Prepping and Proto-typing

box full of pirns ready for weaving tomorrow

proto-type warp for Durham NC workshop

Today was slow but steady progress - the loom got threaded, sleyed and tied on, ready to weave.  By the time I got pirns wound it was too late to start so that will happen tomorrow.

I scored a box of colcolastic yarn this week.  I've been looking for a supply for a while so it was great to receive the box so I can add it into my workshop.  The really nice thing about the colcolastic is that it is lycra with cotton and it comes in colours unlike the wool/lycra I've been using.  It's also strong enough to be used for warp without too much trouble,  While I did use the wool/lycra as warp myself, it was a singles yarn so I didn't like to put it into the warp for workshops.

bamboo 12 and wool/lycra in the warp

So, while the pirn winder chugged out pretty much perfect pirns, I wound a warp to test drive for the workshop in March.  It's ready to be rough sleyed and put into the loom.  Again - tomorrow.

Currently reading Three Day City by Margaret Maron

Finished!

I won't say that the scarf is done as it still needs to be hemmed, but here it is after wet finishing.

Although southern guilds aren't keen to have wool in the Magic workshop - they have very little call or use for wool - a little bit used to create shrinkage differential or 'collapse' effects might be tempting.  :)

With only one scarf (and a towel) in the washing machine, fulling didn't really begin to happen by the end of the 4 minute wash cycle with hot water (and our water is very hot as we keep the water heater turned up quite high just for my wet finishing), the regular cycle agitation and spin.

When I took the scarf out of the machine I wetted it out thoroughly and tossed both it and the towel into the dryer for about 30 minutes, checked on it a couple of times and took it out still damp after it had reached the degree of 'collapse' I thought would work well in a generous sized scarf.  The length is a bit longer than antiticpated (remember too long can be made 'right') but some people like very long scarves.  Since this is primarily a teaching sample, not a prototype for production, I'll hem it as it is and call it 'done'.

Currently reading A Good Hanging - a collection of short stories by Ian Rankin.  Not sure how I missed this title as I thought I'd read everything he'd written but it will do until his next title becomes available.

After Sample

.....and here's the 'after' sample.  :)

Again, the bottom bit is woven with the wool as weft.  The results are interesting but not 'collapse'.  The top bit is with the Tencel as weft and voila!  Collapse! 

After serging the ends I tossed the sample into the hottest water my hands could stand, then balled it up and rolled it vigorously as though I were making a large meatball (if that makes sense - it's the only analogy I could come up with).

As it cooled, I hotted it up again, several times.  This is the result of around 3 minutes of 'rolling'.

The Tencel shed some fugitive dye but it doesn't look like the wool picked any of it up - although it's hard to tell, especially in the part where the Tencel is the weft. 

I decided to hem the scarf as any fringe is going to look really odd with the wool fulling and the Tencel not.

I also calculated how much dimensional loss (approximately) and worked out that I should weave somewhere between 90 and 100" for a scarf.  I'll probably do 108 to allow for hems.  Besides, too long is easy to fix (especially when the 'finish' will be hems on the ends) while too short simply can't be fixed at all.

Sampling

Although I've worked with 'collapse' weaves and shrinkage differential quite a bit, ultimately every time you change yarns you have to sample.  If you don't you risk losing the entire project.

So even though I know from previous sampling that the white yarn (Henry's Attic Pony Worsted) fulls very well I've not actually combined it with Tencel before so while I suspect I'm going to get some sort of effect from fulling the wool, there are no guarantees I'll get the effect I'm actually going after.

I started with a combination set of 15 for the wool and 20 for the Tencel and my first sample is plain weave.

While plain weave will have to be fulled much more energetically than a twill structure, I wanted the best visual blending of the colours of the two different yarns.  The reason I'm using white is because I don't have any dyed and I've no time to do any. 

While I suspect I'm going to get the most fulling with the wool weft, sometimes you can be surprised so I wove about 6" with wool weft and about 8" with Tencel.  Tomorrow I'll beat the sample up good and see what happens.  If it works I've got enough warp on the loom to weave a scarf.  If it doesn't I'll be changing the parameters and weaving more samples.  None of it will go to waste as the samples will become teaching examples.  ;)

Currently reading Falling Backwards by Jann Arden

In Pursuit of Perfection

two different waffle towels

As I was nearing the end of this blue warp I started having misgivings.  I'd changed the epi from 36 to 30 because the weft I was wanting to use was somewhat thicker than what I'd used on the last 2/20 merc. warps and thought that a more open warp might work better. 

Since I had another 2/20 merc cotton warp I wanted to do (got lots of that yarn to use up for weft!) I decided to check the finished results before committing to another 30 epi warp.

Am I ever glad I did.  I'm not at all happy with my results in the waffle weave.  The woven illusion actually turned out okay - better than anticipated anyway.

I used two different weft yarns on the waffle weave towels in the photo above, and two somewhat different tie-up/treadlings.  But the different treadlings are not enough to account for the humongous difference in dimensional loss - it has to be the weft yarn.

