From One Extreme....

plain weave - alpaca weft


cotton warp, Tencel weft


.....to the other.....

Was tagging the stuff that was wet finished over the weekend, and these shawls followed each other in the pile - one woven in plain weave with that bane of a new weaver's existence - tracking showing up in the wet finishing - and the other woven in a multi-shaft twill. I don't remember anymore if the second shawl was 12 or 16 shafts. :)

But it kind of summed up for me the spectrum of what weaving can be if one wants it to be - as pure and simple as plain weave (which surely needn't be just simple - as Tien's article in WeaveZine pointed out) all the way through to as complex as one wants to tackle.

Truth be told, the multi-shaft twill above isn't even all that complex. It's just a drawn line over as many shafts as one has, changing direction every so often, then woven in the same order - tromp as writ - or in this case some variation of a twill treadling sequence. One doesn't even need a lot of shafts to accomplish something fancy - just the desire and the will to create the complex threading and then follow it with the treadling.

Since I have a Compu-Dobby, it isn't even difficult to achieve. Which is one reason why I got a dobby loom in the first place and then up-graded to the computer driven hardware in the second.

It's a matter of efficiency. The computer allows me the freedom to try out a whole lot more options for cloth design in the same amount of time I used to spend making one or two draw downs by hand. Instead of which I can take that same amount of time and run through 30 options.

So has the computer saved me time? Not in terms of designing. But efficiency isn't just about saving time, it's about being productive with what time one has available. So the computer has allowed me to expand my horizons and become a better designer.

And that, too, is efficient use of my time.

So many people believe that being efficient is all about saving time. Of being fast at what one does. But speed at the expense of accuracy is a false economy. So any procedure or piece of equipment that speeds up the process but introduces 'flaws' is not efficient.

On the other hand, there are methods and equipment that are more efficient than other methods and equipment. If a weaver has never been taught those methods or shown that equipment, they will do what they have been taught. How can they do otherwise unless they make a point of analyzing what they are doing and trying to do it more efficiently? Or seeking out other teachers.

For those people interested in learning more efficient and ergonomic methods, there are resources. Peggy Ostercamp has collected a vast amount of data on various methods one can use. Once one knows different ways of doing things - winding a warp, dressing a loom, holding and throwing a shuttle - it is then up to the student to choose those methods and tools that will work best for them.

Ultimately it is up to each person to choose how they work - slow or fast - and what tools and equipment that will best suit what they wish to accomplish.

Personally I want to work as efficiently as possible in order to try to bring into material form (pardon the pun!) the ideas I have swirling around in my head. Not to mention use up as much of my stash as I possibly can.....so I can buy new stuff to play with!

Currently reading The Shaman's Bones by James D Doss

Ashford Rigid Heddle Loom

Picked up my new Ashford Rigid Heddle loom last night and decided that, even though I have no time whatsoever to get it assembled and try it out right now, to at least open the box.

I'm glad I did because I wanted two each of the heddles, but didn't make myself clear when I ordered it. :( So I've ordered two more heddles, which will hopefully be here by the time we get back from Oliver, BC and Doug has time to put it together. (That's the part he likes about my being a weaver - he gets to play with the equipment.) :D

My friend is going out of business, so we talked about my taking over her Ashford dealership. If I'm going to start teaching weaving on rigid heddle looms, it would be really nice to be able to supply new weavers with their equipment.

So after wallowing around for a few years wondering what direction to take with my weaving, it looks like a path has opened in the forest. Since I've picked up spinning again, too, being an Ashford dealer might be a very good thing to do.

Anyway, I've asked for more details about what it takes to have a dealership, so we'll see.

Currently reading the Hald book on ancient textiles - as predicted, it's intriguing but not terribly enlightening. Sample, sample, sample!

Flying Shuttles

Two types of flying shuttle



Industrial pirn winder

Whenever my warps are wider than 30" I turn to my trusty flying shuttles.

When Allen Fannin was alive he often salvaged equipment from mills that were either upgrading or shutting down. Thus the Whitin pirn winder came my way, along with half a dozen shuttles and about 1000 pirns that had been used in a fancy goods mill. I bought two heads, thinking I would set each up for different grists of yarn, but then decided that one suited the majority of my needs and we have just left the second head to use for parts if so needed. So far there is in excess of 1700 hours of winding time on the winder. (We track time used for servicing.)

The industrial fly shuttles are larger and heavier than the shuttles supplied with the AVL loom.

To compare - 41 cm vs 38 cm and 448 grams vs 352 grams.

When weaving the full width (60") on the loom, the lighter weight shuttles will sometimes lose momentum and not make it all the way across to seat themselves properly in the shuttle box. I'm sure they are fine on a narrower loom, but.....I only use the loom's shuttles when I have to use something unusually thick or textured - otherwise my first choice is always the heavier industrial shuttle.

Some people wonder if the heavier weight becomes a problem. Not with the fly shuttle. In fact, I found I had to exert much more effort with the lighter shuttles in order to get them from one side of the loom to the other than with the heavier ones.

And I just love the industrial winder. As long as I've set the tension properly and keep the carousel filled with pirns, it will chug along quite nicely thank you very much, winding perfectly filled pirns. Yes, I occasionally have a problem, but not anywhere near as often as when I have to hand wind pirns. For example, I didn't leave quite enough room at the tip of the pirns when I set the winder up yesterday and one of the pirns sluffed some of the yarn off the tip today. I gave myself a good talking to for being so careless. :^)

Z Twist

First skein of Z twist yarn

Well, in spite of being Remembrance Day, the craft drop-in was going on so I loaded up the spinning wheel and bag of roving, spending some time with other creative people and got the first skein of Z twist yarn done.

