Having fun with sock yarns!

This is my second scarf woven with Noro Nureyon Sock yarn for warp and Trekking sock yarn in the weft. Set at 15 epi, woven on my Leclerc Voyageur loom. I'm really delighted with this scarf, it looks amazing with my favourite red jumper (seen in this badly lit photo).

I wore it to work and the reactions were very interesting. A couple of people were unreservedly amazed and impressed. A couple of others said although it looks superb they couldn't wear such a scarf because they don't like the feel of wool and think it scratchy. I could get around that by weaving similar colours in silk.

I think I should say a bit more about design. Before I started weaving the first of these scarves I spent a long time studying they many superb patterns in my Janet Phillip's sample blanket. I'm really looking forward to using some of the 500 patterns in my weaving. However, I realised that a simple diagonal twill was going to give better feel and drape to a fairly thick wool yarn.

The colour choice for this pink/orange scarf was inspired by Cally's work with similar hot colours. I'd never have thought of putting these kind of shades together if I hadn't seen how well they work for Cally and also got my colour sampler to refer to. I think the more one looks at things and works with different colour ideas the more an understanding builds up. Playing with colours is important, literally playing - like Cally's colouring book, or just sitting with the different coloured yarns in your stash and arranging them differently. So much that we dismiss as child's play is about building understanding of how things work.

Just a reminder of the yarns I used, note that the orange Trekking yarn has shade variations that give the scarf bands of different intensity in the weft (see above).


Next I picked up my green yarns, and I changed reed from a 15 dent to an 8 dent threaded at 16 epi. The slightly denser warp makes little difference, but the reed threaded 2 ends per dent was kinder to the warp. The 15 epi reed had rubbed against the warp yarns more and caused a little wear during the weaving.


This scarf had perfect looking selvedges on the loom -

which I attribute:
(a) to weighting the selvedge yarns behind the loom (they were not beamed with the warp, just looped up and weighted with a lead weight from the fishing shop, 4oz) and
(b) to a cute little Glimakra temple, see below.


However, when I took the scarf off the loom the selvedges looked a bit less perfect, in fact, a bit wavy. I was a bit surprised by this, I'd carefully moved the temple about every half inch woven. However, it doesn't detract at all from the scarf, maybe it is just a reminder that it this is handwoven.


This is a close up of the fabric. I like the effect of the intermittent short pink/purple and light green sections in the Trekking sock yarn used as weft, the effect is slightly like a tartan cloth.
p.s. the pictures of my scarves in this and my last-but-one post can be enlarged if you click on a photo.

Cloth of many colours

I have completed two samplers on my 15 colour warp, one in plain weave and one a 2/2 diagonal twill. There's enough warp left on the loom to weave another but I'm taking some time to think about what else I want to try out.

We enjoyed a few days of Autumn sunshine last week (wonderful, after a wet, grey Summer!) so one fine afternoon I took my samplers outside where the light was good and took a few photos.

This is a close up of a plain weave section...

...and here's a close-up of twill. The warp yarn on the left of the picture is yellow, and on the right, orange. Orange and pink (top right) is not a combination I would have chosen before weaving this, but it works remarkably well. See how much warmer the colours with pink weft (top) are than those with the light blue (below), and that's inspite of this being a dull, blue-ish pink. The yellow warp lifts the tone of the pink, with orange it is more dull in tone and the right hand side receeds against the yellow. Look again and see how there is (left versus right) light and shadow, near and far.

Here we see the same weft colours with totally different section of warp, something reminiscent of pink Foxgloves (top) or blue Forget-me-not (below)?

The same green warp with colours similar to the above, but different effect, cooler tones.

Selection of greens:

My favourite red/orange/yellows:

Colours of spring moorland, grass, reeds and heather:

The two different samplers examined together, same two yarns warp and weft in diagonal twill and in plain weave.

And also:

Folding the plain weave sampler enables me to show you, left of picture, the blue-jade yarn warp and weft, centre with a white warp and right with navy blue. Don't you think that the blue-jade colour looks paler with white, and blue against the navy? So much of our perception of colour depends on context. (no, the colours didn't run in the wash!)

