network drafted jacket/shawl project

December 21, 2007 by Tien Chiu

Echo weave; leaving for Chicago

I have started getting into echo weave, inspired by an article Bonnie Inouye wrote for the current issue of Handwoven. (Yes, I subscribe to Handwoven – I’m not enthused by the recipe nature of the magazine, but they’re virtually the only game in town, and they also occasionally get into structure, so I think it’s worthwhile.)

As far as I can tell it’s a special (albeit very interesting) case of network twills, threading-wise, although it’s quite different in appearance, being a warp-faced fabric. Essentially what you do is develop a network twill threading, then transpose the draft by some number of shafts that is not within 1 of the original threading (i.e. on a 16-shaft loom you could use anything from 2-14). Then you interleave the draft with its transposed draft(s) – 1 thread of the original draft followed by 1 thread of the transposed draft, then 1 thread of the original draft, etc. One setts the yarn at (roughly) double the usual sett, and this produces echo weave – your original pattern with an “echo” in a different color. (I forgot to mention that you use one color of yarn for the original draft threading, and one (highly contrasting) color for the transposed draft. The color contrast is what produces the “echo”.) You can do more complicated things like having more than one echo (if you have a 16-shaft loom), and I think it would be interesting to try.

Anyway, it’s complex enough that I wanted help with it, so Bonnie and I are going to set up a tutoring session sometime in the New Year. She was immensely helpful with understanding network twills, so I’m looking forward to it. I’m hoping at some point to work up to Sandra Rude’s interleaved threadings, about which she has an interesting blog post here.

Regarding my latest project, I dyed the yarn yesterday morning and am impatiently waiting for it to dry (in the oven, of course). It’s gorgeous. The color depends on the light – under incandescent (yellow-y) light it’s a gorgeous dark chestnut brown with purple highlights, while under a bright fluorescent (blue-y) light it’s eggplant-tending-to-brown. Regardless, it’s a gorgeous color and I love it. I’m hoping to start weaving with it today, although I’ll most likely have to wait until I get back. I’m leaving for Chicago today at 2pm and I still have to pack, do laundry, make a last-minute trip to the grocery/pharmacy/post office, finish off the candied orange peel and citron I was making, and clean up the house a little bit so my landlady and/or catsitter don’t have a heart attack upon seeing the place. I am not a neat person (neither is Mike) and there is stuff ALL OVER.

I get back from Chicago next Thursday. See you then!

December 18, 2007 by Tien Chiu

Samples

I finished dyeing the samples last night, none of which came out exactly as I was visualizing. The beige turned out to be a peachy color of the sort Crayola used to call “flesh” (before remembering that dark brown and yellow-tinted people existed too). The dark brown turned out a dark purply-brown, not quite eggplant but close. The burnt orange turned out the orange of canned tomato soup, rather ugly if you ask me.

I wove up those samples (the last three are still on the loom) and took a good look. Astonishingly, the purply-brown eggplant color is my favorite – provides just enough contrast with the dark brown for the pattern to show, and on the yellowish brown stripes, tones down the yellowness a bit and looks like wood grain. The beige is okay – I think I’ll have to dye it a pale gold and try again – and the “burnt orange” was so atrocious that I terminated the experiment after only 1/2″, knowing already I didn’t like it.

Here’s a photo of the samples:

You can see how the white (and beige, lower left) weft really “pops out” at you, and shows the pattern clearly due to the strong difference in value. The orange (third from bottom on the right hand side) is more subtle. The black (4th and 6th from bottom on the right hand side) looks okay, but a bit stark. The pale yellow (5th from bottom) is garish, although the orange-gold (top) is very nice, and I will probably use it in a shawl.

The purple I will probably weave the jacket with is the top sample on the left-hand side.

I was going to dye the yarns for the jacket tonight, but since I have a job interview in the morning I figured it might be a good idea not to turn up with dye-stained fingers. (Yes, I could wear gloves. Dye always seems to get on me anyway.)

December 13, 2007 by Tien Chiu

Tiger eye shawl FINALLY finished…

Eight months after weaving it, I have FINALLY finished the beaded fringe on the tiger eye shawl. I had bought some gorgeous tiger striped lampwork beads from Gayle Herring, and was looking for the perfect beads to complement them in the fringe. On my trip to Maryland, my mom and I went to a bead shop, where I found them: oval onyx beads which, together with some large seed beads, were perfect.

Here are pix of the finished shawl, WITH beaded fringe:

Looks very nice, if I do say so myself. I believe I will wear it for my first day of contracting tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I make progress on the jacket. I have wound the warp, beamed it on, and am halfway through threading it. I’m hoping to get the threading and sleying done tonight, so it’ll be ready to start weaving by the time my contracting gig starts.

I did have a moment of concern when I realized that my stripes were MUCH wider than I had been visualizing – 2.5″ vs. about 1″ – so I ran off to Joann’s Fabrics and bought some test fabric in 2.5″ stripes. (Amazingly, it’s also in almost exactly the same colors as my warp.) I’ve sewn about half of the mockup, and, thankfully, wide stripes look great.

I’ve gotten a couple phone calls from recruiters today, and tomorrow I start my contract gig. Looking forward to it!

December 10, 2007 by Tien Chiu

Slow progress

I have been making progress, albeit of a slow and not very glamorous sort. Mike’s cold is slowing me down and making me feel “stobbed ubside by head”, although I didn’t get it as badly as he did. Nonetheless, I have been making progress, especially in understanding network drafting. Bonnie and I have been trading drafts and I’ve learned a lot more from her in the process. She has a way of sending a single file with a comment or two that requires four or five hours of thought to really absorb the implications. It’s really interesting. Would probably be simpler were I a more experienced weaver, but with “new eyes” I really have to think hard about simple concepts – building my object model, as it were.

I have also sewn the first muslin for the jacket. Sleeves need to be shorter and more width across the chest, I think. Will have to do a second muslin later. Better two muslins than an ill-fitting jacket, especially with my precious handwoven fabric.

I have dyed the warp yarns and will start winding the warp today. I’ve picked out a threading – basically a variation on the “orange peel” theme I was playing with a few weeks ago – except that, with Bonnie’s help, I’ve cleaned it up a bit so there isn’t as much static in the diagram. Here are .jpgs of my initial attempts (you may have to magnify it in Firefox or IE to get it to display properly – it does not reduce well):

They’re pretty similar in general shape but the rose fashion has a circle in the center and the star has, well, a star pattern. Coupled with different colored wefts and/or different treadlings (see the second and third sections) they should wind up looking pretty different.

So, I have been making progress, but of the very slow sort. I wish I weren’t sick. I’m hoping to get the setup completed (loom threaded, etc.) before I start my contract job on Friday.

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