Bonus Find

One of the tasks I've taken on in the flurry of wedding preparations is organising the tablecloths. I figure that I may as well indulge my love of textiles while contributing to the overall effort. Having said that, the most efficient way of covering the dining tables for the reception was to buy several rolls of synthetic curtain fabric in the theme colours. Measuring and hemming those is not exactly an inspiring task, but that's fair enough. With that mission nearly accomplished, I turned my attention to the other surfaces that need to be decorated: cake table, gift table, guest-book table, etc, etc . . . I thought I was doing quite well, having collected a variety of cloths from various family and friends, when all of a sudden an extra three tables were added to the list: two of them an unusual oval shape. So the hunt for more cloths was on.

My friend D and I spent an hour or so last night systematically searching through every possible hiding place for cloths of any kind. D loves fine cloth and handwork and has quite a collection of lovely items, which are treasured, but rarely used. Amongst them is a lovely white damask cloth which we thought might work for the signing of the register at the church. We turned this place inside-out looking for it, but so far it has eluded capture. As a bonus, though, we came across this: This indigo dyed cloth was a gift to the family from a Japanese exchange student. I couldn't resist pulling it out of the cupboard and enjoying it's complex beauty. I've done enough rough and ready shibori dyeing to appreciate the talent and effort that goes into creating something like this.

Today I need to pick up a hire car and wine glasses for the reception. Hopefully I won't find water blocking my route as it's rather unfamiliar territory to me. I'm also going to drop by an old family friend's house to pick up some tablecloths from her collection. They may or may not fit the bill, but at least it will be fun to see what's there.

Tantalise

I did get some weaving done yesterday. In fact I'm on the home stretch with my damask. I just made myself do it before anything else and eventually I got into the rhythm and the picture started growing. I'd like to finish it today. Look out for a photo tomorrow.

Meanwhile I have six pots of dye in a box in the bathroom. Tantalise is the word. The procion dyes have a shelf life of about a week once the powder is dissolved. I mixed them up for the workshop last Sunday, so their usefulness is fast running out. I've been stopping myself from just diving in because the house is already so chaotic. Also I haven't found my stash of white cotton fabric yet. There's a motivator for getting the sewing room sorted! So, I'm hoping that they will last a bit longer in this cold weather.

Here's the results of my two hurried experiments from last weekend

The blue was rolled and then rolled again. the reddish highlights you can see are just reflections from the other fabric.

This one was very roughly fan-folded. It's not a great pic, but there are some distinct yellow halos where the yellow dye has travelled further than the red.

I'll be catching up with the students from the dyeing workshop next weekend. They were so keen that they organised this get-together to see how everyone's projects turned out. There's another motivator for getting my act together a bit more in the next few days. I don't really need any more motivators, just a way of getting a lot more done in very little time!

Damask Step by Step (for Gertie in South Carolina and anyone else who might be interested)

OK, here goes . . . Damask, Step by Step, with photos! If you're not a weaver, or you already know how to weave damask, or you don't want to know, please feel free to skip this, or just admire the pretty pictures :) Otherwise, I suggest you read through the whole thing before you start. Hopefully it will help!

First the instruction sheet, as supplied by Gerlinde Binning:

• We are working on an 8-shaft table loom. The background is an irregular satin and I'm using a pick-up technique. You can see I have the instructions clipped to my loom so I can check on each step.

Here is my design

• If I had my time over, I wouldn't make the tail so complicated, that's a lot of counting. You can see how I've counted each square on each line of the design. The ticks are marking off the lines I've already completed.

• This is a close up of the beginning of a few lines of the design. The ruler is there to help me keep my eyes on the line I'm working on.
  

Instructions:


1. Raise 2,3,6,7


Using graph, pick up one pair of threads for each shaded area unit, 1 square on graph. Skip any pairs not shaded in design.

• First a general view showing a line picked up
• This pic shows the first pick-up. The white card under the warp threads makes it easier to see and pick up the pairs of threads. The pick-up stick is flat and pointed (thanks John). The point makes it easy to count threads. A flat, pointed stick like this is called a "sword".

• Then a close up view showing the pairs of threads as they are picked up. If you want to count from the right: I have left 9 pairs down, picked up 1, left 3 down, picked up 1, 1 down, 2 up, then picked up more threads that go on off the left hand side of the picture.

Place sword with this pick up behind reed

• You can see the reed at the front of the pic. The sword is placed under the threads which were picked up in front of the reed.

Lower shafts. Raise 1 & 5.

• OK, we're still looking at what's happening behind the reed. Shafts 1 & 5 are raised. The next step isn't on the instruction sheet, but it's "washing" the shed. This means pulling the sword forwards and backwards to make sure the shafts are sitting in the right place and the shed is clear. I've taken a pic of this step further down, but didn't want to confuse things by placing it out of order--in case you're looking at which shafts are actually raised.
• By the way, sorry this pic is on it's side, I can't find a way to make it turn the right way--it is rotated anticlockwise on my file.