Same folding as the above, with the yellow green yarn: left, in warp and weft, centre with white weft and right with navy blue. The reed marks are distinct against navy (you see every group of three warp threads from the 3 per dent reed sleying), but not visible at all on the white.

Weaving these samplers has been joyful, and I still have about going on for another 2 metres of warp on the loom, so watch this space!

Close up Colour and Weave

Here at last are the pictures of my colour and weave sampler. I didn't take one of the whole thing, but dimensions are approx 30" wide and a bit over five feet long.

There are 16 different colour repeats across the width - see my earlier post for details - and the same colour repeat patterns are repeated in the treadling, first in plain weave and then in twill. Pattern & treadling sections are separated by a couple of green threads. At the finish I tried a few weft rib patterns and Bedford cord.

I've taken a the photos with the aim of giving you some idea of the diversity of patterns and the usefulness of having a sampler like this for reference.

When you look at it, bear in mind some possibilities for using these patterns again:

they might another time be woven in high or low colour contrast,
more than two colours,
possibly in textured or tweed yarn,
maybe just as a contrast stripe of pattern against plain colour.

And... all the plain weave patterns can be woven with only two shafts. So they could be woven on a simple rigid heddle loom.

Plain weave:

Plain weave:

Plain weave:

Plain weave:

Diagonal twill (4 shafts):

Diagonal twill (4 shafts):

Plain weave at top, Diagonal twill (4 shafts) below:

Plain weave:

Plain weave:

Rib patterns: (using 3-1 and 1-3 twill tie-up)

(Just a note here to add the words "color and weave" for anyone doing a U.S. English search on the subject.)

Colour and Weave

... or Color and Weave for those of you over the Atlantic.

I'm just taking a break from sleying my reed. My latest sampler which is a colour and weave experiment takes nearly the full loom width. It occured to me that it's a good idea going out to maximum width on a sampler before I try it for something special, so that's something extra that I'm getting out of this project.

I wanted to stop and write about what colour and weave is, before I start telling you about the sampler. I kept hearing the phrase "colour and weave" and people saying things about "colour and weave sampler" but I really didn't know what it meant. It didn't seem to come into the books I was reading, and I hadn't seen anything on the internet to help.

Then I picked up a book I'd neglected for months, Ann Sutton's "Color and Weave Design - A Practical Reference Book" and it dawned on me that this book is mostly photographs of a colour and weave sampler. I took that as my starting point. I have followed the same colour pattern she uses.

It goes, in two inch sections:

1 white / 1 blue
1 white / 2 blue
1 white / 3 blue
1 white / 4 blue

2 white / 1 blue
2 white / 2 blue
2 white / 3 blue
2 white / 4 blue

3 white / 1 blue
3 white / 2 blue
3 white / 3 blue
3 white / 4 blue

4 white / 1 blue
4 white / 2 blue
4 white / 3 blue
4 white / 4 blue

I've threaded in a straight 1-2-3-4 pattern. I'm using plain green selvedges and a couple of green threads between each section. My selvedges are "crammed" as per Janet Phillip's sample blanket, from shafts 1-4: alternate threads are doubled in the heddles, 2-1-2-1 on one side and 1-2-1-2 on the other.

I had started preparing this sampler before I got to reading all my other books. I dug into the bookshelf again this week as I was thinking about where to start writing about colour and weave.

A good start is a definition, so here's one from "A Textile Terminology" by Dorothy K. Burnham:

Colour and weave effect - The form or pattern produced by a weave in combination with the order in which two or more colours are used for warp and weft.

And a useful phrase from "Handweaving and Cloth Design" by Marianne Straub:

"When weaving with contrasting colours, the relationship between the weave construction and the warping and picking plan forms the basis from which many strongly patterned cloths can be designed."

Marianne Straub has only a short section on the subject, but interesting, as she shows the same alternate one black and one white thread order with three different threading and treadling patterns producing three very different results.

The new "Handweaver's Pattern Book" by Anne Dixon (a.k.a Handweavers Pattern Directory) doesn't have a separate colour and weave section, as the different possible colour effects are shown for every pattern on every page. Super book!

I was planning to weave my sampler with 16 different thread patterns in two colours across the warp, and then the same 16 colour patterns in the weft in first plain weave and the 2/2 twill. This is what Anne Sutton shows in her book. But now I have discovered another sampler plan in "Designing on the Loom" by Mary Kirby and I'm wondering how far I can adapt my plans to include more patterns. Wish I'd put a longer warp on!