The towel on the bottom is woven with 2/16 unmerc. cotton.  The towel on the top is woven with the singles 6 cotton that I've used elsewhere for collapse effects.  As you can see, the singles 6 has most definitely collapsed (or torqued, would be a more accurate statement).  There is a 4 inch difference in the width of the two towels and the singles 6 towel is thicker.  The twill stripes in the singles 6 towel has ruffled much more than in the 2/16 towel.

So I'm going to try this again on the beige warp, set at 36 epi and see if that reduces the dimensional loss in the singles 6 weft towels. 

Like I keep telling my student, change one thing and everything changes.  :}

Another Bumpy Fabric

This jacket is another fabric with 'bumps'.

The base fabric is Harris Tweed wool.  Harris Tweed is not Harrisville.  Two completely different yarns.

Harris Tweed is a singles, tightly twisted yarn which makes a sturdy cloth.  To this base I added stripes of 2/20 mercerized cotton.  There are two wefts - the Harris Tweed, and a 2/20 mercerized cotton which created separate 'ribbons' on the surface of the Harris Tweed that are a true double weave. 

The cotton woven into the Harris Tweed interferred with the fulling and I had to work very hard to get the cloth to full as much as I wanted to make this fabric work for a jacket.

My friend Darlene (who sewed this and many other garments for me) made the jacket reversible.  It has a hood and large shawl collar.  The model received this jacket as payment for the modelling job.

Fabric that goes Bump

I started playing around with creating textiles with texture in the mid-1980's.  This coat was the result of a technique sometimes called cloque'.  It's a stitched double weave with one layer that fulls, one layer that doesn't.  In this case the top layer is 2/8 cotton, the inside layer is a wool/cotton blend.  The top or face layer is plain weave, the inside/lining layer is a 4:4 twill (as I recall).  The stitchers are hidden.

The cloth was designed with an early version of Fiberworks and was woven sometime in the late '80's, early '90's as part of the monograph for the GCW Master Weaver tests.

Since then I've dabbled with differential shrinkage and highly twisted yarns but always within the framework of my goal as a weaver - to make cloth that will perform it's function as well as I can make it.

This particular cloth has some flexibility but not a lot of drape so a jacket design was chosen to meet this quality of cloth.  I thought you would be able to see the lining if you clicked on the photo but it doesn't really show.  If anyone is interested I can take a photo showing the back side of the cloth.
The jacket is quite cosy with the flannel like feel of the lining and fairly warm due to the pockets of trapped air between the two layers.

I've got the high twist cotton and wool/lycra coned off.  And with the news of my mother suddenly getting an apartment as of November 1, it is becoming imperative that I get rid of some of my yarns.  The three yarns that will help make bumpy fabric are listed on my Art Fire Store

Yes, I have yarns stored in my mother's basement - and they will need to go.....somewhere else.... :}

Round Tuits

three yarns I have used to make 'collapse' fabrics

table runner showing hem in plain weave, body in broken twill

Slowly, slowly energy is returning and I am beginning to deal with things that have needed to be done for some time but for which I never seemed to have a round tuit.

A number of years ago I got some yarn from a mill.  A couple of mills actually.  The single 6 cotton was a mistake shipped by one of the mills to me back in, oh, must be the early 1990's.  Recognizing the potential for collapse weaves in the highly twisted single, I kept one of the cases and returned the two others sent in error.  Fifty pound cases. 

I messed around with the singles 6 cotton and got some nice effects, but you do realize how much 50 pounds is, right?  Yes, I still have lots left!  In a further effort to bust my stash down to some sort of reasonable size, I finally started the cone winder chugging and have been breaking the large mill cones down into more manageable size - about 6 and 3/4 ounces.  That's about 1900 yards per cone.

I also got the rest of the last of the wool/lycra coned off so I have around 8 cones (approx. 6 ounce cones) of that left.  As near as I can remember that's a NM 28 so lots and lots of yardage on those cones, too.  The lycra is 2% of the mix and can be dyed, as I understand it, with the same acid dyes as wool.

Since the lycra is activated by the wet finishing, it is recommended that you weave first, dye later.

Last but not least I have some one pound (nominally) tubes of singles 40 (I think - another mill error) high twist wool.  If you have a copy of Magic in the Water, this is the same yarn as used for the scarves in project 19.

I'll be listing the yarns on my Art Fire Store shortly or you can order from me directly.

On the weaving front, stash busting proceeds there, too.  I have a bunch of wound warps which were intended to be dyed and woven up as scarves but that never did happen.  It took me a while to figure out what to do with them - I can only sell so many white scarves, after all.  :)  On the weekend I took two of the warps, rough sleyed them side by side and dressed the loom with them.  The warp is 22" in the reed and so the placemats will have hems top and botton instead of on the ends, but I don't think that will be a problem.

If they turn out, I'll likely finish the rest of those warps in this manner.  I can sell a lot more 'white' placemats and table runners than I can scarves!  And they will finally be woven up and another box will be gone off my studio floor.

