Color Warps, Second Half

Monk's Belt, 8 shafts (red orange and peacock blue)




Polychrome Summer and Winter, 8 shafts (pastel blue, pink, peach, lime green, teal blue, violet blue)


2 Block Polychrome Double Weave, 8 shafts



Intermittent Twill with Color Progression, 8 shafts (rainbow colors)







Undulating Steep Twill, 8 shafts (2 blues, 2 greens)





Corkscrew Twill, 7 shafts (lime green and forest green)






4 Color Warp, Straight Draw on 8 shafts (pastels - 2 greens, blue, orange-gold)

Color Warps, First Half

Color and Weave, 4 shafts (brown and gold)






Five Rotating Colors, straight draw threading, 4 shafts (red, blue, yellow, orange green)





Patterned Supplementary Warp Stripes, 4 shafts (ground - orange, supplementary - tangerine, jade, magenta)




Undulating twill, 4 shafts (orange, yellow blue turquoise)





Lace Weave, 4 shafts (blue and purple)


Broken Twill, 8 shafts (dark red, blue, green)

Oh, the Looms!!!

So much stuff, so many looms, such good energy!

A couple of AVLs...


a lovely Swedish loom.


A rustic barn loom ...


A wall of warping boards ...


... and a wall of spinning wheels ...


and displays of a variety of different weaves ...


And perhaps most fascinating of all - a jacquard loom. It appears to be not yet functional - it will be interesting to see what develops!


So if you are ever in San Diego County - be sure to go to Vista and see the Weavers Barn at the Antique Gas and Steam Engine Museum.

Splendor of Multi-Colored Warps with Betty Vera

I just had 3 days of bliss and a blast at a workshop with Betty Vera sponsored by Palomar Handweavers. The title was the Splendor of Multicolor Warps, and it was an invitation to move from the world of solid color warp and weft into a whole nother thing. I will confess that near the end, when someone asked if anyone would ever go back to a boring solid color fabric again, I did raise my hand. I truly am more of a structure person than a color person, but I learned so much in this workshop, and hope to put that information to good use, soon!

The workshop was held in the Weavers Barn at the Antique Gas and Steam Engine Museum in Vista.
This place is what I want my heaven to look like - it's chock full of the most amazing variety of looms - from incredibly simple to intensely complex, from tiny to gigantic, from ancient to modern. Walls are lined with tools and bins of yarn.


This was the view from the workshop end of the barn...















... and this was the view from the other end.














We had a luscious stash of an amazing spectrum of weft options.








I'll post pictures of some of the looms in the barn, as well as the warps and samples from the workshop, in my next post.

This is the definition of fun!

Cardweaving Loom (Of Sorts)

Okay, to answer Ruth's questions about the cardweaving warps shown in the previous post, here are a few photos and some explanation.


This is the "band end" of the loom. It consists of a board of wood with tensioning blocks (from Linda Hendrickson) clamped on each end of the board with grip clamps. (Originally, I used one clamp on each end, and the other clamp was intended for clamping the whole thing to a table. However, I discovered that using two clamps kept the tensioning block from torquing, so I used it as shown. You can also see that the weaving is currently clamped to the post of the tensioning block with a binder clip. I would prefer to use a clamp - wrap the band around the post and clamp it - but... I couldn't find a clamp quickly, and was trying to get prepared for the demo, so I just used the binder clip. One nice thing about that - when you beat in the weft, sort of grinding to get a nice tight beat, you can push down on the "handles" of the binder clip to increase the tension.


This photo is looking toward the other end of the loom. You can see the cards hanging in the warp, then the warp spreader, then groups of warp threads hitched to the opposite post. The warp spreader is also from Linda Hendrickson - it's the original style she used to sell. I've used a rubber band to hold the metal post in place. I prefer not to have the warp spreader hang on the warp, so I put a block of wood under it, and used another larger rubber band to fasten that to the base board. The graphic you can see there is an enlarged image from one of Linda's articles - showing the position of the A-B line for each pick in double-faced tabletweaving.


This last photo shows the other end of the "loom." Again, grip clamps attach the tensioning block to the end of the board. Groups of warp threads are tied to the post of the block. I struggled to find a good knot for this - I wanted to find a knot that would hold firm, but also be easily adjustable to let out more warp. I found the hitch shown here. It's not quite what I want, but was okay for the moment. It didn't hold quite tight enough, so I then took each half of the warp and wrapped it around the grip clamp. (If I can find the web sit with the diagram of this hitch, I'll post that later.)

Carded

No, not that kind of carded. (My hair went white in my 20's, so I haven't been carded in that way since I was a teenager.) No, the kind of card I'm referring to is the kind you use to weave narrow bands....

Today was the September meeting of a study group in my weavers guild that I'm a member of - a group called Warped Explorers. In the past, we've had presentations on an incredible variety of topics. Recently, though, we've had fewer programs - and more of a social component to our meetings. It's been wonderful to have that time to connect, to hear about the various pursuits, to see some of the results, but a few were concerned that the group was turning into *only* a social get-together.

So.... I thought about that a while, realized I'm one of the people who hasn't had much to share other than enthusiasm for a while. One member had mentioned a few months ago that she would be interested in hearing a program on tabletweaving. That's something I've done a bit of, and have some interest in, so... maybe Gay, the hostess of this month's meeting, and I could do a program on cardweaving. (I actually prefer the term cardweaving to tabletweaving, which is the more common name for this technique on the "other side of the pond." When I think of tablets, I picture big tablets of yellow paper. :-/ So I usually call it cardweaving, although I acknowledge that you can pee in the ocean, but you cannot change the tide.)

Anyway, we gave a simple program. I made some giant cards, threaded with rug wool - a great tool for showing folks what happens with this method of weaving.




When I first got interested in this, I got excited, thinking it was a way you could essentially do four shaft weaving without a loom. But, of course, what I quickly learned, was that this isn't like regular weaving - it's got a very important difference - the warp threads going through the holes in each card twine around the weft threads. With these giant cards, it's really easy to see what's happening with each subsequent weft pick. The bottom card in this picture shows the typical threading for double-faced cardweaving - 1 color in 2 adjacent holes, and another color in the other 2 holes. One color is used for background, the other for foreground, and weaving 2 picks turning the card forward, then 2 picks back, keeps one color on top and the other on the bottom of the band. The upper card is actually a stack of 2 cards, with a different color in each hole - typical of threaded in designs. I used a fat weft thread to show what happens with 4 turns forward, 4 back. In retrospect, I think it would be easier to see by using a rigid weft like chopsticks or something.

Anyway, after the intro, we had several warps for folks to see and try - one with 2 cards for a very narrow band I learned from Ruth MacGregor (who said it was found by Shirley Berlin in Lapland.) One warp was setup for double-faced cardweaving......

and the one in back Gay setup for showing textural effects in tabletweaving.

We had a small turnout, but the best result was that I've renewed my interest in cardweaving.

Fun stuff! So yes, I'd say I've been carded.