Mary Kirby has 8 different threading sections, using light and dark warp, and 23 different treadling patterns, including chevron, herringbone, hopsack, 1/3 and 3/1 twills, Bedford cord, tabby and twill combined. Maybe I'll have to wind another warp to try this out!

However, by far and away the most comprehensive study of colour and weave, although not a "how to weave your sampler" book, is William Watson's "Textile Design and Colour". This is a classic text book, first published in 1912 (I have a 6th edition copy, from 1954). If you can cope with reading pdf files you maybe able to download a copy from the Online Archive (see my list of web site links) having said this, I can't access the archive today, I do hope this is a temporary internet problem.

William Watson has written a long chapter on colour and weave, which starts simple and gets more and more complex. I can't read right through it yet, it moves beyond my mental grasp for now. But this is good stuff and it is a very well written book.

So, back to where I started again, why weave this sampler?

Ann Sutton says:

"... colour-and-weave effects are some of the most important and accessible in the weaving world. The fashion cloth industry uses them extensively.... "

"Handweavers, concerned with the restrictions on the numbers of shafts (harnesses) available to them for patterning, can make great use of these effects... and can produce thousands of dynamic cloths and colour mixes."

However, she goes on to say:

"Many beginner weavers are set the task of weaving a colour-and-weave sampler at the start of their training. It is tedious work for a beginner, and although it should build up an understanding of the way in which colour order in warp and weft can relate to the weave structure, it is often abandoned, unfinished, in favour of other projects."

Hmm. Give up half way? Not me! So must get back to sleying that reed....

And for those of you who couldn't face such a large project, here's a link to a very pretty and useful colour and weave sample woven by Judy.

Designing Woven Fabrics - the sample blanket

From this box of yarns I ordered from William Hall & Co.:


(not the yellow, that's for another project)

I have woven this:




With a determined effort, weaving 8 different patterns each evening for the last couple of days, I finished my sample blanket before going on holiday last week. This is the blanket designed by Janet Phillips. Her book, Designing Woven Fabrics, gives the instructions for weaving this blanket and then directions for how to use it in designing your own fabrics.

I was able to take my blanket when I went to stay with my Aunt, an artist who enjoys beautiful textiles, and I also to it to show a fellow member of the Online Guild (from whom I was buying a second hand knitting machine - more on that another time!). I think they were both nearly as impressed with the blanket as I am. I don't think it's big headed to say that! So much of the achievement is the work of Janet Phillips, who came up with the idea of writing the book and designed and wove the blanket (more than once) before writing her instructions.

After finishing, the blanket is 274 cm long and 50 cm wide. There are 10 warp patterns across the width, and 50 different treadling patterns, giving no less than 500 different weaves! Wow! I can loose myself trying to choose a favourite square. All the rows are photographed in the book alongside the treadle patterns (very useful for spotting errors as you weave).

It's not easy for me to photograph such a large blanket, I tried several times before I realised that hanging it on the back of the loom would give an idea of scale. I took a few more pictures to indicate just how varied the patterns are:













An important question is - what will I do next? The instructions for weaving this blanket are only part of Janet's book. I've been reading on to learn about other aspects of design, including colour and yarn choices, and see examples that Janet gives of items she wove using some of the sample blanket weaves.

I think I need a better understanding of yarn and colour before I proceed. I went back to Ann Sutton's book "Colour and Weave Design" and to Janet's earlier book, "The Weaver's Book of Fabric Design".
Chapter 8 of Janet's book describes a colour and weave sampler, and Ann Sutton's book is an illustration of a 500 square colour and weave sampler. Ann suggests that if you have her book you don't need to weave the sampler for yourself. I think I do. I enjoyed the pictures in Janet's book of the sample blanket, but weaving it made it real for me and gave me something I can examine closely and feel for myself. The feel of a weave is important, and the way it looks from different angles, and also, if you weave it yourself, you have seen what it happens as it comes into being.

I also want to weave a different colour sample, using several colours across the warp and the same colours in bands in the weft. I want to see how they interact in plain and simple twill weaves.

