Fleur de Lis Diversified Plain Weave Again

 There is so much going on around here that I completely forgot to write about the progress on my Fleur de Lis in Diversified Plain Weave this week.

It certainly has been a voyage of discovery for me beginning with the ‘aha’ moment when I discovered that my treadling was upside down!

I guess that my usual style of pattern motif is symmetrical and this Fleur de Lis is definitely not that.  I printed the treadling off of Fibreworks and got down to weaving and although I thought the motif was weird, I was so focused on the selvedges that it didn’t click right away that it was upside down.

Once the entire motif was woven, it was apparent that I had forgotten that the pattern is pictured on Fiberworks from behind the loom, not from in front of the loom.

I know that it really doesn’t matter in which direction the pattern appears since it will the same from top to bottom on the runner.  I just didn’t like weaving it upside down, it messed with my thought pattern (I really am a linear kind of gal!)  So, I unwove the pattern and re-wove it from the bottom of the pattern to the top and I’m much happier.

Usually I am meticulous about when and how I add new threads to the web, habitually I add at the selvedges.  For some reason,  I decided to add the new fine thread whilst in the midst of the runner.....why, why, a thousand times why?   You can barely notice it on this side of the cloth (about 10 threads to the left of the flower), but I got a glimpse of the other side while advancing the warp and yup, there is was, front and centre!  

As I near the end of the runner, yet another problem has appeared.  My hanging selvedge threads which were made out of the ‘not cotton’ thick warp threads have started to fuzz and fray and snap. 

I have had to re-hang the selvedges twice on the right hand side so, I will be pulling off these ‘not cotton’ selvedges and replacing them with 2/8 cotton for the next runner.

Speaking of the next runner, while I was weaving this runner I noticed that treadle #5 and treadle #14 were the same. I haven't a clue why I didn’t see it before.  Regardless, I went back to the computer and with some fiddling around I was able to amend my Fleur de Lis and make just a wee improvement now that I had another treadle to play with.

I think that the little drop near the bottom of the motif takes it out of ‘possible space ship’ motif and firmly anchors it in Fleur de Lis!

The garden shot today is of the greenhouses’ progress with our Vanilla Strawberry hydrangea (Hydrangea paniculata’Renhy’) in the foreground.

Grey Striped Tea Towels Part 2

I started weaving the grey and blue striped tea towels, and as always they are a joy to weave.  I like to give each tea towel a unique band of colours which add interest to the tea towel.  

I was weaving the main body of the tea towel, when I noticed that there was a threading issue with one of the stripes.  It is the dark grey stripe to the right of the blue stripe, there is a weird float in the middle of the stripe.

It was hard to see in the beginning with the colour changes but at 15 inches, almost to the middle of the tea towel it was clear to see.  I decided to unweave the tea towel.  It took longer to unweave then to weave, it also took more pirns!  I had to borrow some of Mom’s red pirns.

I was able to quickly fix the threading mistake but I had neglected to tie slip knots to keep the rest of the warp from pulling through the reed.  So I also had to resley the warp.  A silly mistake! 

So I am back at the beginning, ready to start weaving the first tea towel.

Final Garden Photo is the Persian Silk Tree (Albizia julibrissin).  It is blooming with fluffy pink clouds of blossoms.  The smell of the flowers is absolutely lovely.  It is also called a Mimosa tree or, my favourite, the Sleeping tree.  It is called Sleeping tree because it will close its leaves during the night, so cute!  Last week I noticed a lady with a huge professional camera taking photos of this tree, the tree is a beauty and we are at the very end of it's northern range!

Table Runners Yet Again

The white 2/10 cotton warp pulled onto the warp beam beautifully.  I was a little worried because the cotton is quite sticky while I was separating it onto the raddle at the top of the Spring loom.  But, happily, it flowed on quickly and easily.

I was most of the way through threading the 650 threads when I realized that something was wrong;  I had a lot of heddles left unused on shaft six.

Off I went to the computer and compared the paper draft that I was using to thread the loom with the draft that I was looking at on the computer.  Well they are two different drafts!  But they are very similar; the computer draft had 4 more threads for extra flourish.  So I printed out a copy of the new draft and hopefully this will be the end to my problems.

