Weaverly

Alice Schlein

recent posts

  • Exploring Basket and Plain Weave

    Once upon a time I wove this black & white shawl in cotton and rayon, blocks of alternated basket weave and plain weave. Although the basic plan requires only 8 shafts, I wove it on a 16 shaft loom, so that I had the luxury of extra shafts for plain weave bands at the selvedges.

    The shawl drapes well and is a pleasure to wear (as long as I am careful to keep the long floats of 16×16 basket from snagging on sharp objects). In this closeup you can see the plain weave edges ( in the left side of the photo) in beige.

    I’ve always wanted to weave this structure again, and last week I put a sample warp on my 8-shaft loom. For this sample I used 8×8 basket weave alternating with plain weave. Warp is 8/2 cotton from LoftyFiber and weft is 10/2 cotton from my stash. The sample has been washed. I couldn’t get a balanced plain weave at the original sett of 24 epi. I also decided to rethread the 8/8 basket sections to 4×4. So-o-o, I cut off and rethreaded, and also resleyed the reed to 20 epi.

    Still with me? On the original warp, now 20 epi, with weft in two colors of 8/2 cotton, I am alternating blocks of 4×4 basket with plain weave blocks. Without a plain weave border, it is necessary to use a floating selvedge. So far I am liking this. We’ll see how it washes up.

    Meanwhile, I am thinking that the next time I try this I will reduce the color rotation in the warp to 4 and 4, to conform to the threading units.

    And then I was thinking of blocks of 3×3 basket, which led me down a whole ‘nother rabbit hole:

    Which led me to the following: same threading & treadling, but with a twill tieup. And a max float length of only 4. The interesting thing about this version is that by wrapping the tieup, you get 8 different versions. Fascinating.

  • Carding and Spinning Time

    Recently I had the good fortune to attend a gathering of fiber enthusiasts to test various carding machines. We had great fun blending wool, silk and other animal fibers, cellulosic fibers such as linen, tencel and bamboo, and also some sparkly synthetic glitz.

    After I brought home my booty, I sorted the various batts into two roughly equal piles, the darks and the lights, tore them down into fat strips, and Stretched them a little.

    I then spun up the carded fluff into singles yarn on my Hansencrafts miniSpinner. That took several days.

    I plied the darks and lights together into lively barberpole yarn, which was then skeined and washed.

    So here’s my month’s output. I’d originally planned to weave a blanket with it, but now I’m not sure. I’ll have to let it sit around for a while and let it make up its mind.

    Department of Books: I have finished reading The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai. Recommended.

  • Jin Time

    The current warp: a two-block pattern in jin weave (aka turned taqueté, aka warp-faced compound tabby). I always enjoy weaving this structure, for many reasons. Warping is quick and easy. Two contrasting yarns are alternated in the warp (contrasting colors, or matte vs. shiny, or smooth vs. textured, or thick/vs. thin, or?? And perhaps the biggest factor in its favor is that jin is a one-shuttle weave.

    Traditionally warp is densely sett, almost completely hiding the weft, but a more open sett is sometimes preferred, letting the weft show itself and become part of the design.

    Following is a simple draft for a two-block design in jin for 8 shafts. Resize as needed.

    For my project I have chosen a natural silk noil knitting yarn from my stash, paired with green 8/2 bamboo, alternated in the warp at 16 epi, and a fine (fingering weight) lopi I purchased years ago in Iceland as weft. The relatively open spacing of the warp allows the weft to peek through and become part of the design.

    In fact, the lopi yarn is so airy and lofty that it seems to fill the space. I’m sure that washing the finished fabric will intensify this effect. Here is a closeup of the yarn on the shuttle. This gives you some idea of the air trapped inside this yarn!

    For good measure, last night’s sunset.

    In the Department of Books, I have just finished reading What an Owl Knows by Jennifer Ackerman.

  • The Sum of Its Parts

    The blanket is finally, finally finished and wants to take one more bow. Six strips total, of different widths, and (mostly) all the same length. About 95% handspun wool and other fibers. 8 epi on rigid heddle looms.

    This project was such a joy to work on. I loved the process of sosrting all the little bits of yarn and finding where they belonged (or didn’t belong) in the grand scheme.

    Below is what the seams look like on the right side. They are intentionally visible running stitch with cotton embroidery floss, three strands. Working with six-strand floss and separating it down into smaller groups is a skill my hands remembered from my girlhood, when I used to embroider pillowcases in company with my grandmother and aunts on the front porch.

    And below is what the wrong side looks like, small overhand stitches on the edges in cotton sewing thread for extra security.

    Here are my essential tools of the moment and a handful of floss from the ever evolving thread nest.

    And a low angle shot of the eccentric edges in all their sassy behavior. Below you may also note what happens when you combine very differently spun yarns in the same warp: bubbles! Love them or hate them, they’re there to stay.

