Steaming Ahead

A good example of how changing the value of the weft will radically change how a warp will look

Warp for office curtains and tea towels beamed on Sunday - the colours look more green on my monitor than in real life - they are actually beige and a blue/grey

Threaded!

Lots of creative energy going on in the studio today.  My student arrived at 9 am and jumped right into weaving on the blue/grey warp I'd set up on the Leclerc Fanny.  It didn't take too long before she felt more or less comfortable at the loom - she was challenging a lot of muscle memory - and began on her towel.

In between observing (and nagging!) her I threaded the warp on the AVL.  It is a fairly complex 'fancy' twill so I thread in groups of 6, 7, or 8 depending on the sequence, tie each group into a slip knot and then tie each repeat into another bigger slip knot.  This helps me keep track of where I am in the threading sequence.  (total of 800 ends)

Tomorrow I'll sley and tie on and maybe even weave my 'sample'.  The weft for the curtains will be a very fine soy protein fibre so no doubt I'll have to check for picks per inch and tie up to make sure the cloth is turning out for curtains.

Currently reading Betrayal of Trust by J. A. Jance

Consequences

Fudge one place and you usually wind up having to fudge somewhere else.  So it is with this warp.

The yarn is 2/16 unmercerized cotton at 32 epi.  It is sleyed 4 per dent in an 8 dent reed.

Tossing two of the ends out of the left hand grey stripe means that the last dent would have contained 2 ends instead of 4.  From past experience I know that this will lead to a nasty selvedge as the density will be all wrong.

I could have just tossed the last two blue ends off the warp, but instead I chose to toss two grey threads from the second from left grey stripe.  This makes both of those stripes the same width.  It also gives me two 'extra' grey ends I can use - if I need them - for repair ends as the end of the warp comes up off the warp beam.  Not exactly the lesson I had expected to present to my student, but.....

A good teacher should be able to show how to get around these little bumps in the road, right?

Currently reading Cabal by Michael Dibdin

Pear Shaped

I'm blaming the phase of the moon.  Whatever phase it's in, it's the moon's fault.

Seems like when things start to go wrong, they keep going wrong.  It started with winding this warp -  distraction levels were far too high and I made mistakes winding the correct number of threads for the stripes and had to correct myself several times.

Today the distractions were continuing.  I didn't straighten out the loops in the warp properly and wound up with snarls and two broken ends in one of the grey stripes.

Now the set is 32 epi and the grey stripe is quite wide - how much difference is the loss of two ends going to make?  Considering that this warp is primarily a practice warp for my student, how bent out of shape was I going to let myself get about a couple of broken ends?

I decided that I wasn't.  Going to get bent out of shape, that is.  So I just ignored the two grey ends, pulling them out of the warp chain, brushing the warp from one end to the other because there were just too many loose threads to 'milk' out by hand without spending hours doing it.

It's ready to thread now and I'll start.  Thank goodness I'd decided on a very simple threading because I really don't think I could manage anything 'complicated'!  It's the phase of the moon.  It's wrong.

Guest Post - Peg Cherre

 Warping valet update:  After my first use of the valet with rayon (that was my blog post), I did another rayon warp.  Partly because I was into a rayon weaving mode, and partly because I specifically wanted to do another 'easy' warp while I continued to get the hang of the new process.  It felt less 'wrong' than the first, although still odd.

Then I decided it was time to try something more challenging -- after all, I really want to get to using the valet with rayon chenille, but didn't want to jump right to the RC shawl I have in mind (what if it messed up with all that yarn?!).  So I went with an unmercerized cotton warp.  170 ends, 9 yards long.  Not only was it an 8/2 unmercerized, it wasn't highly twisted, and was a tiny bit nubbly.  What better test than that?!

No surprise to you, I'm sure, but that unmercerized cotton went on like a dream!!  Not a snag, a twist, a snarl, or a frustration.  It wound as quickly as that smooth, shiny rayon had.  You KNOW that wouldn't have happened if I was working in my pre-valet, no-tension beaming mode!

Needless to say, I am a warping valet convert.  I'm getting out my screw gun and installing those hooks & eyes on my breast beam so I can lose the street brick.  And moving one of the eye hooks in my ceiling that I didn't place well, unfortunately - as I think I mentioned, I hate making big holes in lovely wood.  Maybe I can figure out how to put some wood putty up there in the old hole so it doesn't look nasty.  (Actually, I should probably move both hooks to make the valet be the best, but I can't bring myself to do that.)

You mentioned that you prepare your rayon chenille warps for the valet 1 thread at a time vs. 2, but you said you often have thin stripes that make this work best, as well as the specifics of RC yarn.  Is it safe to assume that you've tried 2 threads at a time and 1 works better?  Obviously twice as much time at the warping board, but it'd be time well spent if the RC beams as smoothly as the unmercerized cotton!

