Seeing Double (Two-Tie)

It doesn't look that big...

    I do not do things by halves. My attitude has always been, "go big or go home." This can sometimes get me into trouble (see, "not knowing how to say 'No' "), but it's usually pretty interesting. 

   Right now, it's a big warp. When I say "big," I mean my idea of "big." I ask a lot of weavers how big a "big" warp to them is, and it's around eight to ten yards. Basically, enough to weave 8 kitchen towels. Sorry, but that's not big. My very first warp on a floor loom, way back in the dark ages, was ten yards, and when I was weaving babywraps, my "standard" warp was about 25 yards (the most fabric that would fit in the washing machine for wet-finishing). As I said, this warp is big: 100 yards of snowy white 10/2 cotton.

...until seen from
from the side.

   I put a big warp on because I need towels for the business. Until this week, I was down to my last few kitchen towels, and the holiday shopping season is right around the corner. So, a great big warp is necessary to weave dozens of kitchen towels that will delight customers for the next few months.

   A warp like this is a great excuse for playing with designs, especially if a weaver is lucky enough to have a computerized loom with a lot of shafts. I have 40 to play with, so a tied weave with little blocks is, for me, what Lego is to a youngster--a way to get very creative. One of my favorites is double-two-tie, a 2-end block with the ties on two alternating shafts. Basically, it's like Summer & Winter (properly called "single-two-tie), but the blocks are half the size. After subtracting 2 shafts for the ties, and 2 shafts for the selvedges, I have 36 shafts for drawing pictures. But wait--I have more! Any image that is symmetrical can be created by threading a point twill (/\/\/\), so I can "draw" any image up to 70 blocks wide. I decided to be a bit more conservative, and I limited myself to a 35-shaft point twill.

   I draw out my designs on quadrille (graph) paper before transferring them to the workstation. Some might consider it "old fashioned," but I like working in this way--I can see what I'm doing, and if I change my mind, or refine a design, I can either erase what I've done, or start on a fresh sheet of paper. Once the design is complete, I create a profile draft in the weaving software.

   Once the profile draft is finished, it's pretty easy to turn it into whatever weave structure I'm working with, in this case, double-two-tie. This is how I change a profile draft in the liftplan to weave double-two-tie using weaving software.

• 

  Columns 1 & 2 are selvedges; 3 & 4 are tie ties; 5-39 are
  the pattern shafts

  Step 1: Set up the wif and the threading. In this case, it's a 39-shaft liftplan draft. 1 & 2 are the selvedges; 3 and 4 are the ties; and 5-39 are the "pattern" shafts. Save the wif.
• Step 2: Insert a pick/row between each pick/row of the profile draft in the liftplan.
• Step 3: Move 4 empty columns in the liftplan over to the far left side of the liftplan (shafts 1-4). These will be used for the selvedges and the ties.
• Step 4: On columns 1 and 2, fill in boxes alternately, just as if it was plainweave. These will control the ends that are serving as the faux floating selvedge.
• Step 5: Controlling the ties is what makes this all work, and it's surprisingly compact: just 4 picks.

That's it! 

   So, how crazy can you get with 35 pattern shafts threaded in point twill? Pretty crazy. I'm weaving nine different designs, in various colors. The total is somewhere around ninety 20"x30" kitchen towels, more than enough to last me until the end of the year.

The sampler with all the designs.

The Central American Caper, Part 1

Sitting on the tarmac in St. Paul.

    How to look like a complete flake: Restart your blog after years of silence, write two posts, and then disappear for five weeks. I had a reason for the "radio silence": I was in Central America!

   Way back in 2016, at the end of our European Adventure, we booked a 3-week "repositioning" cruise on one of Holland America's ships. Repositioning cruises--scheduled when a cruise line has to move a ship from its winter cruising area (the Carribbean) to its summer cruising area (Alaska) in April, or reverse direction in October. The cruises are a bit more laid back than a normal cruise, and are usually less expensive. We originally booked passage on the Eurodam, from Ft. Lauderdale to San Francisco, for April 2018, but a family emergency resulted in rebooking for April 2020. Needless to say, that cruise was canceled.

