This was my entry in a competition. I am so very pleased with it, I learned a lot (Clasped weft, which allowed me to form the Pyramid, was new to me) and I am quite proud that I ended up solidly in the middle of the pack after all the voting was complete. This piece has a umercerized cotton warp, and a mercerized cotton weft which is doubled in the central Pyramid section.
I really, really love my job. I get to work on (mostly) my own schedule, which means that I have time to take care of myself and my family, as well as working. Granted, the payday schedule is a bit erratic, and the boss (me) sometimes pushes me too much, or not enough, but I get to spend my days designing custom pieces, playing with fiber, and drowning in colours.
This is a good life for me. I love it.
But (and isn’t there always a but??), it means that I rarely weave “spontaneously”. I use that word loosely, because the process of handweaving is anything BUT spontaneous, with its needy personality requiring detailed planning for things to work out, and to end up with a lovely finished product, and noone in tears.
My version of spontaneous is this:
My loom is empty. (This rarely happens, but once in a while, I weave a little faster, and a design goes a little slower than expected). I have to fill it. An empty loom means an unhappy weaver, and that just does noone any good.
I say to myself “Hey! I get to fill it up with something fun!”
Oh. What should I weave? Those tea towels I need for an upcoming housewarming? The shawl that I want to do for a grieving friend? The scarves that I committed to weaving for a charity function?
It isn’t that I don’t have any ideas, it is that I have TOO MANY ideas. The choices are staggering. So many things I want to weave, and the decisions don’t stop with WHAT to weave, what colour(s) for warp and weft, what fiber, what draft? I have so many projects and drafts marked “for later” with sticky note flags,, my weaving bookshelf resembles a technicolour cartoon porcupine!
Last week I had this exact thing happen.
I won’t lie to you, I was paralysed with choices. My mind literally spun in circles, debating the merits of this project over that, this fiber that I want to sample with versus the beautiful warp I have been hoarding for a special occasion…….
I COULD NOT, for the life of me, decide what to weave. My loom was empty for two days. The proverbial storm was brewing, and I needed to stop it quickly.
So I chose to NOT choose. I chose ALL the colours!
I went into my yarn cupboard, and randomly (truely randomly, I actually closed my eyes!) picked out the number of yarns that I needed, and put them on the spool rack in that same order. I ended up with some doubts. Did that orange belong next to the purple? Would the pink play well with the orange and grey? I decided to throw caution to the wind, and as the slogan says, “Just do it”.
I couldn’t be happier with the result, it is a happy, happy fabric, that makes me proud of myself for letting go of control.
I will never be able to weave this exact piece again, but it was a ton of fun to weave, and I will definitely be doing this type of “experimental warp” again.
I just finished this piece, and it is ready to ship to a new home. Now I need to find it a home!
In honour of Family Day, I am opening up a draw to purchase, with entry open to everyone.
The only way to enter (unless you are on my email list) is to go to the Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/rocklakeweaving), where you need to comment on the draw post AND share the post. One entry per person, the entry deadline is 2pm, Tuesday, February 17th, 2015.
The details are:
Warp: 11 colours of unmercerized cotton, in a random threading with red, yellow, and purple background
Weft: Teal mercerized cotton
Weave: 8 shaft Herringbone
Length: 3.65 m
The winner of this draw (chosen by RNG, with the entry list numbered by time of comment) will be able to purchase this piece at the retail value of $365 CDN. The piece will be shipped within two business days of payment, and the exact shipping cost will be invoiced once it is shipped.
If the draw winner does not submit payment within 24 hours of the draw, another winner will be chosen.
Good luck!
I know that some of you are curious about how weavers do what we do. I recently wrote about the process, and the time involved. It is hard, I think, to get actions across in words though. Add in the fact that some of the people who have, and will read my musings, are not weavers themselves, and the terminology can get confusing.
If you don’t know what beaming, threading, sleying etc. ARE, then it is difficult to understand why these things are necessary, and why they take so much time.
To help with that, I have uploaded several videos to my Facebook page, which show little bits of some of the things involved in weaving fabric.
Please keep in mind that I am most definitely NOT a professional videographer, narrator, or even a reasonably good teacher. These videos are not intended to be instructional, as there are plenty of people out there on websites and YouTube that do a much better job of explaining themselves than I ever could.
In addition, I make no claims to be doing any of these things “correctly”. The reality is that there are many ways to do each task involved in weaving, and they are all valid methods. Depending on the equipment, location, type of weaving being done, and most assuredly, the individual weaver, any (and sometimes all) of these tasks can be done in different ways. I do some of them in different ways myself, depending on what I am making, and, if I am being truly honest, the day. I like to search out and try different methods to be used with my equipment, and all its variations. Sometimes things work out well, sometimes…..well….not so much.
In the end, it is all an adventure of discovery, and most of the time, I get some lovely fabric in the end, and that makes me very happy.
If you want to see some of what I do each day, hop over to Facebook, check out the videos, and if you are so inclined, like my page for further updates, and maybe more videos.
