Back to shawls

Today my digital camera died, so I dug my brother's camera out. I can't get the flash to work, but I hope this is clear enough to be seen.

Someone emailed me, asking how/why I make design decisions for a project. She noted that this warp is wider than the last one, and wondered why.

Dimensions for a textile are a range, not set in stone. So when I decide to make something, I already have a width range in mind.

The next decision is which weave structure to use. In this case, it is twill blocks. Then I decide how large a block I want. The unit for twill is generally 4 ends - how many repeats will set the width for the block - IF you want all the blocks the same size.

Once I've set the scale of the block, I start generating progressions. Do I want the design to be symmetrical? Asymmetrical? Do I want the design to repeat across the textile, or be non-repeating? When I've got the general look of the design, I start number crunching to fit the design into the general dimensional range.

For shawls, my general width is between 20 and 30 inches in the reed. In the case of the previous warp, the width in the reed was 22". The bamboo yarn shrank a lot more than the Tencel, and since I wanted to use the bamboo more often for weft I wanted to start a little wider in the reed, so the width of 24" in the reed should work out to a nice finished width.

The actual threading is mirrored in the centre, and in this case, the threading worked out precisely to fit the 24" width in the reed. If it hadn't, I might have added a border, or if I had planned a border, may have adjusted it if necessary to make it fit.

As for length, I weave shawls between 84 to 90 inches under tension on the loom, plus 12" for fringe (6" on each end) so roughly 3 yards of warp per shawl. With a 30 yard warp, I should get 9 shawls.

Towel draft

As part of my stash reduction plan, I am trying very hard to use up what I have on hand, and not buy more yarn.

These towels were made from 2/16 unmercerized cotton for warp, and cottolin for weft.

The warp was 21" in the reed, 10 yards long, wound in two sections or warp chains. Generally I use a warping valet (trapeze) to beam longer/wider warps, using one water jug for each section. The jugs have the same amount of water so that they provide the same degree of tension to each section.

During threading, I changed twill direction each time the colour changed, but skipped a shaft so that there is a break at the change. There are two advantages to doing this. The first is that no float is more than two threads. The second is that I can change direction of the twill line in the treadling and none of the selvedge threads will "fall out" of the cloth. This means that no floating selvedge is required.

If you follow the draft exactly, beginning with the shuttle entering from the right hand side of the warp, all of the threads will weave, all of the time. Unless, of course, a mistake is made in treadling.

In the photo in my previous post, you can see the reed marks quite clearly. These should mostly come out during wet finishing. An eight dent reed was used, 4 ends per dent. The selvedge was threaded with two threads per heddle in the outside four heddles, but the density was kept the same - 32 epi.

For finer or more fragile threads (singles, for example) I will frequently double the selvedges in the heddles, but keep the density the same in the reed.

The towels were woven with 60 picks of plain weave for hems using the 2/16 cotton in the darker of the two colours, then twill with the heavier cottolin. I used 20 picks of twill, then changed direction. By counting picks up to 40, I could tell exactly where I was in the sequence at all times.

Mind Set

Tea Towels on the Fanny.

The weave structure here is sometimes called Herringbone Twill, or Dornick Twill. You can see the changes in direction in both the warp and the weft. One of the advantages of this weave structure is that no float is more than two threads. The other advantage is that you can change direction of the twill line without having the outside threads "fall out" of the cloth. This means that I don't have to use a floating selvedge to keep my selvedges nice.

So, what is the difference between weaving purely for one's own enjoyment and satisfaction, and weaving to earn an income? Essentially, it's in one's mind set.

Yes, I weave for enjoyment. Let's face it, most people choose a career that they will enjoy doing every day. :)

But the fact that I enjoy what I do is a wonderful bonus because I can never lose sight of the fact that I must also satisfy others to the extent that they will be willing to hand over cash to acquire what I've made.

And so I must be aware of the marketplace - what colours/textures/designs are available from industry and then choose to go with the flow, or produce something else - another choice for the customer. Let's face it, not everyone wants lime green or baby blue, in spite of what the stores may be carrying!