   Last June, I had the opportunity to rebook nearly the same trip for April 2023 and I jumped at it. Same ship (the Eurodam) but no San Francisco this time: instead, I had my choice of San Diego or Seattle. I chose Seattle, and we left on April 4 for Ft. Lauderdale, for a few days of relaxing in a sunny, warm clime. "Sunny" and "warm" were important words: by early April, we had had five months of wet and cold, and I was ready to thaw out. We didn't stay anywhere fancy while in Ft. Lauderdale--the Residence Inn in Miramar, a suburb of Ft. Lauderdale was our "base of operations" while making sure we had everything we needed for the cruise, swimming in the hotel pool, and generally goofing off. It was warm, it was sunny, and I really didn't do anything except laze around and read trashy romance novels. It was heaven!

  

Ladies' Fancy

"Ladis[sic] Fancy" by Jacob Biesecker (1825)

    I've been a member of Complex Weavers for quite a while, and for the past couple of years I've been a member of the Early Weaving Books and Manuscripts (EWBM) study group. The purpose of a study group is pretty simple: the entire group focuses on weaving revolving around one aspect of weaving. In the case of the EWBM group, it's drafts and weaves that predate 1926. That covers a lot of territory, as there have been drawdowns and drafts for nearly 500 years, and cloth itself goes back a lot further. The group has a newsletter that comes out periodically, and for an extra amount (and a commitment to participate), members can join a "samples exchange," and get actual samples of the fabric other members are weaving.

   I like this group for several reasons. I get to spend time researching weaves I would already research because I'm interested in historical weaving. There are a lot of fairly high-level weavers that belong to it, so the samples are unusual, interesting fabrics. And, I have actual, touchable samples of cloth. However, I owe samples.

   I have no good excuse for not weaving the samples beside the usual: I was busy. I forgot. I got sidetracked researching an obscure weave structure. No matter--those samples are due, and I've pressed my luck by delaying until the end of March to send off my samples for 2022. However, no more procrastinating!

"Ladies Fancy," in 10/2 cotton, on the loom.

   My 2022 samples are a 12-shaft twill from the pattern book of Jacob Biesecker, a weaver in Cashtown, Pennsylvania in 1825. (The pattern book is in the collection of the Winterthur Museum and Library.) Why this particular draft? Well, I chose a pattern book at random, and flipped through it until I found something I could weave fast. It's an interesting twill--not a "proper" 12-shaft point twill, but not quite elaborate enough to be considered a "proper" gebrochene. 

   This time last week, I started beaming 6 yards of 10/2 unmercerized cotton from Georgia Yarn Company. This stuff is luxe--soft, nice twist, and just enough wax to make it really manageable. 607 ends later, and I had a beamed warp. After a day or two of running errands and taking care of other tasks in my overly busy life, I disassembled the front of Bertie and started threading heddles. I haven't finished dressing a loom that fast in a long time--less than 9 hours later, the warp was threaded, sleyed, tied on, tensioned, and the header woven. I even managed to weave the first sixty picks of the samples!

   I had hoped to weave off the entire warp in a single day (something else I haven't done in a long time) but I simply can't weave that fast, or that long, any more. I did manage at least two yards each day, along with everything else I needed to do (including spending 90 minutes down at the office this morning) and cut the cloth off the loom this afternoon.

   All in all, I think it looks pretty good. The brick-colored weft (also from Georgia Yarn Company) really makes the design pop, and the floats are small enough that the fabric will wear well. It feels like it has a nice hand--a bit too thin for kitchen towels, but perfect for napkins or a tablecloth. I should have about 4 3/4 yards once it comes out of the dryer, so there's not only plenty for samples, but for some napkins for the drawer.

   Now, what am I going to weave for my 2023 samples?

Back At It

A handwritten journal in six volumes.

1,178 days ago, I clicked "Publish" on the previous post.

I didn't really stop writing--I simply stopped writing this blog. Instead, I took a big step back and kept "a" journal. By hand. At the time, I felt it was the safest option to chronicle what I was observing (and opining on). A handwritten journal can be easily disposed of, if necessary, while a published blog might be incriminating forever. The journals themselves don't look like much: college-ruled composition books, all written in longhand, with a fountain pen. But they capture a lot of what was going on in my life, and in my studio, during the past three years.

I'm glad I kept a journal through the tumult of a pandemic, political upheaval, and what appear to be some odd changes in how life works. But now it's time to start writing a blog again.

There are a few changes, starting with the name. After more than sixteen years, it really needed a tweak, so I've dropped "Hobbies" in favor of "Adventures." The focus will remain on the fiber and textile arts, with occasional forays into gardening, cooking, and my travels. I'm not changing the formatting to "optimize" it for reading off a phone. It will simply be a chronicle of what's going on in my life as a fiber and textile artist.