Last but not least, I'd like to thank Syne for the book recommendation of The Sharing Knife series by Lois McMaster Bujold.  For some reason I'd never gotten around to reading Bujold so her work was new to me.  Imagine my delight at all the textile references - and accurate ones, too!  If you like a story that acknowledges the value of textiles to society, you might enjoy this series.  I'm on the 3rd volume now, looking forward to finishing it.  There are four books in this series.  And I'll likely be looking for more of her books now that I've finally gotten a round tuit for that, too.  :^)

Wet Finished

cones of Fox Fibre yarn and wet finished towels

Friday evening I finished weaving the beige warp with the Fox Fibre weft and ran the 19 towels through the washer/dryer on Saturday.  Today I went and pressed them.  Over all I'm quite pleased with the results although the colours aren't 'my' colours.  Actually the brown ones would look quite nice in my kitchen with the cork floors.  ;)

The cloth is slightly more weft emphasis on one side, and slightly more warp emphasis on the other.  Personally I like the warp emphasis better so will hem them so that that side is the 'right' side.

My energy is slowly returning and I celebrate each day that it is.  Today I beamed a warp onto the Leclerc Fanny for placemats and table runners.  I'm trying to use up some warps I'd intended to have painted for scarves but that never happened so two warps are wide enough for placemats woven width-ways.  It means hems on the top and bottom of the mat instead of the ends, but I don't think that will matter too much.  And it uses up the warps.  Stash busting continues.

I also got the warp for a guild member wound and will go up to the guild room Tuesday night and get some help extracting the loom from the 'herd' of looms so I can get that warp dressed for Ruth's friendship coverlet.

And last, but not least, I started beaming another tea towel warp, this time in two shades of blue, mixed thoroughly.  The weft for this warp will be a singles 6 cotton with lots of twist energy.  I'll probably do a couple of different treadlings, one in advancing twill, one in waffle weave.  With the twist energy in the weft, the waffle weave ought to pucker up well.

I've used this yarn for collapse effects and it works quite well if given sufficient room to torque.  I have lots of it and have been thinking of coning some off the huge mill cones and offering it for sale.  Perhaps it's time I got a round tuit and did just that.

Currently reading The Sharing Knife, part II by Lois McMaster Bujold - this series has lots of references to spinning and weaving for anyone who enjoys that in a story

Collapse Scarves

First two collapse scarves


Well, I'm not satisfied with the white one, but the black one turned out exactly as I hoped.

The white one was woven with a 12/2 mercerized cotton and has a much stiffer hand than the black one which was woven with Bambu 12.

So, I'll try a 20/2 mercerized cotton for the other white warp, and continue with the bamboo for the black. If the 20/2 mercerized cotton doesn't give the drape I want, I'll switch to bamboo. It's a last resort kind of thing though because the only white bamboo I have in stock is bleached and the warp is natural. Hmm - otoh, that might look okay anyway. Guess I'll try a bit of each before deciding for sure.

The good news is that the collapse isn't 50% so I don't need to weave quite so long a length.

Today, however, I need to be packing up inventory for the craft fair tomorrow. Set up begins at 7 am so it will be a mad scramble to get in and set up before the fair opens at 10 am. At least the weather is supposed to be fair, so we won't be dealing with wet. The bad news is that sleet is predicted for tear down. Oh the joys of being a hand weaver who relies on selling her stuff for income..... :}

The craft fair the following weekend we have the whole afternoon to set up so that will be a much more relaxed set up.

Currently reading Unseen Academical by Terry Pratchett

More Plain Weave

Plain weave again


Funny how I seem to get into a groove and can't get out of it again, but here I am with another 4 warps destined to be woven in plain weave. Each warp is 4 yards long for one scarf.

While in Kelowna on my last trip, I spent a couple of hours wandering the shopping mall looking at clothing. Specifically scarves/shawls. And was interested to see that a lot of them were using shrinkage differential/collapse effects.

This summer two of the students used a new to me yarn that was thicker than the ultra-fine wool/lycra I've had in inventory for a number of years. It was also cotton and lyrca, not wool and lycra. Tien wove up a sample warp and from the samples designed a shawl. Sharon also made a shawl.

So I'm not exactly flying blind here - I do have the benefit of two previous warps - well, three if you count the sample warp.

With time extremely limited, I didn't do anything fancy - just repeated what we had done for the sample because I knew how that had turned out - with the goal of having four collapse scarves ready for the craft fair this weekend.

Of course I can't get them all done! But at least they are started and will be ready for the fair the following weekend. :}

The down side of weaving fabric that collapses along the length is that you have to weave nearly twice as much length.

The up side is that they don't require fringe twisting or pressing. The scarves will be hemmed after being run through the washer and dryer. Getting the lycra wet activates it and the collapse happens.

I was going to do some spinning but apparently the craft drop-in isn't today. :} Perhaps I'll spin while watching some tv later. Unfortunately there is still a stack of rayon chenille scarves to fringe twist.....