But I must do this with knowledge, and be able to find satisfaction from the choices I make.

I must also be aware of how much it costs to produce what I make, and how much labour is invested. If I can't sell what I make for a "reasonable" price, then I must decrease how much I am paying for materials, or get really efficient at the process so that it doesn't take me as long to make it. Or stop making that item and make something else that I can make more efficiently, and/or for less cost.

But the thing that I cannot do is make something that I am not "proud" to attach my name to - the textiles I make have to say something about me as a designer and a craftsperson. In the end, it's a balance between one's ego and reality. I can't afford to let negative comments overheard in my booth crush my ego. I have to don my Teflon suit and let comments slide off. Fortunately negative comments are fewer now that I've learned how to choose which shows to exhibit my work at, and developed a reputation for quality work. But every once in a while, someone says something to remind me that I can't please everyone, not even some of the time!

My First Craft Fair

Here is the first shawl on the 2/20 merc. cotton warp. Weft is black 2/10 Tencel.

Being a craftsperson as a profession is a real exercise in ego deflation. People always seem more than willing to freely share their opinion of what you've done with your talents. And while very often people are complimentary, sometimes they are not at all impressed!

My first craft fair I had worked very hard to bring a variety of different textiles - everything from rugs, tea towels, table runners, scarves. If it was a rectangle, I'd pretty much made it!

Unfortunately, not everyone loved what I had done. And I had to come to terms with the fact that I could not please everyone, all of the time.

I thought long and hard about the comments I'd overheard in my booth. Some of the objections I could address - fringes? Okay, I can do fringes. (Can we say 1977?) Texture? Okay, I can weave texture. It became a challenge to see how well I could fullfill expectations, and still maintain my creative integrity.

The following year I was back, and while I still had an array of rugs, placemats, table runners, and scarves, I had significantly changed my designs. And this time, there were a lot more people who expressed positive comments, instead of negative ones. And a lot more people bought my things. :)

There was absolutely nothing I could do about the fact that K-mart still sold textiles more cheaply than I was willing to work for, but I had found a receptive audience big enough to give me hope for the future - and the rest, as they say, is history.

Oops!

I really hate it when I make a threading mistake.

Partly I hate it because my nice, tidy approach to threading gets all messed up. Partly I hate it because when I beam sectionally I don't use lease sticks. Partly I hate it because the potential to further mess up while re-threading seems to grow exponentially when you have to pull part of the warp out and re-do it.

So when I make a threading mistake, I will twist and turn trying to figure out how to "fudge" so that I don't have to re-thread.

Therefore, when I got to the end of threading the shawl warp on the AVL, I tried really hard to figure out a way to salvage it so that I didn't have to re-thread, but after several days of procrastination, I finally bit the bullet, inserted lease sticks, and started re-threading.

In the meantime, I wove on the Fanny because I do some of my "best" thinking while I'm picking my way through a warp. When everything is going well and only surface attention is required for the physical act of weaving, my mind is free to roam through the highways and byways of my neurons, turning the mirrored ball this way and that, looking for possibilities in terms of problem solving.

Because in a way, designing a new textile is a series of problems to be solved.

First question - what do I want to make?

Second question - what fibre do I want to make "it" from? Now is when I start to look at those different facets - cotton, linen, wool, Tencel, bamboo, and so on. How does the inherent nature of each fibre match the requirements of the intended textile?

Third question - what weave structure?

Fourth and onward questions - dimensions. And how those dimensions will "fit" with the number of ends and the required density? How will it be "ended" - hemmed? Fringe? How will those treatments affect the dimensions?

And last, but certainly not least (in my book!) - how will it be a) wet finished and b) cleaning instructions to be given to the customer?

Or, in the case where I've made an "oopsie" - can I fudge it and how?

In the instance of the shawl warp, the chosen weave structure and colour design meant that there was no fudging - and so acceptance set in, and the re-threading accomplished this morning.

