Sampling

 

There are actually two samples in the photo - one was woven with 20/2 unmercerized white, the other was woven with 2/20 mercerized 'natural'.

But what I want to point out today is the selvedge.

There are so many people who insist that a selvedge *must* be plain weave.  

But here's the thing - if you are weaving something *other* than plain weave in the rest of the cloth, that plain weave selvedge will take up at a different rate than the other structure and the selvedge ends will get tighter and tighter.

Not a big deal if the weaver cuts off and re-ties, but...more work, overall, than just weaving a more appropriate structure - like the same take up as the rest of the cloth.

Now, I also deal with 'fine' threads by doubling the outside 4 ends at the selvedge *BUT* keeping the density of the cloth the same.  

And no, I so rarely use a floating selvedge that I would say 'never' but there may come a time when a floating selvedge is 'best practice'.

The samples in the photo have been wet finished, including a good hard press.  The weave structure creates 'floats' along the selvedge.  Given the 'fancy' twill weave structure, there are (if I remember correctly) 5 pick floats in the selvedge.

But!  After wet finishing, including that hard press, the 'loops' tuck into the edge of the cloth and they are fine.  

The selvedge is not 'ruler' straight.   The nature of the weave structure that contrasts 1:3 and 3:1 areas to create the motif, means that the selvedge gently curves.  

Another variable is if the weft yarn is smooth or textured.  The singles linen I've been using is *very* fine (for most people) and it has gentle 'slubs' in it.  So, again, the selvedge is affected when one of those 'slubs' is at the edge of the cloth.

In my studio I do the best I can to be a) consistent and b) as efficient as I can be.  Perfect?  Well, when *that* happens, it's lovely, but truly a Gift from the Loom Goddess.

There are many reasons for sampling.  Since I'm trying to weave down my yarn stash, sometimes it's a good idea to see how exactly the yarn is going to behave - right through to the wet finishing.

This year marks 50 years of being a weaver.  Yes, I still make 'mistakes'.  Yes, I still sample.

Today one of my 'jobs' is to explore designing a twill progression and figure out how to best illustrate how I do that for anyone who is interested.  The sample above is a variation on the Swedish Snowflake motif.  I may - or may not - submit the table runner(s) I've been weaving for the past couple of weeks.  Or I have enough of the 2/20 merc. cotton for warp and the unmerc. 20/2 to weave off one more warp.  But then there will be some 2/20 merc. cotton to use as weft on an unmerc. cotton warp.  

The current warp will be coming off the loom in the next few days.  So I'm going to have to spent some time at the desktop exploring some twill progression motifs.

Always something new to explore, more to learn.