Tien Chiu

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You are here: Home / All blog posts / I have a brain. Really.
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October 8, 2008 by Tien Chiu

I have a brain. Really.

I was weaving up the headers for this piece and was having the most horrible time with the warp sticking to itself.  I mean, I had to clear every single shed by hand, and undo little “handcuffs” of silk fuzz.  I sprayed it with hairspray.  Still tangling.

Eventually, after about two hours, it FINALLY dawned on me that I was having problems because I was attempting to weave a tabby header on a (somewhat warp-dominant) twill sett!  Of COURSE it was sticking…sett as densely as it was, with a slightly fuzzy yarn, of course it was going to stick.

I promptly abandoned the tabby and started weaving a goose-eye pattern, and lo, much less sticking.

It is still sticking somewhat and I think I will have to be very careful about watching it to make sure it doesn’t stick in the finished piece, but it’s much better now.

Now I am considering what to do for the four-shaft piece.  I could do it in 1/3 twill tie-up:

goose-eye pattern, magenta against gold
goose-eye pattern, magenta against gold

This shows more of the warp on one side, more of the weft on the other side.

Or I could do it in a balanced 2/2 tie-up, which I haven’t tried weaving up yet but which would give a much more balanced result.

I’m torn between doing it in the 1/3 tie-up (which would show off both warp and weft color-changes, depending on which side you were looking at) and a 2/2 tie-up, which would show more intermixing of the colors.  I guess I’ll have to sample some more tomorrow and see!

Tomorrow I plan to do two things.  The first is to dye up the sample that Nancy Roberts was kind enough to knit for me, so I can get a rough idea of what happens with color X, Y, and Z.  The second…wait impatiently for it to dry so I can weave, weave, weave!

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Filed Under: All blog posts, textiles, weaving Tagged With: gradient colors, network drafting

Previous post: A thing of beauty
Next post: Stickiness, sett, and satisfaction

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