    Now time for true confessions. One of the strips came out a good 4 inches short, either from miscalculation of the warp, excess shrinkage, too vigorous washing, or ??? So I got out my old pin loom and wove three 4″ squares, washed them, sewed them together in a strip, and added them to the bottom. Now it’s time to pour the champagne and think about what’s next.

    Stay warm, y’all.

  • It’s the Small Things

    Sometimes it’s the small things that get us through some tough spots. A sudden change in the weather, an unexpected sunbreak, a drive through the neighborhood, and a burst of luscious bright green moss in the otherwise brown woods. This one was a stunner. If I had seen it at another time of day, another angle of the sun, I wouldn’t have noticed it.

    Back at home, my Christmas cacti have put out a burst of small buds, something they haven’t done in the six years they’ve lived by the back window. I think this is a case of benign neglect, as I am a notorious plant killer.

    In the Department of Yarn, the very final panel of the multi-paneled blanket (in case you’re following along on this one) has finally come off the loom and been washed and fulled. Here it is hanging up in the bathroom. Harrisville shetland warp, handspun weft of various pedigrees. When this one is steam pressed, I expect it to be as fluffy as its sister panels.

    Department of Books:

    Have finally finished reading Independent People (this is a long one!) by Halldor Laxness. Very highly recommended. Thank you to the wonderful people who recommended this one to me.

  • Accretion

    The blanket you saw here is being added to, gradually. It needed to be wider, so I’m adding two more strips, one on each side. Although the first four strips were all handspun warp and weft, for these additional strips I’m using Harrisville Shetland wool from my stash as warp, and handspun wool as weft. Here is strip #1 still on the loom:

    Yesterday I finished it, cut it off, and washed it. It dried quickly, as the sett is quite open (8 epi).

    It feels deliciously light and fluffy at this sett. My previous blankets have all been much denser, and they weigh a ton. I wanted to make this blanket a little lighter for future sleepers.

    I thought it would be fun to zoom in on the fibers, so I scanned a section of the strip at high resolution. Here it is shown approximately 6x actual size (depending on your screen resolution).

    The warp for the final strip, ready to go on the loom. Same Shetland wool, but in a different strip arrangement.

  • The View From Here

    Everything looks like rectangles today. The screen of my TempoTreadle, the the number stickers on my Louet Jane, the windows with their weather drama. The little fluffy ends of the heddles add a contrasting illusion of grass on the bottom of the picture, as if this were a prairie scene.

    The sleet is blowing horizontally and there are several inches of white stuff accumulating on the ground. The amount of light coming in here is tremendous. We have not lost power. Now I think I will heat up some spaghetti sauce and pretend we are in southern Italy.

    No book recos today. I like to post them only after I’ve finished reading them. The other thing I ought to tell you is that I never post the name of a book if I didn’t find something of value in it or some pleasure in reading it. It doesn’t have to be a prize winner. If the book is one I really, really, really liked I will state that, but otherwise I’ll just post the title and author. I mostly read fiction, esp. literary fiction, and some biography and history. I occasionally go for a good police procedural. I read a lot of foreign authors in translation.

    My all time favorite book is Middlemarch by George Eliot (pen name for Mary Ann Evans). I’ve read it three times, once as a teenager, once in middle age, and once as an old woman. What’s your FB?

  • Freezing

    It’s not as cold as in other parts of the country, just enough to get my attention. I’m in between warps, but to keep my circulation going, I played around with some 8-shaft drafts on the computer this morning. This one I entitled freezing.wif. It actually looks like icicles to me. There are a lot of 5-end floats, but they are clumped interestingly, and most of the cloth is plain weave for overall stability.

    In the Department of Books: I finished reading The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami.

  • Afterwards

    The first thing I did this morning, after thanking the weather spirits for preserving our electric power, was to take a few ice pictures. Full disclosure: I Photoshopped this first image severely. Couldn’t resist.

    Back indoors I went to work on the two small warps I wound yesterday for the rigid heddle loom. These will be to add width to the strip-woven blanket. I used some Harrisville shetland for these, although the rest of the blanket is 100% handspun. I think it will be a good combination. of materials.

    Here’s a little invention I’m working on for my Cricket loom. I really like to wind warps on a warping mill, and forego direct warping on rigid heddle looms, because I find it more pleasurable to design striped warps that way. But I really need something to catch the end loops of each pair of warps, without having to fuss with the cords that secure the warp rod to the warp beam. The metal bar on my quick-grip c-clamps fill the bill. I catch the first half of the warps on the bar in the following position.

    The paperbacks in the following photo temporarily hold the bar in position, then I remove the paperbacks for loading the second half of the warp

    Then I transfer all the loops to the warp stick, attaching the polyester cords to the stick as I go. I wish someone with a 3D printer would design some clamps to do all this more easily, similar to this system on the Kromski Harp, my other favorite RH loom:

    Be that as it may, the warping went very quickly and here is the strip in process of being woven, with handspun wool and wool blends as weft.

