Attributions and more structure play

It’s been suggested to me that I have been remiss in not citing my sources of information and inspiration for the playing I’ve done with tied weaves.  Here they are (in no particular order):

• Su Butler, whose seminar at Complex Weavers was tremendously informative and exciting, and whose correspondence helped me better understand how to draft tied weaves;
• Marg Coe, whose Complex Weavers seminar and new book Fit 2 Be Tied was very helpful in my understanding (and later generalizing) the Photoshop techniques for creating liftplans;
• Sharon Alderman, whose book Mastering Weave Structures gave me some additional hints on tied weaves;
• Donna Sullivan, for Summer and Winter, a very interesting book on tied weaves;
• Pat Stewart, who was kind enough to explain combined doubleweave and single-layer on a two-tie unit threading to me;
• Lillian Whipple, whose Weavezine articles on summer and winter and taquete (and designing same) were immensely helpful in figuring out the drafting

In addition, it turns out that Cynthia Broughton has been doing the pattern-in-ties technique for years.  While I’m not familiar with the majority of Cynthia’s work, the little I’ve seen of it has been gorgeous.  I bow before the master.  🙂

On to other stuff.  I’ve decided not to participate in the Tied Weaves Study Group, primarily because there’s a requirement that you not discuss your study group work outside of the study group until the next study group year.  I don’t object to the requirement – the group is entitled to set whatever rules it likes – but it’s not compatible with blogging about my work, which to me is half the fun.  So I’m not going to be participating in the group.

Because there’s also been some back-and-forth over whatever information from the Tied Weaves Study Group I acquired through my correspondence with Su, I’m going to abandon my tied weave studies for now, in favor of something perhaps a little less controversial.  So I have been thinking about what to do with this warp – it’s sett for plainweave, not the twills I’ve typically worked with.

And to my delight, there’s a HUGE amount of stuff that can be done!  I’ve been poring through Sharon Alderman’s Mastering Weave Structures (which is giving me a broad range of stuff that can be tried), Anne Field’s Collapse Weave, Doramay Keasbey’s Pattern Techniques for Handweavers, and Alice Schlein’s Network Drafting.  I’ve started listing out the stuff that can be done on a plain weave sett:

• huck lace
• overshot
• honeycomb
• M’s and O’s
• spider weaves
• waffle weave (I think)

and much, much more.  There’s enough in there to keep me occupied for well over 13 yards of warp!

Which leaves me, once again, with the question of how to thread this up to make for an interesting 13 yards of warp.  Obviously I can’t do everything!

For the moment, I’m thinking I want to do a network drafted threading on an 8-end initial.  This will result in fairly “sawtoothed” blocks, but it will enable me to weave a larger pattern than I could do on a 24-shaft straight draw, and it will also allow me to weave anything that’s weavable on an 8-shaft straight draw (the 8-end initial).  I’m not 100% sure it will work – I need to work out some threadings and liftplans to see if it will – but for the moment, I’m taking Alice’s word that you can use network drafting with anything weavable on that initial, and investigating accordingly.

But first, I have a batch of sour cherry jam to make, and a batch of candied sour cherries, and a BIG sour cherry pie.  Yum!  So I may not get to threading until later this week.

Dyeing-wise, I have now finished my process samples and am ready to move on to dyeing the actual colors.  The trouble is that I need to dye all my color samples on the same yarn, and the big batch of yarn is still at the skeiner’s.  So I will have to defer that for awhile, possibly until next weekend (or beyond).  Fortunately, dyeing the color samples should be relatively quick, as I can do multiple samples at a time.

One final word: it’s come to my attention that some people think I am presenting my work as something original to the field of weaving.  Not so.  Weaving is an ancient art, and there have been many wiser and far more experienced heads working in weaving for the last 20,000 years.  My blog is about my own explorations in weaving (and chocolate, cycling, etc.).  The odds are pretty good that whatever I come up with has been come up with before, so I certainly don’t want to give anyone the impression that I have been the first to think of this.  All the things I’m playing with are new-to-me, but it would be extremely odd if it were actually new to weaving.  So please don’t think that I have invented anything.