An Educated Guess

 

My 'guestimate' at 27 being the 'proper' density for this textile appears to have been pretty close.  Now, things will change during wet finishing, and this angle (tension has been released on the warp) is almost 'too good' at very nearly 45 degrees.  The weft is thicker than the warp, and that means it is hard to predict the actual amount of dimensional loss without going through the whole process - and perhaps most crucially - the wet finishing.  Until I see it put through the whole process, including the pressing *and the drying* - I won't really know just how close I came.  

Do I much care?

Not really.  I'm on a stash busting mission and they are intended to be tea towels.  If they are not 'perfect'?  If they will dry dishes, goal will have been achieved.

Having woven a 'sample' on the previous warp, I felt I had confirmed my suspicions that 32 was going to be too many epi but there were enough variations that I could not be sure.  But I went ahead based on my previous experience/mistakes, and said 'it will do'.

Because every time you make a change in what you are doing, outcomes can change.  Sometimes those changes are acceptable.  Sometimes?   Not so much.

If weaving has taught me one thing - don't worry so much.  As Leonard Cohen sang - forget your perfect offering, everything has a crack in it - that's how the light gets in.

Embrace the light, child.  Embrace the light.

When You Don't Know...

 

Black and white photo of yarns, both rated to 3360 yards per pound

One of the challenges when weaving is to choose the 'best' yarn for your project.

The first question I ask myself is, what kind of cloth do I want to make?  What 'job' does it need to do?

Then I ask myself the density (epi/ppi), along with weave structure.  Then I work out the design, and if I will use more than one weft colour (either within the warp, or just to make multiple things in different colours) and how will those colours be arranged if more than one will be used.

A new weaver can follow a 'recipe' and generally wind up with good results.  But here's the thing - yarn is not limited when it comes to the kind and quality it comes in.

It is particularly confusing when a large segment of weavers use knitting terms to describe their yarn.  Or that they don't understand how yarn is made - how it is prepared for and then spun - are the fibres parallel or jumbled; how many twists per inch per ply (if there is more than one) and how tightly twisted the yarns are.

Twist imparted to the yarn is going to change the characteristics the yarn will have.  Spinning loosely will mean a yarn will wear less well than the same fibres, treated the same way, spun with more twist.

There are two commonly available cotton yarns, repeatedly used but little understood.  The version of 2/8 I prefer is prepared with the fibres parallel, then given a higher degree of twist in the spinning, which is then countered during the plying so that the yarn is relatively 'balanced' - in other words, not a huge degree of twist energy left in the yarn.  The other yarn, much more commonly available in the US is 8/2.  The fibres are mixed well, then open end spun.  This version of the yarn has the same yards per pound as the 2/8, which makes it 3360 yards per pound, but the yarn is lofty, slightly thicker than the 2/8, less strong, and more absorbent than the 2/8.

To look at them, they don't really look all that different.  I had to change the photo to black and white for the difference to begin to be visible to the eye.

If you don't know about these differences, you might find yourself disappointed in your results.  If you use the 8/2 as warp, you may find that it dusts off more than the 2/8, it might break more easily, it feels 'better' at a lower density - because it's slightly thicker than the 2/8.

And this kind of 'unseen' difference is why most yarn charts giving density are a range, plus weave structure being used.

Just recently I saw a conversation on a group where one person asked for epi for a yarn, and then had a variety of answers.  I wanted to ask how the yarn had been spun; was it open end?  Or ring spun?  

Because these things matter.  Until the weaver understands the basic production processes for their yarn, they are working in the dark (so to speak).  

I go into this (and other characteristics) in more detail in The Intentional Weaver,* and the class at School of Sweet Georgia.

*In Canada you can buy the pdf version, in the US, the books are printed in the US so you can still purchase in spite of the Canada Post strike.

Winter's Coming!

 

Inspiration is all around us, we just have to stop and look.

With winter creeping ever closer, and the current warp soon coming to an end, I have been mulling over what to do 'next'.  I have plans, but I need to polish them, fine tune them, try to work out the kinks before I ever pick up the shuttle.

I still have over 5 kilos of the singles linen and the priority is to use them up, but what I plan to do next will mean a combination of linen on part of the cotton warp with the rest being woven off with cotton.  

In order to do this as efficiently as possible, I need to make accommodations because the linen will not draw in as much as the cotton.  I'm also trying to show off my 'mastery' and weave squares, which means the density, weave structure and thickness of the yarn have to be 'balanced'.  No mean feat when the two different yarns will weave in differently, so must be adjusted individually.

Yesterday I was weaving (up to about 30 minutes, twice a day, now) so I had time to think through the options.  If I do this, that will likely be the result.  How do I move forward?  What do I shift to get closer to my goal of 'perfect' beat?  Since I'm using two different yarns to make two different cloths, can I do both on the same warp?  If so, what accommodation do I need to make when I change from the linen to the cotton weft?