I put on enough warp for a 40 inch a 50 inch and a 60 inch runner.  For the first runner I am going to use the rest of the blue slub rayon that I used with the Pima cotton runners.  At this point I am not sure how long it is actually going to be. 

The pattern is called Bethlehem Star, and the large diamonds are quite striking.

The runner didn’t take long to weave up; I think that it helps that the pattern is 'tromp as writ' so after threading the pattern twice it is firmly memorized.  I finished the runner with only a little bit of weft left; I don’t think that I could have done better.  The runner is about 50 inches long on the loom.

So for the next runner I had a good old rummage through the stash.  I found this cheese of silver grey silk.  It is really lovely with some subtle flecks of white.  I know the weight of the cheese, but I have no idea of the yardage.

The silver silk is weaving up quite differently from the blue rayon.  It is more subtle and it is a finer grist so the pattern repeat is shorter.

The silver silk keeps twisting onto itself.  I have to keep a close eye on it to make sure that the weft is straight.

But the runner is beautiful and well worth the effort.  I am still weaving this runner so I don’t know how long it is going to be but I think that it is going to be about 40 inches long.  So I still have one more runner to weave about 60 inches long and a lot of stash to bust!

The Final Garden Photo is the evergreen perennial Candytuft (Iberis sempervirens) that is starting to bud.  Unfortunatley we have a winter storm warning for tomorrow and it may snow 5 to 20 cms.  Yikes!

Yet More Table Runners

I have washed and dried the two runners, and because its winter they took a little longer to dry.  I gave the runners a first press on the steam presser before folding up the hems; I really think that helps to reduce the bulk of the folded hems.  I like to use a metal ruler to help fold over the hems; it gives a nice sharp crease.  I just have to be careful because the ruler gets hot!

Now the runners are waiting for a nice clear day so I can see to sew, it has been very rainy and foggy here on Vancouver Island lately.  Looking at the runners side by side they almost look like they are from two different warps, the green runner has an exceptionally beautiful golden gleam.  (Sorry, the picture is a little blurry)

This year is about reducing the stash so I have some of the blue rayon left.  It wasn’t enough to weave a runner 50 inches long, like the previous runners but it should be enough for a 40+ inch runner, a perfect size to go widthwise on a table.

I have just made a warp of a lovely creamy white 2/10 cotton.  It is about 5.5 yards long enough for a 40 inch, a 50 inch and a 60 inch runner.

The draft that I am using is one I have used before so I just blindly followed it.  Well it turns out that the draft didn’t quite have the right number of ends so I had to correct the draft on the computer and pull an extra 20 threads!  Boy, I’m glad that I checked before I had pulled on the warp because if I remember correctly this cotton can be a tad sticky.

I’m going to pull on the warp on today.  Hopefully I’ll have some pretty pictures of some weaving next week!

Final Picture is an atmospheric gloomy photo of the fog with the silhouette of the Douglas Fir trees, the scene can be seen from the studio windows.

Something to Frame

I am a part of the same weaving study group as Mom called Exploring More, and this fall the project that we are weaving is to weave something that we can frame.  There is really no rules you can do any weave structure, any fiber, anything really.  It is surprisingly hard to come up with an idea!

I have always wanted to weave a textured canvas (like for an oil painting) and paint over it, letting the paint pool and collect in the texture.  I only have a vague idea of how I am going to do this project.  First step was to find some artist canvases that I am going to use to stretch my fabric over so that  I can then paint on it.

Now that I know the size that I need to weave I can pull my warp.  I wanted to use a fine thread so I used a 2/30 cotton.  Yup I went from Chenille set at 10 epi to this cotton set at 40 epi!

I pulled the warp with no idea what pattern I was going to weave, I just wanted to get started!  The warp is 18 inches wide and 3 yards long, enough for four paintings.

I decided that for the first painting I wanted to weave something with a lot of texture.  I went with an advancing twill that looked like ripples on water.  Of course I made a threading error that I didn’t notice until the end of the threading process.  I had to rethread over 700 threads, yikes!

While I was busy weaving; I heard something fall with a metal clink.  I looked down and I saw a huge screw had fallen out of the bar that holds the treadles to the loom.  Thankfully it screwed back in with no problems.