Maybe I'm being ambitious, again, but I think that these will be invaluable to weave and have for myself.

Before I move on, I have several little collections of photos from various stages in the process of weaving this blanket, so, if you're interested you may learn from my mistakes!

Sample blanket progress report

There are 50 treadle patterns in the sample blanket I'm weaving from Janet Phillip's Designing Woven Fabrics, (see also Janet's website) and so far today I have woven no. 38 which is a shadow twill and no. 39 which is weft Bedford cord. Plenty of "ohs" and "ahs" going on at my loom today!! Love that shadow twill. Photos will follow, another day.

I had this comment from Kas on my last post:

I bought Janet's book from her website. From the US, it's quite
expensive but definitely worth the cost. I've been looking for a clear
understanding of the design process and this book is clear,
understandable. I can't wait to get to the sampler! Now if only someone
could tell me whether 5/2 cotton will work just as well as 2/6!

It's not a cheap book if you just look at the cover price, but in terms of content you I'm sure you're getting every cent's worth and more. I think you're spot on in describing it as giving a clear understanding of the design process. Well, at least one approach to design, but a very useful and adaptable approach that could lead you to develop into your own approach to designing. I can see how what is in this book is not only very comprehensive in terms of the structures covered, but also teaches an approach that you can take into trying other types of weave and working with colour in other ways.

Now to the nitty-gritty (is this a UK expression? it means getting down to the nuts and bolts, dealing with the basic issues) ....... this question of will 5/2 cotton work just as well as 2/6.

I thought about the yarn choice too, because I have lots of yarn about my workshop but not 2/6. In the end, I ordered 2/6 (and 2/12) to make my life easy. It means that following the instructions has been straightforward. I made one difference, I ordered natural instead of white as it's slightly cheaper and I think makes no difference to the result.

But maybe you can get hold of 2/6 cotton? O.K., lets look at what difference it makes. I got out one of my "Best of Weavers..." books because at the back they have a quick reference page for yarns which gives an actual size yarn photo and details. Hmm. very useful, except - no 2/6 or 5/2!!

Think some more. Well, 5/2 is going to be a heavier weight yarn than 2/6. Less yards per pound. Need setting slightly wider, possibly, and the second warp yarn will need to be 2/10 instead of 2/12. If you sett wider, you will find it is wider on the loom. If you're loom is ample width, you could put the warp on, make sure you have a good bit extra length for sampling, and then try different setts. My favourite weaving techniques author Peggy Osterkamp's books would be useful to have to hand, if you need reference books to help you work out the sett you want, but maybe you are familiar with using this yarn anyway?

A couple of tips -

1) I'm using a temple because this peice of weaving incorporates many different structures with different numbers of thread interactions and the temple helps with keeping the cloth even.

2) I put on a 6 metre warp, the book said 4 metres woven length. Apart from loom waste, I like to have spare, just in case, and if there's extra at the end I can try my own ideas a bit.

Another thought: the sample blanket might be slightly easier to weave on a jack loom, or a (wide) table loom (width on loom is 25.7 inches).

On my 8 shaft 10 treadle countermarche, I'm using 8 treadles in a universal tie-up. I never used a universal tie up before, but Janet gives full instructions in the book. Every lift needs 2 treadles, so every lift plan has to be translated into a list of which 2 treadles I need for each lift. I write the treadle order for each section out on a small white board which I have at the side of my loom. I check, and check again, it when it's written, as errors at this stage lead to tedious un-weaving!!

Must get back to the loom now, I want to have this blanket woven and finished before Tuesday evening, as I'm going to stay a few days with an Aunt who is an artist. It's really useful to talk to other interested people, possibly especially non-weavers, about how they perceive cloth design.

Twill sampler

I put up my title for this post and then realised the first photo is not actually twill!

I put a warp on my loom of 12/2 cotton at 36 epi. The intention was to weave again some twill patterns I had woven last year at 24 epi. I wanted to do this because of an advanced twill workshop I followed with the Online Guild a few months ago for which I used the recommended sett of 36 and was amazed how different the cloth turned out.