THANK YOU FOR YOUR UNCEASING WILLINGNESS TO SHARE YOUR EXPERTISE!

Peg

Restoring Faith

Winding the warp for my student - cheat sheet posted above the board, ticking off each stripe as it is wound because distraction level has been particularly high today....see text below

Warp was wound in two sections, each of which will be weighted separately - warp is ready to be passed under the breast beam, over the valet and weighted

Yesterday my webmaster discovered that a hacker had broken into (if that's the word) my website and was using the contact form to send out spam via my website. The only way he could figure out to stop this 'thieving' was to shut down the contact form altogether, so he did that this morning.  This is not only irritating, it is terribly inconvenient because I routinely receive one to several emails a day via the contact form.

I understand why such people do these things.  They want something for nothing and hope that people will respond to their spamming and maybe benefit them in some way by so doing.  I just wish these people would be less selfish and not make life difficult for people who are honestly trying to earn an income, paying their bills, even possibly helping others.

And then I read Yarn Harlot's .blog.  I have been reading her blog for a couple of years now - I enjoy her writing, her sense of deprecating introspection, her commitment to being a creative person with her knitting and writing.  I also admire her fund raising efforts, especially her participation in the bike ride to raise funds for people with HIV/AIDS that she will be doing in a few short weeks (perhaps days, now.)

She helped restore my faith in the goodness and, dare I say it, niceness of most people, most of the time.  Thanks, Yarn Harlot.  I needed that.

But in the meantime, the contact form on my website no longer functions and will probably remain that way.  My apologies but I cannot condone or enable spammers to continue to 'steal' - bandwidth from me, possibly money from others.  My contact info via phone and snail mail still currently exists on my website - see 'contact information' to the left hand side of my website, and of course I can be PM'd on Facebook, Weavolution, Ravelry or emailed directly using my first name at my website address.  Hopefully that is opaque enough that spiders will not figure it out.

Delayed Gratification

Not the last soy protein scarf warp!

It was with a great deal of satisfaction that I beamed the 'last' blue soy protein warp - I'd met my goal within the deadline I'd set for myself.  I could think about the next thing to do - after dressing the small loom with a 2/16 cotton warp for my student and beaming the 2/16 cotton warp for tea towels and curtain fabric, that is.

Digging through my stash to see what else I could use up, however, I found more cones of soy protein!  I wasn't done after all!

At least it wasn't as bad as first feared - the box held an assortment of yarns, not just soy protein.  So the end is in sight - four more warps wound four ends at a time (9 meters long) and four warps wound 2 ends at a time (5 meters).  That will give me an additional 24 scarves on top of the 48 from the first stage.  By the time I finish weaving them all I will have decent inventory - of this design - for the 4 major shows I will be doing this fall (along with several smaller venues).

In the end I probably won't have the number of different designs I like to offer - less width and more depth.  But with what I already have on hand, it should be sufficient.  It looks like I won't get much more done until after September when I get back from Puyallup and Texas.  We'll see how much I can do in the 4 weeks before the next sales event in October.  Gratification will be delayed!

Currently reading Force of Nature by C. J. Box

Mysterious

#3 scarf on this warp - the colours are pretty true on my monitor

Reading through Quiet there is a section on how introverts learn as compared to extroverts - how much - or little - stimulation each needs in order to learn well.  One of the interviewed experts talks about Deliberate Practice - something I call Purposeful Study.

There is a huge difference between practicing something without analyzing how effective what you are doing actually is in terms of your results.  If you simply practice something that isn't very effective over and over, all you are doing is cementing in place 'bad' work habits.  Habits that are extremely difficult to erase once they are firmly set into muscle memory.

Weaving is, on the face of it, very simple.  Anyone who wants to take the time to learn it can do it.  People who follow directions can produce lovely work.  But if you want to understand the subtleties of the craft to the point where you can make your own design decisions, a more purposeful approach needs to be taken, I think.

The question 'why?' must be asked, and then, 'what if?'   By constantly questioning results, the practitioner will gradually learn how the materials will react in different circumstances and how to control their results.  By accepting 'failure' (iow results that are less than desirable) the practitioner begins to learn what works and what doesn't.

One of my goals when I teach is to try to make the craft less mysterious.  Since I am an introvert, analytical, have done my 10,000 hours of Purposeful Study, I have a fair understanding of the nuances of the craft and, I've been told, can articulate those fairly well.  One of my students called me a storyteller.  After thinking about that for a moment I realized she was right - my story is the story of the construction of cloth.

When students come to my studio to study I offer them the opportunity to post on my blog as a guest.  I realized that some of the students that have studied with me elsewhere might also like a chance to guest blog.  If you would like to do that, email me your text with one or two photos of your work (the internet is a visual medium after all!).  I reserve the right to edit for length and typos.  :)