After mulling it over for a while I realized that I really want to have the S twist yarn be solid black otherwise the twist effect is going to get lost in the varigation. So I have to buy more fibre. :}

Let's face it, I am not a great spinner. I'm not even a very good spinner. But before I use the yarn that a professional spinner is doing for me I do feel I need to get some samples woven before committing the good stuff to a world of ignorance!

Since I'm actually more interested in the effect of twist in balanced yarns and not in collapse effects, the yarn will be set so that it isn't all full of corkscrew twists and latent energy. That will make warping the loom a lot easier.

When I work with energized yarn I generally beam the warp sectionally and use lots of masking tape to tame the wriggly threads. But for this I'm really a lot more interested in what happens when balanced yarns are used together.

I've read about this in various books, but never have attempted it myself. Oelsner writes about it, and I believe Judith Mackenze McCuin does in her book The Intentional Spinner.

Several people on WeaveTech recommended Margrethe Hald's book Ancient Danish Textiles from Bogs and Burials, and that arrived via inter-library loan yesterday. Have only glanced at it, and I've been told that there aren't instructions, per se, but pictures of cloth woven with Z and S twist yarns. So studying the photos will be intriguing if not enlightening. :)

But now I'm home and fed and it's time to fire up the AVL and see if I can get a couple more shawls woven. Or perhaps one shawl and one scarf, which will finish that rayon chenille warp.

Tonight is guild night and I want to see if there is interest in my presenting a workshop in the new year. My teaching calendar for next year is far too empty for my likes, so I need to fill it up. The advantages of teaching on home ground - no travel and my own bed at night!

And I'd like to finish today with In Flanders Fields, a poem written during WWI:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead.
Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.

John McCrae, a Canadian medical officer

When I was in school a millenium ago, every school child learned this poem - Lest We Forget.

Plain Weave - Again!

So I finally got to the AVL today. This poor neglected warp was put on the loom the beginning of September and ignored for two months!

And guess what? It's being woven in - ta-DAH! Plain weave! :D

The yarn is fairly hefty - for weaving yarn - at 2000 yards per pound. It's also a fairly dense yarn with a high percentage of bamboo and silk. The cloth that I wove earlier using it for both warp and weft were - well - okay - but not exactly the quality of cloth I really wanted for shawls.

Now 3 of them sold at the craft fair, so obviously some people loved them! But they still felt a little sturdy to me. And let's face it - you can't weave thin cloth from thick thread!

During one of the rootlings in my storage area I discovered a box of pirns with a black alpaca lace weight yarn on them, and a full cone of the yarn still to be wound. The weight seemed just about right to lighten this fabric up and so without doing any samples (yikes!) I went ahead and started weaving with the wound pirns.

There is enough alpaca yarn to do several shawls and since I've still got four large boxes of the Bamboo Rain, I will reserve some of it for the next shawl warp and probably use the Bambu 12 for weft on the rest of this warp.

My yarn order from Silk City came in last week, so I'm well stocked with Bambu 12 again.

I'm also thinking that since my 'new' winter coat isn't nearly as warm as my old one that I may keep one of these shawls to wear over my coat on days that aren't cold enough for my down filled stadium coat, but too cold for just my 'new' winter coat......

Currently reading Pythagoras' Revenge by Arturo Sangalli

Dear Fatty

Just wanted to share a quote from Dawn French:

My theory was that if I behaved like a condifent, cheerful person, eventually I would buy it myself, and become that. I always had traces of strength somewhere inside me, it wasn't fake, it was just a way of summoning my courage to the fore and not letting any creeping self-doubt hinder my adventures. This method worked then, and it works now. I tell myself that I am the sort of person who can open a one-woman play in the West End, so I do. I am the sort of person who has several companies, so I do. I am the sort of person who WRITES A BOOK! So I do. It's a process of having faith in the self you don't quite know you are yet, if you see what I mean. Believing that you will find the strength, the means somehow, and trusting in that, although your legs are like jelly. You can still walk on them and you will find the bones as you walk. Yes, that's it. The further I walk, the stronger I beocome. So unlike the real lived life, where the further you walk the more your hips hurt.

Day Three and Over

The wall of Red (taken with the Blackberry - sorry)

This photo is a bit more orange than real life - the orange-y scarf in the centre of the wall is actually a gold and faded blue.

I realized that I had a lot - and by a lot I mean a lot - of red scarves when I was setting up the booth so I put them at the corner as eye candy. Never under estimate the power of the colour red to catch someone's eye and draw them closer.

But the real eye magnet in my booth was that rogue gold and faded blue scarf. I lost count of how many people made a bee line for that scarf! The good news is that two of the three I brought sold. :D

Sales were not as brisk as I'd hoped, but given the economy am not unduly disappointed. :)

And I got lots of compliments. The ones from the public are always nice, but it's the ones from other vendors that really mean a lot to me. They have a much better appreciation of the amount of work than Joe and Jill Public generally do.

Although one shopper won my heart when he commented "You've been weaving for a very long time, haven't you." Yup. ;)

One of the other vendors said that they do 125 shows a year (!) and my weaving was the best he'd seen. :)

After talking about shows on the Lower Mainland with him, Doug and I have decided to investigate doing One of a Kind. They will be in the new convention centre next year, mid-December (instead of early October, which is a really terrible time if you want to capture the Christmas market.) I don't know how well sales will go given Circle Craft is in early November, but perhaps they will be far enough apart that it will be okay.

At any rate, we did OOAK in Toronto a few years ago and they've got their marketing down pat so we'll apply and see if we get accepted. And Vancouver is drive-able, where Toronto isn't.

Still have to unload the van but Doug and I are catching our respective breaths and will deal with that shortly.