Now to sley, tie on and - hopefully - start weaving tomorrow. In the meantime, I've got towels to weave on the Fanny. :D

p.s. Interweave Press has information on Judith Mackenzie McCuin's new book The Intentional Spinner posted on their website - due out in November - a must have for weavers who want to really know about the properties of yarn..........my copy is already on order!

Becoming, part II

Cotton warp with singles linen weft. The change in colour is due to the light and shadows falling on the web.

Saga continues..........

So that summer we sold our little house and bought a bigger one. We took possession the end of August, I quit my job Sept. 1, finishing Sept. 15, my father went into hospital for the last time over Labour Day weekend, I started the weaving class (first day posted to this blog earlier) and my father died............

The next few months were spent - as much as possible - in the weaving room at the college. I felt my father's spirit near, and supportive of me in a way that he could never have been in life. He was a "responsible" person and would never have gambled on a profession so "iffy" - so prone to failure - i.e. no guaranteed income. Having passed from this life, I felt that he now understood why I was doing what I was doing, why I *had* to have that element of creativity in my life on a daily basis, that my spirit craved it in a way that was difficult to explain, let alone justify.

So I wove as much as I could. Made *lots* of mistakes, and learned. Mistakes are valuable tools in learning. They tell you when you have strayed from the path of success. They also tell you that your knowledge is expanding, because if you only do what you know works, you aren't learning anything new.

And there is *so* much to learn about how to construct cloth!

So many people think that making fabric is a cut and dried process, but nothing is set in stone because of the very nature of the materials, and all the myriad ways one can combine them, how density affects the results, how the interlacement of the threads can change what is going to happen when the web hits the water. Making cloth is not a "hard" science, but an intuitive art.

When I first realized the extent of the possibilities, I was nearly frozen with indecision - what to make - *how* to make it? And that was when I came to understand the value of creative limitations. By setting boundaries, the possibilities are thereby limited, and then it becomes easier to choose which direction to follow.

As they say in Alice in Wonderland, if you don't know where you're going, any road will do!

So I call myself a Form Follows Function weaver. I always have a destination in mind when I put a warp on the loom.

Sometimes that destination is simply "Greater Knowledge" and that's when I put a sample warp on the loom, weave a while, cut off and wet finish and assess the results. What are you good for? I ask. What qualities do you have?

Then I will resley, either more open, or more dense, weave some more, wet finish again and re-evaluate the results. I may do this several times, with only the intended aim of learning more about a yarn.

Then when I go to make something specific, I have a starting place based on the foundation of knowledge gained from being open to what happens when..............

As a new weaver, I wove *everything*. Rugs, placemats, towels, scarves, shawls, garments. If it could be made from thread, I made it. Naturally there were course requirements, but I also wove other things because I was looking for something that I could make that might sell so that I would have an income.

Linda had a loom, and so after the class at the college was over, we shared warps on her loom, making rugs. We settled on rep weave mostly, although not exclusively. We read as much as we could, and wove as much as we could. We also made wool blankets or throws. Doug built a stretcher so that we could wet finish and brush them.

I don't know when I realized the importance of wet finishing, but my textiles were always wet finished, even the rugs.

In 1977 Doug and I went to Sweden and Finland, where I attended Varpapuu Summer Weaving School for two weeks. While there, I bought a "table" loom with stand. Doug disassembled it and carried it home in his backpack. He had it reassembled and ready for me to weave on by the time I got home. I started weaving a lot of placemats and other household textiles with the intention of taking a booth at the local craft fair that fall...

Becoming a weaver

This morning I started setting up the Leclerc Fanny for tea towels to use up the last of the fine linen singles in my stash.

The warp is 2/16 cotton, at 32 epi. The selvedge will have 4 threads per dent like the rest of the warp, but the outside four heddles will have 2 threads per heddle. This "trick" helps strengthen the finer yarns preventing breakage at the selvedge.

