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Previous post: Weaving and dyeing and designing, oh my!
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July 26, 2010 by Tien Chiu

Ready to start

I did some more designing this morning, producing this monstrosity:

tied weave with 12 shaft, network drafted ties
tied weave with 12 shaft, network drafted ties

It’s a patterned weave with all sorts of patterns (see the right side of the liftplan) with a 12-shaft network drafted pattern in the ties (left side of liftplan).  Tabby ground.

Now, why on earth would I want to weave up a monstrosity like that?  The answer is that I don’t, at least not this one.  It was a gedanken (thought) experiment, to see if I understood how to generate complex tied weaves.  I checked with Su Butler (who runs the Tied Weaves study group for Complex Weavers) and she confirmed that it does work as a tied weave, so I think I’ve got a decent grasp on it now.  So it’s time to start warping up, and designing samples and/or the “real thing”.

So what to weave?  Well, let’s start with the warp.  I think I’m going to warp up with black 60/2 silk, as I’d like to use some of the jewel-toned 30/2 silks as pattern weft, and black will really pop out the colors.  With that black warp I can weave 30/2 silk, and various slightly heavier cashmere and/or silk wefts, including some of the beautiful yarns I bought from Giovanna.  I also plan to try that metallic gold yarn that I used in my wedding-dress, and some rayon chenille in jewel tones.  (I’d have to dye the rayon chenille, but I think that would be fun!)

In addition, I want to try weaving with 60/2 silk in jewel tones as the tabby weft, to see how that looks.  Which means I’ll need to dye some 60/2 silk in bright jewel tones, some time after I’ve warped.  I’ve never dyed 60/2 silk before, which means another adventure!

And I have to design the various patterns I want to try, settling on a threading pattern, before I start threading.  Fortunately, it will take me several days to wind on the warp, which gives me time to design.

Whee!  What fun.  I can’t wait to get started!

Dyeing wise,  I managed to get the skein to dye with level color!  This is a huge accomplishment.  I skipped doing another dyebath today, but will tackle another tomorrow morning.

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Filed Under: All blog posts, textiles, weaving Tagged With: tied weaves

Previous post: Weaving and dyeing and designing, oh my!
Next post: Settling down to design

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