I’ve been weaving on my TC2 off and on for a month and have been working toward combining my watercolor work with weaving. The subject of this first attempt is my friend’s granddaughter, Ada. I started with Ada because it has a relatively small palette AND the design software I am using is AdaCAD – just the kind of connection that my dad-joke indoctrinated sense of humor appreciates.
In the last post I talked about my color studies leading up to this weave. In completely Teresa fashion I wove this piece with different yarn than I studied. My color studies were done with Venne cottolin – the same as the black and white warp. Looking at the samples, I realized that I had some Euroflax 14/2 linen in about the same colors so I checked the YPP and pivoted without a sample. I guessed on the aspect ratio imaged based on the grist of the yarn, differential shrinkage between the cottolin warp and the linen weft and the stiffness of linen as it passes through the warp. Beginners luck being what it is, I guessed right on every front and ended up with as close to a perfect wet finished dimension as I would ever hope for.
Here is the finished piece hanging near the watercolor source.
I opted for just 2 colors in the weft for this initial study. Compared to the painting, I am missing a cooler blue and white since the most white I got was a 1-3 twill with the blue or orange weft. Other than that, I am amazed.
I ended up developing 12 different drafts to accomplish the range of values and colors needed to get the image close. To make weaving faster, I wove 2 picks of each color at a time and relied on the beat to make them nestle in to their proper place. You can see a boo boo on the darkest value – a few too many blue wefts are showing a bit – but in hindsight, I like the texture so not sure I will fix that the next time around.
The finished piece is 23.5″ x 23.5″
Here’s the front.
Here’s the back – channeling Raven from X Men.
And a few close ups.
A couple of take-aways:
- Linen made the draw in negligible compared to the cottolin I tested. I understand that using a temple is the normal approach on this loom and weaving in general but I will continue to work to avoid that if at all possible.
- I need to find a way to identify long floats when the weave structures indicated by the reference image intersect in an unintended way. I think there is a fairly straightforward way to do this with a single layer cloth in AdaCAD but doing it on 2 layers seems harder. I need those 2 layers to leverage the white and black in the warp in a very localized way. My eyesight and patience really wouldn’t support a manual approach.
- I do like the texture that comes from those long floats though. I think it feels a little more painterly and since the reference design is a painting, that seems right – at least for now.
Coincidentally, I celebrated my 6th year as a floor loom (Louet Megado) owner this month and my eight year as a weaver. I am so happy to have found this practice and am really enjoying all of the new learning that is coming with my TC2. Retirement is really the best.
Next up I might add more colors and weave Ada again or move on to something else since my first warp is coming to a close… bummer. Choices, choices…
Here’s a view of AdaCAD running locally on my laptop with the drafts needed to accomplished the range of values on 2 colors.