Hi Everyone,
I have been busy getting the next piece on the loom, as well working on my usual list of 682 other things that need to get done. I am really loving this one, it will be a pinstripey wonder, as the threading will make it look a b it different from how it looks on the beam.
18m of warp on the beam
Today is Saturday, and the usual family schedule includes hockey games, dance lessons, and gymnastics classes. I managed to sneak in a little threading this morning, and I am almost half done. My oldest daughter (who loves the colours, but laughs at the contortions I get into when dressing the loom) decided that she should take a photo of my while threading….
Threading the heddles.
This position is actually quite comfortable for me, which is extremely important. I sometimes have to fit weaving into our life a few minutes at a time, but I regularly sit down to work with the loom for 2-4 hours at a time, and when you do ANYTHING for that length of time, it is nice to be able to get up and move at the end!
Threading and sleying should be done early next week, and I am so excited to show you photos of the fabric as weaving begins, the transformation from thread to fabric always makes me smile.
I have some big plans for this fabric, and if all goes well, some of it will need a new home in the next few weeks!
Today has been a day of ups and downs. I try to dedicate at least one whole day (at least the portion of the day when my kids are in school) a week to weaving, and weaving related tasks. Today was that day.
I finally (on the last day, of course! LOL) found my rhythm with the piece on the loom and the hours slipped by like water over a streambed.
The weaving on that piece is now complete, (no photos yet, the light is terrible today) and I feel a strange mix of sad excitement. Sad, because I have really enjoyed this piece. The many weft changes made it much slower to weave, and I really needed to pay attention to my pic counts (how many weft threads of each colour), so I could not quite reach my usual zen-like state in the weaving. I did, however, reach a lovely calm spot, where I did not have to check my counts each time, or look at my “pattern” to figure out how much of which colour was next. The weaving flowed in a languid sort of way, and with each colour, I was able to reach for the next one, almost without looking. This is one of the joys of weaving.
The sadness comes in because I am almost at the end of this piece. I weave my heart and soul into each item on my loom, from fabric to teatowels, to special occasion gifts. When their time with me is limited, it stings a little. I still have several hours of work to go with this blue and green lovely, inspecting it for flaws, repairing them as I find them, and running my hands over it just one more time. Then washing pressing, and hemming before the “beauty shots”, and a soft familiar little pat to the final package as I hand it over to the postal worker.
The excitement, because although I know what this fabric will be when it is well and truly finished, the transformation always inspires a little wonder in me. The fabric is soft and strong now, but will bloom into a true thing of beauty under my hands as I finish it.
Excitement too, for the next thing that I will weave, a rhapsody of riotous colours, reds, purples, yellows, and oranges. This next one will be the boisterous American cousin to the calm and mature piece that will be leaving soon.
Photos will come shortly, for the piece on the way to a new home, as well as some hints about the new one, but for now, I will smile a bittersweet smile, turn on the spotlights, and run may hands over this fabric for one of the last times.
There have been some questions lately about what is involved in weaving. So here is the short version of what is involved, in most pieces I weave. This is assuming a plain weave or simple twill, woven 32″ wide (shrinkage makes it more like 27-28″ after finishing, depending on the weave).
Design: If I am making my own design, I will often map it out in excel. this takes approximately 4 hours. (If I am working with a custom design for a client, this can take longer, depending on how many times we go back and forth with adustments of the design)
Yarn order: I usually choose colours as part of the design, it takes maybe 20 minutes. I tend to choose photos or other artwork as inspiration, and I take out my sample books and compare the colours available to the colours that I want, change my mind a dozen times or so, then choose. This most often happens over multiple days. I email an order in, and I generally get it in less than a week.
Warp: This is where I measure the yarn for the warp (this is the threads that go on the loom, and are lengthwise in the finished fabric) and put it on the warp beam. I have a warping wheel, and a sectional beam, so it goes relatively quickly, for a 8.5 yard warp with thick stripes, approximately 6 hours. I wind the threads around the warping wheel, in the order that I want them, then wind them from the wheel onto my warp beam. If I am warping something with many colour changes, that can go up to 10 hours. There are other methods of doing this, and many factors that influence the time involved.
Threading: Next I need to put each thread (just shy of 800 threads, for this imaginary piece) through a heddle. The heddles are part of the system that controls which threads are up and which are down. This takes about 4 hours, if the threading is not complicated.
Sleying: I then take each thread through a dent in the reed (the things that I move forward and back with my hand, to beat the weft in place). This is usually 2-3 hours.
Tie-up: I make sure that the correct treadles (foot pedals) are attached to the correct shafts (frames with the heddles on them). this forms the pattern that I will weave, by lifting the threads in a particular order.10 minutes.
“tying on”: this is the last step to have the warp on the loom. I have an AVL loom, with a sandpaper beam, so I don’t actually tie it on. I take all the threads, and lay them neatly on the beam, that they stick to. I then spend time getting the tension of all the threads as even as possible (having some tight, and some loose is poor workmanship, and will cause problems while weaving) this takes maybe 20 minutes.
At this point, the warp is ready to weave. for a 8.5 yd warp, I have just over 6500 yards of yarn on the loom.
