in the cloth.  

But the warp on this cloth is black and it is just too hard to see, although I was able to estimate the number of ends per inch.  The warp is 2/16 bamboo from Brassard in black, with Silk City bambu 12 as weft.  The web is still loom state because I need to do the fringe twisting, and that actually helped because the reed marks are still visible and it was fairly easy to count groups of 4 (4 ends per dent in an 8 dent reed for 32 epi.

Off the loom it appears the web is 34 epi, which seems about right.  But it's really hard to see due to the very dark warp so I'm going to try doing this with a cotton warp/weft at 32 epi and see what I can see.  I have a loom state sample and plenty of finished towels, so I can take 'readings' from several areas in each and try to discover if draw in is consistent across the cloth, or if my observation of there being more at the selvedge is accurate or...not.

I found it quite difficult to try and see with my 'naked' eye, so I took a photo setting my ipad camera on the eye piece, and discovered that worked quite well.  Plus that will give me consistent readings to compare.

This information may - or may not - find its way into an article in the future.  But I will give a synopsis here, too.  Stay tuned.  (I have created a label for easy reference in the future.)