So, why is this first photo of plain weave? Well, half way through the sampler, I was looking around me one day and saw a ball of fine spun singles wool that I didn't know what to do with. So, I picked it up and wove. First plain weave:

and then an undulating twill:

I really like the texture of the wool weft, and the soft look it gives to the fabric. Also, I like the amazing 3-d look of this undulating twill.

Another time, the yarn that came to hand was a cotton chenile. I had a go at weaving this in a horizontal pleat pattern (using 3-1 twill):

And now, here's a little gallery of some of my twills woven at 36 epi and 24 epi. I was fascinated by the difference it made. 36 epi gives a firmer cloth, and sharper definition to the patterns, but 24 epi gives softer fabric and flexibility. Sometimes a softer look to the patterns might be just what is wanted.

Each of these photos shows two cloths, both with 12/2 mercerised cotton warp and weft. The larger-scale pattern will be the one with sett of 24 epi, the smaller-scale has sett of 36 epi.

And here's another bit of something different, a couple of twills I tried from Anne Dixon's new Handweavers Pattern Book (published as Handweaver's Pattern Directory in the U.S.):

Weaving plans for 2008

I'm at a decision point again. With my weaving so far, I pick a goal and then work towards it, then I slow up and have to think what I want to do next. So far, I have only woven samples. I've joked about this a bit, with kind friends, because I feel I'm not properly weaving yet and I'm a bit embarrassed when anyone asks what weaving I do. But I don't want to spoil good yarn weaving things I'm not happy with, and there are still several things I want to explore.

So, here where the road ahead seems to split two ways - I could weave some finished goods using what I have learnt, or I could carry on working on samples and getting to know different weave structures. I do badly want to produce something useful now, and I know I could weave a collection of towels or scarves - but I have decided to stick to the weave samples. Why? Largely because I find that I am building a stash of yarns, and the yarns I have amassed are not suitable for the things I think I might weave, and I don't want to buy more yarns at the moment. I have to manage my spending better for a few months, so it makes sense for now to carry on using the mercerised cottons that I bought for samples.

At the same time, I have a large pile of books on weaving that I intend to read! It would be a good idea to read them now - before I buy more books. I will just allow myself one more for now - Peggy Osterkamp's Winding a Warp. I started ringing around UK suppliers to find a copy this morning, but most of them seem to close on Mondays. I always want to start new projects on Mondays, so this is a little frustrating!

I have started to read properly through Madelyn van der Hooght's The Complete Book of Drafting. She gives clear instruction that this book is supposed to be read from start to finish, and not skipped through. I struggled with this yesterday. My eyes wanted to skip about the page. So I went back to the early school reading technique, got a piece of blank paper and covered up the page below the bit I was reading. Simple, but it does work.

The longer term plan is: read all through Madelyn's book and work on the design exercises.

I think there's a couple of weave structures I should look at in particular, overshot, which I didn't like at all when I first saw it and yet has grown in appeal since I realise there are many different ways to use it. I also want to do some crackle weave, partly so I can follow Peg's work with crackle better.

Then, I want to go onto a particular weave structure I've wanted to try since I got my loom - doubleweave. I have an ambition to weave a wool blanket in twill doubleweave (to get the extra width) from handspun yarn. I will have to work on my spinning too if I am to achieve this. I want to use a mix of natural wool colours and dyed yarns together. This is my big ambition - to get the spinning, dyeing and weaving to come together at last.

There, now I've put this down to publish on my blog, I'll have to try and stick with it. - sigh! - ignoring other temptations. But I have to have a bit of a plan if I'm going to make sense of what I'm doing - and eventually get that blanket woven.

Autumn inspiration.

I took these photos in early November, of the autumn colours. They were all taken around our garden, before the first frost. I was looking for interesting combinations of colour and texture. I don't use a sketchbook often, but I have many photos. From the days before I used a digital camera, I have a box of envelopes with labels like "bark", "trees", "leaves", "landscapes".

These photos might be the starting point for future designs, but whether or not they lead on to anything else, I find it useful to have spent the time looking carefully at, and thinking about, colour, texture and form.

My camera is a Canon EOS 350D. It cost more than my weaving loom. But it is a very versatile camera and can take very high quality images - I have done some professional photography in the past, and wanted to have that possibility for the future.

These photos are here for sharing, if you want to make use of them for art or craft design work, please go ahead.