The pattern is really adaptable; you don’t really have to follow the pattern exactly.  The woven piece is only 22 inches long so I was able to just weave the piece with no repeat.

I washed and dried the piece because I wanted to remove the reed marks from the cloth.  I ironed it really hard to remove the wrinkles.  Here you get to really see the watery ripples of the pattern appear.

Next step is to staple the fabric piece onto the art canvas.

The hardest part was figuring out how to do the corners.  I’m still not happy with how they look.

But the finished canvas looks pretty good!

Last step is painting the canvas.  I chose to use acrylic paint because you don’t have to prepare the canvas, you can paint over the raw fibres.  I didn’t want to use gesso to fill in the texture of the fabric.  I wanted a modern look to the painting with just one bold stripe of colour.  I had too much paint on the brush so there is a big glob of paint and I hate that I applied the paint on the diagonal.  I tried to balance it with more paint but still hate it.

So I added more paint, now I hate it more.

I like the light areas where the paint picks up the woven pattern.  But I hate the dark globby areas.

I am not sure where I am going now; do I work more on the painting or just leave it as a failure that I learn from?  Should I keep going with the other painting ideas I have for the warp or should I just weave something else with the warp?

As I am writing this blog I think I may have a solution for the blue painting.  Maybe I could paint it all over blue then use silver paint to dry brush over it to bring back the woven texture of the painting.  Maybe . . .

Final Garden Photo is flowering plants, it may be November but we still have some plants flowering.  They will keep going until a heavy frost.  They are Anise Hyssop (Agastache foeniculum), Wand Flower (Gaura lindheineri) and Garnet Beardtongue (Penstemon 'Garnet') and peeking around back is Alyssum. 

Weaving To Frame

I have been home for a couple of weeks now, and I’m ready to jump back into my weaving.

South central Spain was amazing and The Great Mosque of Cordoba was probably one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.  The Great Mosque was begun in 784 and when the Christians conquered Cordoba in 1236 they built a cathedral within the existing mosque.  This place is massive and the Cathedral was built without demolishing the existing Mosque, it is a stunningly beautiful and wonderful place.  The other places that were beyond expectations were The Royal Alcazar in Seville and the Alhambra in Granada, but after weeks away, it’s always nice to be home.

Now back to what is on my loom.  I belong to a study group within our guild, called Exploring More and our challenge this time is to design, weave and frame a piece that could be displayed on a wall.  Sounds easy, right?  I thought so too when I suggested it.

I started looking for things I wanted to weave and the more I thought about it, the less sure I became.  Finally, in a bid to get something on the loom I put on a natural 2/16 cotton warp 2 yards long with 280 ends, 10 inches wide on the loom and sett at 28 epi.

I threaded the loom in a 1-2-3-4 twill and tied up the loom with some options.  Then I went to Spain to enjoy the sunshine.  I have tied the treadles to weave plain weave, treadles to weave twill, treadles to weave dukkagang and treadles to weave basket weave.  I know, I’m really hedging my bets!

Now that I’m ready to begin I went searching for something that would look good on my studio wall; and since I love flowers I started there.  In my dining room I have a lovely watercolour of tulips and that was my inspiration.  I love that this painting is just a suggestion of tulips rather than being too literal, so right up my alley.

I still wasn’t sure how I wanted to weave the tulips so I took some coloured sharpies to the warp to rough in the general shapes.

I’m sorry that I didn’t photograph my efforts so far, but first I started just laying in colour in the general shapes I wanted using the Italian inlay method.  It just looked lumpy and bumpy, so that came out.  Then I started laying in colour blocks in a tapestry method and that was just far more work than I was willing to do, so it has all be pulled out too.

As it stands right now, I will use the natural 2/16 warp cotton and just weave this off as plain weave, then I plan to paint over my rough outline and perhaps do some embellishments.   Hmmm, I have a feeling that going at this all loosey-goosey wasn’t the best idea.  I still have lots of warp to play with, so that's my task for the next few weeks.

The garden shot today is a photo of one of the front garden beds in full autumn glory. It is Dwarf Fothergilla (Fothergilla gardenii 'Mt. Airy) with Japanese Silver Grass (Miscanthus sinesis 'Sarabanda' in behind.