First, the grand news: I AM ACTUALLY WEAVING!!! I have finished debugging both warp and loom and have started weaving the samples for Everett’s stole. Hooray!! Six months of threading and debugging are over, and I can finally weave on my beloved loom.
Here are the samples I’ve woven so far. Not that impressive looking, but still quite informative:
This set of samples is testing out different combinations of warp and weft. There are four weft (crosswise) yarns being used: gold, orange, pink, and green. In the top set of samples (above the yellow line) I am experimenting not only with each individual color but also combinations of the colors; if you click through to the larger image, you’ll find that the row above the bright orange is a mix of bright orange and green, and the salmon-y shades in the same row are mixes of orange and pink.
I’m going to do a LOT of these samples. You’re seeing 24 samples (eight per row times three rows); I will probably make 100-200 of them. Then I’ll photograph all the samples and average out the color of each sample in Photoshop to a single color. After I have a large enough palette, I’ll reduce the image to just the set of sample colors, and use that image to generate the file for the loom.
Tedious and time-consuming, but well worth it in the end.
And…I AM WEAVING!! For the first time in six months. What a joy, and what a relief!
Tien, I’ve seen you use the term “sample blanket” or “weave blanket” before. Do you simply mean an extended woven piece containing many samples?
Yes, more or less. But I’ve never heard it out of the context of jacquard weaving. The idea is to create many small samples of the weave structures and wefts that you plan to use in a piece, so you can use them for designing later.