A Different Perspective

 

This is not a black and white photo.

I was awake most of the night (yes, pain flare) and around 6:30 am I decided if I was going to be awake I might as well get something done rather than sit around and accomplish nothing.

Since I had a bin of towels ready to press, down I went.  Around 7 am the sun was shining directly into the window of my studio, but with the curtains closed, this was my view.

As some of you know, I worked as a sales person for a custom drapery house, assisting people in their choices for window coverings.  As part of that job I learned a lot about fabric for curtain/drapes.  I also learned about 'railroading' your fabric.

So, in this photo, the warp is running horizontally.  Knowing I could do this meant that I knew I could set up my loom to weave fabric just wide enough to make my curtains without seams in them.  Since this was a bit on the heavy side for curtains, not having seams was A Good Thing.

The design is stripes of twill and a lace weave.  If I remember correctly I set this up to weave on a double two tie threading so I could easily weave twill, then lacy.  The yarn has a slub in it and I didn't particularly want a very open cloth.  What I did want was for the light to come through while blocking the actual sunshine.  

As I sat at the press this morning looking up and through the cloth on the window, I was reminded about how much the threads shift and move to areas of least resistance.  You might have to biggify the photo to really see the threads.  I got as close as I could to the fabric, but since I have shelving and worktable against the wall below the curtains, this was about the best I could do.  But if you click on the photo, I think it will open in a new window and give a larger view.

What is really interesting to me is that in the twill areas, it doesn't look like the yarn has moved very much at all, but in the lacy areas, you can clearly see the rounded plain weave area, and even trace the undulating path of the threads in the lacy areas.

This yarn had some twist energy in it, and it's obvious that the twist energy is still playing in the cloth in the areas where there are longer floats/skips.  The twill keeps the threads more effectively corralled.  But just because we can't see the twist energy at work in the twill stripes, doesn't mean it wasn't playing on the threads in those areas, too.  It's just a lot more subtle.

Sometimes it's a good idea to let go of what you know in order to take new information on board.