Then I use an electric bobbin winder to wind my pirns. I use the yarn that will be the weft for this. 20 minutes. (this will be repeated several times, as I use up the thread) 2 hours total maybe? (I have never counted how many times I do this)
I weave a “header” that is maybe an inch long, to make sure the threads are spread evenly, and inspect for any threading errors.
I sometimes use the header to do weft sampling, so that can take as much as an hour.
Weaving: Once I have everything ready, I generally weave roughly a meter an hour, so the 8.5yd warp would take me about 8 hours. to weave. (sorry for the difference in units, I am Canadian!)
Finishing: Inspecting for errors, fixing any that are present, clipping threads for bobbin changes and repairs made while weaving, washing, pressing, hemming. 6-10 hours for a single piece.
This fictional piece would end up taking me approximately 13000 yards of yarn, and 32 hours, on the conservative side.
I know that this all sounds complicated, but it really is quite relaxing, and although there is a LOT of time involved, I enjoy each step. I love the feel of yarn running through my fingers, and it makes me happy to know that I have touched every inch of yarn that goes into each piece.
Especially when I am actually weaving, I get into an almost zen-like state, with a calming, steady rhythm, and the hours just fly by.
This is what I do, and I love it.
I am working on a cool piece right now, a Tartan! It is going slowly, which I expected.
To weave this, I have five shuttles with the colours needed (black, blue, green, cream, and gold) on a table next to me, and every colour requires attention to confirm that I am using the correct colour, weave the proper number of pics, and then I need to bury the tail, cut it off, and do it again with the next colour.
All this, in addition to keeping track of my treadling. I knew this one would be more time consuming, and I am finally (several meters into the weaving) starting to get into some sort of rhythm. It isn’t my usual settling into the smooth throw/beat/throw/beat/advance, but I am getting there, and I am pleased with how it is looking so far.
There will be a bit of finishing to do once it is off the loom, with all those ends to inspect and trim, but I know that this is a special piece for my client, and I am more than happy to do the work for the end result.
OK, so I am a week late, I know.
Sorry.
I DO, however, have a good reason for that.
In November, I bought a “new” loom, which will allow me to weave more complex (and pretty) designs. I still love my old one, and it will have a good home in our summer house, to be used in the warmer months, but I am quickly falling for the new one.
I just HAD to try it out, to the point that I undecorated (Is that a word??) the house on Dec. 28, JUST so I could put the loom up. This was necessary because our house is not large, and our tree was installed where I normally weave. Where will we put the tree next year….ummm………
Never mind that, it is almost a year away.
I had a ton of fun weaving some thick hand towels for the kids to use from bright coloured cotton, and then I got down to business, and put on a silver tencel warp. I have been wanting to try this undulating twill for a while now, and I am not *quite* ready to say that I have it out of my system just yet, but I am pleased with the results of my weaving. It isn’t perfect, as the loom and I are still getting aquainted, but for the most part, if you aren’t looking really, really, REALLY closely, with a weaver’s eye, you will just see the lovely pattern that truly shines (figuratively, and literally) in tencel.
I did two scarves with tencel weft, in Charcoal, and Teal, and I did one in my very own handspun. I bought the fiber from Waterloo Wools, a now defunct local business, and it was a Mixed BFL fiber, in a colour called “Shipwreck” that I fell in love with. I am so pleased with how it turned out. I don’t really need ANOTHER scarf, so this one may or may not stay here.
The charcoal one is spoken for already, but the teal one is available. (see the end of this post for details).
The teal and silver tencel scarf is 72″ long (not measuring the fringe), and 8.5″ wide. It is ready to ship, and I will include shipping in the price. $125.
Sometimes, as a weaver, things don’t go quite as I expect. I am generally a pretty relaxed, easy going type of person, and I don’t get too stressed about things that don’t go according to my plan.
The amazing blue warp that I have been posting? You know, the one with the fabulously shiny royal blue tencel weft?
My “plan” for it, was to weave it off, finish it, take some cool photos, pack it up ready to ship, and then auction it off, shipping it in time for it to arrive at its new home for the holidays.
The reality is this:
Tencel is slippery. Really, really slippery. It is a man made silk alternative. The drape is incredible, like liquid pouring through your hands when woven with a tencel warp and weft.
I was depending on the cotton warp to shrink in finishing (which it did, just as I expected), and I was also depending on that shrinkage to hold that lovely tencel in its place. Well…..not so much.
The finished fabric is amazingly soft and thin, with a drape like no other. It would be an incredible shawl, draping over your shoulders and looking oh so elegant. However, for anything with strain on it, it is simply not appropriate.
If I pinch my fingers on this fabric, and pull them away from each other along the weft, the warp parts like the Red Sea.
This makes me sad, because other than this, the fabric is all that I was hoping it would be.
I am going to sell it in pieces, or as a shawl (or two), as it is soft and drapey, and would also look great as a lined bag or book cover, with some interfacing to stabilise it.
If you would like a piece of this fabric, please email me at kathy@rocklakeweaving.com.
If you are on my email list, never fear, I will have something else special for you, because this one just didn’t work out.
Rock Lake Weaving 