Weaverly

Alice Schlein

recent posts

  • In the Pink

    First of all, don’t let the different pinks confuse you. The problem is that all the snapshots were taken under different lighting conditions. For the record, the warp yarn is Lofty Fiber’s 8/2 cotton, Desert Sand, and the weft 8/2 cotton, Soft Pink. The most accurate color is probably the second photo.

    Here’s the final bit, just before the cutting off. I did the hemstitching in the weft color.

    After a vigorous handwashing in hot water, a run through the spin cycle in the washer, and hanging to dry overnight in the bathroom, the result is shown in the following image. There was considerable shrinkage, which I expected: 7% weft, 9% warp.

    I was quite happy with the way the selvedges turned out. The floating selvedges did their job. And with consistent shuttle throwing and beating, and not too much fussing at the edges, I really got away with murder. As I mentioned in a previous post, the ideal situation would be to have a small plain weave block at the edge, but with only 8 shafts, I had to forego that luxury.

    I no longer have the dexterity to twist or braid fringes (even with a mechanical twister), so it was a nice surprise to see that the 8/2 cotton, after washing, did its own twisting thing!

    Just to have it all in one place, here’s the draft:

    My goal in this particular shawl was to highlight the fabric structure and shrinkage differences in the plain and basketweave blocks. So I intentionally kept the tonal values of warp and weft very similar. But in the next version I want to add color, and I will make a slight alteration in the draft by adding a couple of separator threads between each block, as follows:

    In the Department of Books, I have just finished reading Rick Atkinson’s The Fate of the Day, the second volume of his trilogy on the American Revolution. Highly recommended.

  • Lessons Learned

    After a couple of weeks of weaving, roughly half an hour each day, the 9×9 basket weave project is finally finished. Here it is, still on the loom:

    And after being cut off, still unwashed:

    Now here it is after a vigorous machine washing & drying. The blocks scrunched up nicely, just what I was hoping for.

    But unfortunately the selvedges had a mind of their own. I had naively hoped that the floating selvedges would make up for a lack of additional shafts for a plain weave selvedge block, but such was not the case.

    Some of the blocks (but not all of them, just a random few) corkscrewed into these unsightly pigtails at the edges which I was not able to correct.

    I am still trying to get over the disappointment. I was hoping I could pull a rabbit out of the hat this time, but so far no solution has presented itself.

    Lesson #1: Sample first.

    Lesson #2: Sometimes eight isn’t enough.

    I am so eager have a try at 3×3 basket & plain, which I outlined in a previous post. Something tells me it will be better than 9×9, but the other side of my brain says slow it down, girl, and go for a walk.

  • A-Tisket, A-Tasket

    As promised in the previous post, here is some 9×9 basketweave combined with plain weave blocks. Warp 8/2 cotton, natural, and weft 8/2 cotton, pale gray, sett 16 epi and ppi.

    I’m weaving this on an 8 shaft loom. Ideally I could use another 2 shafts for a band of plain weave at the selvedges, but I am making do with floating selvedges. I will cross my fingers and hope that the edges will neaten up after washing.

    Below you can see that the floating selvedge is doing its job.

    And the draft, if you’re curious.

    Also looking ahead to some basketweave in 3×3 groups. Here’s one of my thoughts. I’m trying to maintain sharp corners, hence the odd transition from one block to another in threading and treadling.

  • Cutting Off Ceremony

    First, let me tell you about my Christmas cactus, which for the first few years never bloomed at all. I think maybe I was overwatering it. Then, for the past two years it has been blooming madly in March and April. I don’t know what’s going on. I just enjoy it. This might be a good way to introduce today’s theme of magentas and oranges.

    The striped warp I showed you in my last post has come to an end. Snip snip. Drinks all around.

    A trip through the washer & dryer and the basketweave blocks drew up somewhat, but not as much as I’d hoped for. I think this needs a more open sett.

    I did get a better idea of what happens at the selvedges of the basketweave blocks with a floating selvedge. If I had more shafts, a plain weave border would have been nice, but this is what I’ve got. I think it’s OK. At the appropriate viewing distance my luncheon companions will not care one bit.

    A quick selfie in other lighting conditions:

    I’m going to try this again with (1) a more open sett, (2) a larger basketweave, maybe 9×9 basket instead of the current 4×4, and (3) a monochromatic color scheme to emphasize structure. Stay tuned.

  • 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.