So I came up with A Plan, with an option B if it doesn't work.  Now I have to re-check my draft because my fall back plan is to change the density, and that will change the width of the warp in the reed (or wind up with a finished object 'too large').

For now I will keep picking away at the current warp and let the next warp simmer in the back of my brain.  The part that designs textiles seems to be largely intact, which is a relief.  Or, at least, I think it is.  The thought processes getting this next warp ready seems like my 'usual'.  My writing is getting 'better', although I still find holes where a word I intended to use dropped out of my conscious thought process, then out of the documents I'm trying to write.  :(

Still having trouble speaking, however, so I find myself avoiding in being in situations where I have to talk for more than a few minutes.  Hopefully once I start feeling a bit better physically, I'll feel more like visiting with others.  But I'm not driving yet, either, and probably won't be until spring.

I might just 'hibernate' for the winter and see if I feel up to being more social when spring comes back.

Process

 

in process...

Yesterday I beamed the next warp and started threading it.  Last night I had a 'bad' night and finally gave up on trying to get some sleep, went down and finished the threading.  This warp is for samples, and the first samples will be on 18 epi.  Then I'll cut off and re-sley to 20 epi (which is the intended density for the rest of the warp.)

I don't much like re-sleying because all my neat bundles of groups of threads are gone and sleying takes longer, and is more prone to introducing sleying errors, but...needs must.

Sometimes ya just gotta do what ya gotta do.

I'm testing a theory that density will make a difference in a result.  I could take the word of the author who did this previously, but I'm always interested to do my own 'research', because change one thing and everything can change.

While I beamed and threaded yesterday, I also ran the 14 towels that came off the previous warp (once *those* samples were woven) through the washer/dryer.   They are now in a plastic bin waiting to be pressed.

Today will be prep work for the article, then pressing.  If I have spoons left after that, I will re-sley the warp and get it ready to be woven tomorrow.  The actual weaving of the first set of samples won't take more than about an hour and I'm keen to get these samples woven so I can begin the wet finishing.

I've worked out a form for documenting the results, and which samples I need.  Some will come from my rather copious sample 'stash' because I kept so many for teaching aids.  But I also feel I need to do the same experiment the previous author did, to see if I get the same results.

Because that is what 'science' is - running the same experiment and getting the same results.  Or, if not, trying to figure out why.  Because change one thing, and everything can change.  I won't be using the same yarns as they did, but I can follow their 'rules' of engagement and see if the principle holds.

It is something I've been telling weavers for a long time, now.  Change the density and change the nature of your cloth.  This time I'm not just doing that, I'm keeping records so that I can 'prove' the statement.

It seems like a 'worthy' thing to do with the rest of my life.  FAFO, but this time keep the receipts.

Decisions, Decisions

 

Playing around with more options for the upcoming warps, I think I will be going with this one.

The warp will be 2/16 unmercerized cotton, the weft 2/20 mercerized cotton.  The play between the shiny and mat yarns should make this an interesting textile.

These will be 'proper' tea towels.  The yarns are light enough and absorbent enough that they should work well.  With a finer weft than warp, I am planning on increasing the epi I've been using for the 2/16 towels from 32 to 36 epi.

Someone asked me (in another context) if increasing the epi by one or two ends actually matters, and I said 'yes'.

One of the exercises I did for my master weaver monograph was weave the same yarn at a variety of densities.  I chose a singles wool and used a very open density, then increased that by one or two epi to make a variety of different qualities of cloth.

I then wet finished them, including fulling as part of the experiment, but I did the fulling in pre-set times - 2 minutes, 4, and if I had enough cloth 6 or 8.

The changes may have been subtle, but they were absolutely discernible, if not to the eye, certainly to the hand.  And they would have made a difference in how the cloth functioned.

In most cases, the 2 or even the 4 minutes of fulling left the cloth unstable in the more open densities, and my conclusion was that people should not be afraid of fulling.  It does, however, need to be monitored in order to not go beyond the state you want it to be when 'done'.

Cotton, however doesn't full, so you do have to pay careful attention to density.  Given that 2/16 and 2/20 are pretty close in size, I might not have increased the density very much.  But mercerized cotton is more slippery than unmercerized cotton, and the fancy twills I've been working with are less stable.  So the 32 epi I had been working with seemed too loose to me, so I'll be using 36.

If I find that the cloth still isn't stable enough, I can change the tie up and add some plain weave, but for now it's a 1:3:1:3:2:2:3:1 tie up.  (I like using tie ups where I can arrange to lift fewer shafts, even if it means weaving the cloth 'upside down'.)

My goal today is to finish threading the 2/8 cotton warp which will use up the last of the thicker linen for weft, and may even use up the slub that is one ply cotton, one ply linen.  If there is still warp when those are gone, there is a fairly large cone of textured cotton.  

Little by little I am making headway on the my stash.  

It feels a bit awkward to be ordering more yarn so that I can use up what I have, but the 2/20 mercerized cotton simply is beyond it's best buy date for warp so it will get used up as weft.

My story, sticking to it...