    While all this busy-ness was happening in the front of the house, my Christmas cactus by the back window was quietly pursuing her annual blooming cycle. For some reason, she only puts out a couple of blossoms a year, but each one is a gem.

  • Waiting for the Storm

    The last few days have been devoted to sewing the final section of blanket to its companion strips.

    The blanket looks pretty good on the bed, but it’s not quite wide enough yet. I think two more strips, one along each side, will be just about right.

    The pillow on the right is doublewoven jacquard from many years ago, in silk noil and wool. The gray one in front is also silk noil, dobby woven, 16 shafts. The stripey one is weft-faced twill, with odds & ends of handspun wool on a linen warp.

    And before the ice storm arrives , and while we still have electricity, I baked a loaf of bread. It’s fairly level, not the dreaded ski slope loaf.

    Bundle up, everybody. I’ll talk to you on the other side.

  • Meanders and Bumps

    I’ve been accumulating a collection of 3-yard strips woven on a rigid heddle loom. The yarns are all handspun wool and wool blends, plied, from a stash that goes back over 50 years. Spinners will recognize that wool yarns have widely differing takeup and shrinkage properties depending on breed of the sheep, amount of twist, yarn size, etc. Well, here’s a perfect demostration, laid out on my worktable.

    The warp has seersucker-type ripples, and the selvedges meander in fantastic curves. I don’t mind the warp ripples. I rather like them. But the curving selvedges are another matter. Do I just ignore them and hide them in the seams, or, as I have done here, embrace them?

    I have chosen the latter. I lap the selvedges and handstitch them with embroidery floss, in a running stitch. I let the selvedges meander as they will.

    This blanket is headed for the bed in the spare room. The future occupants may or may not enjoy the meandering selvedges. I’ll let you know.

    Department of Books: I just finished reading Worn by Sofi Thanhauser. Highly recommended for weavers, other yarnies, and for all other people who wear clothes.

  • All On a Saturday Night

    There are many versions of the children’s folk song “Here we go loopty loop”–you may have learned “looby loo” or other variations — but I especially like the last line of the refrain, which goes “all on a Saturday night.”

    On a recent Saturday Night I loopty looped this 8″ wide warp as a stashbusting exercise and…

    …the next day I beamed and threaded it on a rigid heddle loom. Put your right hand in, put your right hand out. Now it’s nearly all woven. More than likely I’ll get it cut off today and wash it. It will then join its sister warps in a multi-strip project which may or not become a blanket or a poncho. Or something else.

    This new style of making is pleasant. I love working with the handspun wool and waiting to see where it leads me.

    Department of Books: Have just read American Woman by Susan Choi. Recommended.

  • The Woven Pixel – 20 Years

    It’s been 20 years since the publication of The Woven Pixel: Designing for Jacquard And Dobby Looms Using Photoshop® (see sidebar). Bhakti Ziek and I, at opposite sides of the country, thought it was important to document our individual explorations in digital weaving and make our joint efforts available to the weaving community. We worked remotely, emailing chapters back and forth to each other for revision and editing. We taught ourselves Adobe Indesign and did our own layouts. It was intense work and pretty much took over our lives for more than a year.

    And now we’re very happy to announce that The San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles is mounting an exhibition honoring our work on January 29 through May 11, 2026. To quote the museum newsletter, “This exhibition explores the rise of digital weaving which emerged in the early 2000’s. It brings together a variety of work by artists and designers who experiment with digital looms and jacquard software. It pays tribute to two artists in particular, Bhakti Ziek and Alice Schlein, who wrote The Woven Pixel (2006), which quickly became something of a bible for weavers in art, design and industry–and referenced still today.”

  • The Musician

    I chose a photo of this little musician (about 10″ tall when seated) to convey my New Year’s greetings to you. He’s a cloth doll handcrafted by the late, great dollmaker Akira Blount and has sat on my desk for many years. He smiles enigmatically as he prepares to play his recorder for us.

    He sports brown velveteen pants, rose striped stockings, a gaily patterned vest with blue buttons, a pleated collar, and a long, pointy cap with a bell on the end. His wee expressive fingers are carefully delineated and stuffed.

    In the Department of Books…I have just finished reading The Far Field by Madhury Vijay. Recommended.

  • Creative

    On my walk yesterday morning I passed a construction site and saw this very amusing dumpster. I did not mess with the image at all, except to crop it a little. It kept me laughing for the rest of the day.

    Back in the studio I worked at my current RH project and was thinking mostly about handspun yarn, and totally missed the beautiful out-of-focus Cherokee basket in the background. This basket has kept me excellent company for over 40 years. I wish to acknowledge the artisan who created it. Wherever they are now.

    In watercolor class my instructor used to tell me that a diagonal element would add more energy to an image. Now, to celebrate the winter solstice, here’s a picture about diagonals. I hope these diagonals are pointing up, not down. I hope this is good energy. I hope the days will get longer. I hope we will all behave as better humans.