After the first 5 yards I am still in love. What a pleasure learning about a new loom, a new design software and the opportunities of double weave – something I haven’t done in a while.
My first warp is 1200 threads alternating black and white in Venne Cottolin set at 45 EPI.
I thought I would share my samples in order and a few lessons learned.
1 – Double weave Rubber Bands with 3 values – black, white and white weft on black warp. No idea why I went with rubber bands for my first ever weave but it turned out amazing. Later I tried this same image in 4 values. A comparison follows. The back is the reverse and the hand is pretty great for upholstery.
2 – Double weave Binder Clips with 4 values – black, white, white weft on black warp and black weft on white warp. As I was looking at the first piece I wondered if white warp and black weft would look different from black warp and white weft. This next piece answered that question – yes! See the 2 different grey values.
3 – Polychrome taquete´sample for my Tuesday night weaving class. This is really slow weaving as each color happens in every perceived row. I wove the back in plain weave to save time – it drew in less so when it came off the loom it was a little baggier in the back. I cut it apart for students to see the impact of those background pattern wefts. Alternating white and black warp also showed the influence of warp color. All yarns were the same cottolin in this example.
4 – MODA fabric for an upcoming installation at the Museum of Design Atlanta – double weave. A quick little weave to participate in a textile installation next month. The top sample got the aspect ratio right on the logo. Definitely need to wash the sample to make those kind of decisions.
5 – Double weave Rubber Bands with 4 values – black, white, white weft on black warp and black weft on white warp. Here’s a re-do of the first weaving using 4 values.
It’s less graphic but has more depth. You can also see here a shift in the way I am sampling. I am leaving about 1/2 inch around the edges that are separate layers for sewing later. The pictures were taken after serging each layer individually then washing and pressing dry.
6 – Double weave William and Kobayashi – black and white. Why? Because I love these two and my loom is magical. I thought the image had a nice ying yang quality so I kept it black and white only.
7 – Double weave Clouds From San Juan Capistrano – 5 values in twill using blue and white wefts on black and white warps. I am working my way up to color so here is a 3 color weave showing 5 different values in twill. My original sample at the bottom of the image used plain weave for the black and white but the weft packed down much more on the twill so I shifted the solid colors to twill rather than plain weave in the final piece. The aspect ratio is way off from the image but with clouds you just have to wait a few minutes for everything to change so I won’t worry about it. I think I will work on this design again using different weft yarns with different sheens. That was a beautiful sky on a lovely day with my brother’s family.
8 – Rep Pirns From Abandoned Textile Mill Near Grove Park Inn – black and white, thick and thin. I wondered what would happen with thick and thin yarn. I made a guess at the aspect ratio – should have been a little shorter but not too bad. The big learning on this was in adjusting the warp stepping from 420 to 800 to accommodate fewer picks per centimeter. The texture is so nice on this. Rep should be set a little tighter than my 45 EPI but not too bad.
Everything I had woven up to this point was doubleweave so it was a little bit of an adjustment to change the wif approach for the image regions to a single layer. Funny. Guess I am beginning to get more comfortable with doubleweave design.
Some tension issues showed on a few threads on the right and there is a dent with 5 threads instead of 3 about a quarter in from the left. I cut the samples off at this point so that I could adjust the tension and fix the denting issue for the next, I think, 6 yards remaining.
What’s next? Thinking more about texture and more colors as I work my way through this cottolin. I haven’t used this yarn before and I have to say I really like it. It is strong and at this sett – 22.5/inch for each layer – it is really nice in doubleweave plain weave and twill. It is a fuzzy wuzzy yarn though so I am sweeping up lots after each sample.