Weave one pick.

• Finding this shed is maybe one of the trickiest things to get a handle on. That's why it's important to "wash" the shed before trying to weave.

Remove sword

2. Raise 1,4,5,8

Using graph, still the same line, pick up one pair of threads for background unit (split pairs)

• General view with shafts 1,4,5,8 raised.

• Close up view showing split pairs. This is the same line as I counted out above, so the count is 9 down, followed by one pair picked up etc. The threads are grouped differently though: at the far right you can see a pair and a half--that's 3 warp threads--then another 7 pairs of threads and another half pair for a total of 9 pairs--1 and a half plus 7 plus another half makes 9. I hope you're with me as this is maybe the second trickiest bit to communicate.

Place sword behind reed

• This is a different view, so you can see the pick-up stick (sword) in front of the reed and the second sword placed behind the reed. Turning the front sword on it's side makes it easier to place the second sword.
  

Lower shafts

Raise 3 & 7

• This is "washing" the shed, by moving the sword forwards and backwards.

• This is how it looks once the shed has been "washed". Only shafts 3 & 7 are clearly raised.
  

Weave one pick.

Lower shafts.

Do not remove sword

3. Raise 2 & 6

• The sword stays in place behind the reed while the shafts are changed. Then it's time to "wash" the shed again to clear it for the next pick.

Weave one pick

• I've taken this shot at a different angle so you can see the sword behind the reed.

Lower shafts

Remove sword

4. Raise 2,3,6,7

Repeat line 1 pick up

• This pic shows the front sword on its side in front of the reed and the second sword behind the reed.

Raise 4 & 8

Weave one pick

Remove sword

These 4 steps represent 1 line on design

• Here's how it looks so far.

That's as much detail as I think I can provide using photos. I don't have a video camera or an operator to hold it for me today. I'll be interested to hear from anyone who has a go. I'll also ask Gerlinde, our weaving teacher, and Robyn, our tutor, to have a look at it for me.

Now I'd better go back and do some weaving!

It's a Small World

The internet is a marvelous thing! I checked my messages on Saturday and found a query from a weaver in South Carolina, USA. She wants to learn to weave damask and found my blog while searching. Can I help?

Being asked to explain what I'm doing is such a stimulus for me. At this stage my damask weaving is like following a recipe. I'm still reading the steps one by one. It almost feels like magic when a picture starts to emerge. But I'm taking this as a challenge to understand and communicate what I'm doing.

While I was at the Guild on Saturday I found this book in the library:
I started reading it last night. It's translated from Swedish and so far there's lots of history and geography and not much how to. Weaving class is on again this Saturday, so I'll pick Gerlinde's brains.

Damask Design

I've been looking at ideas for my damask pick-up design: I used cross-stitch patterns as my starting point, since the woven design is based on a small square. But I only have a single tone on tone shading option for my weaving, whereas most cross-stitch patterns use a variety of colours. So I was looking for something that didn't rely too heavily on colour contrasts to build up the picture.

I started with the Rose design--I was thinking of traditional damask patterns. After losing count several times just in the process of transferring my design to graph paper, and realising that the rose would absolutely fill the design space of 48 x 60 squares, I decided to try something else.

The bird is more original. I used a cross-stitch pattern to get me started with the body and head, but then went a bit crazy on the tail plumage. I may yet need to simplify that a little. I also like the fact that the bird really emphasises the asymmetrical aspect. It's not often I get to be way off centre with my weaving, so I may as well revel in it.

Damask

This is the damask pick-up exercise we're currently working on in the Weaving Certificate class: The paper pattern has a red tick next to each line, starting at the bottom. That's because this design is worked line by line. Each little square on the pattern represents four threads of warp and four threads of weft. I have to use a pick-up stick to lift the threads shaded in on the pattern as I weave them. When we started this exercise Gerlinde gave out a sheet of instructions--it took a whole page to explain how to weave each set of four weft picks. Then she gave us a strong verbal instruction to go with the written ones: "don't talk to anyone until you've finished all four picks!" You can imagine, the room was very quiet as we picked up threads and counted and checked and wove.

I didn't expect to like this exercise. The precision of counting and the risk of picking up the wrong threads or losing my place was more than a little daunting. But as I got warmed up, the rhythm of the four repeated lines started to form in my mind and the picture started to form under my fingers. Then I was smiling as I stepped back to see the emerging design.

Our next challenge is to do a design of our own. It's a chance to go off and be creative, and because it's pick-up the design can even be asymmetrical. I've been working on some ideas, but first I need to go back to the discipline and rhythm of counting until I've finished this one.