Magic in the Water

 

top sample wet finished, bottom sample loom state

Linen example from Magic in the Water

I can usually tell when someone has been talking about my books because I will see an uptick in sales.

Lately it's been Magic in the Water.  :)

It warms the cockles of my heart when I see it - it means people are still interested in knowing more, learning more, about this 'magical' process that transforms a web into real cloth.

I have also been pleased to be asked to write some articles (like the one in Heddlecraft for the June 2024 issue) that talks about the wet finishing processes.  Robyn asked me to talk about the role of compression and I was delighted to do so, because some people don't understand that a hard press is not ironing.  

I used to get into scrapes online because I would recommend to folk that as a part of any fabric they intended to cut and sew (specifically for garments, but any cloth, really) they apply compression.  Inevitably I would get some people who were sewists who would scoff and tell me that if I knew how to sew properly I wouldn't need to do all that.

Thing is, almost all commercially woven fabric comes to the market wet finished - including a hard press.

So, yes, if you are working with commercially produced fabric, especially high quality fabric, it has already *been* compressed.  But if you have woven the threads into cloth and expect to be able to sew it into something that will wear well and hold a seam, you might need to consider that part of the finishing as well.

For years I have been trying to come up with a way to illustrate what happens when those webs are compressed, and I have finally come up with a plan to show how it works.  I have to do some hard pressing today, plus the new warp is ready to weave, so I probably won't get to it today.  But I have the materials I need, I just need to work out the details to make it happen.  I'm trying to decide if I livestream the experiment on FB.  OTOH, if I fail, it will be in public, so maybe not.  :D