While threading I was also thinking a lot about how I came to be a weaver. As a child my family made things by hand, not just because they needed to, but because they enjoyed doing so.

My dad was the youngest of a large family and the boys made musical instruments - guitars and violins for the boys, mandolins for the girls - and they played at dances in the area. My mom is talented with various textile crafts, well taught by her mother. My favourite aunt crocheted and made hairpin lace.

Before tv mom and dad - and Aunt Betty when she visited - would sit around the kitchen table and hook rugs. Mom sewed much of our clothing, knitted and did embroidery. Dad carved wooden items and built things for the house.

Not surprisingly, I learned to knit at 5 or 6, embroider at 10 or so, sew my own clothing at 12.

My first loom, my mother reminded me a few years ago, was a small box loom someone gave us. Mom's memory and mine differ on my reaction!

Mom insists I was captivated. What I remember is finding the process tedious, much like darning my white cotton socks with sewing thread!

During high school, my best friend's sister-in-law was a spinner and Colleen was fascinated, wanting to learn to spin. I shrugged my shoulders and wondered why, when the stores were full of yarn, one would want to spin their own.

After high school, I travelled to Sweden to finally meet my pen friend to whom I had been writing since I was in Grade 6. I travelled to Europe by freighter, one of 4 passengers. My cabinmate was a woman who had been widowed 18 months earlier, spent 6 months with each of her sons, then decided to return to Norway to learn how to weave. "That's unusual" I thought.

My pen friend's mother-in-law was a weaver, with a Glimakra type floor loom in the basement, naked during the summer. Nearly all the textiles for the house had been handwoven - tea towels, hand towels, tablecloths, napkins, curtains and valances for the windows, stair runners. Oh well, I thought, each to their own.

Returning to Canada, life had changed irrovocably with the news that my father was teminally ill. Any thoughts of going to University flew out the window, and I looked for a job. The only thing I was qualified to do was office work.

After several years of bouncing from job to job, boredom setting in about 3 months after starting each new job, getting married, and watching my father gradually failing in terms of his health and slowly dying, much too young - I had plenty of time to think about the meaning of life and what's it all about, Alfie?

Gradually I came to the realization that the prime thing missing from all of my jobs had been the element of creativity. About the time I came to this realization, my boss told me about a new class at the local college - you could take a class in spinning and natural dyeing. Hmm, I thought. It wasn't the spinning that caught my attention, but dyeing using natural dyestuffs. I enrolled in the class.

Imagine my surprise and dismay when I found out that before we could do any dyeing, we had to spin our own yarn to dye! But by then I was enrolled in the class...

The class was made up of mostly 40 something women and one man and two 24 year olds. Me and Linda. Linda lived in Williams Lake, about a 3 hour drive south. Every Monday she would get on the Greyhound Bus, come into town for the Monday evening spinning class, stay overnight and take the all day weaving class on Tuesday. Every Monday evening, she would have a chair and spinning wheel set out next to her for me to use, and she would share what she had done in the weaving class the previous Tuesday.

At the time I was employed at a custom drapery house, selling curtains and drapes surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands, of textile samples. Beginning that September, I got a weekly tutorial on weaving while Linda shared her excitement and enthusiasm of what was happening in the loom room on Tuesdays.

In March of the following spring, new samples came into the store and my boss called me over saying that I'd be really interested in these samples, as they were made in Sweden.

One of the samples was a double weave with a bumble bee as the motif. After carefully examining the fabric, I knew in principle how the cloth had been made. I understood that two different layers had been woven simultaneously and that the threads from the bottom layer had somehow been brought up to the top, and the threads from the top layer had been brought to the bottom layer to create the little woven bee.

It took about two weeks of thinking about this and mulling things over in the back of my head before I finally said to my husband Doug "I think a person could weave fabric and sell it to make money."

Bless his heart, he replied "Then go for it."

I pointed out that our house was too small for a loom and so we set about selling our house and buying a new one, one with room for a loom..................

to be continued....