As everybody but us Swedes from the back-of-beyond probably knows, there is a verb: to corduroy.
I have a couple of bottomless mudpits in my back yard. When the autumn rains arrive, you can sink deep enough to lose a wellie. We have tried to dump stones in them (to no avail). So, today I decided to "corduroy" them. I did not do it quite as described, but instead took a big bunch of dead branches, topped that with a nice tangle ("web", perhaps...) of freshly cut raspberry bushes (nice and tough) and several tangles of vines.
When done, we could walk across it without sinking, but if the (almost) corduroying will survive the winter, nobody knows. Yet.
Maybe I should label this post "off-loom weaving"...
Showing posts with label corduroy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label corduroy. Show all posts
10/10/2010
13/08/2010
03/08/2010
More corduroy
After the first corduroy samples I abandoned the table loom and put the next warp on the AVL. Much easier!
I had studied the corduroy chapter in The techniqes of rug weaving and wanted to try several ideas.
The first experiment was using two colurs in various sequences, with and without ground picks (front and reverse):
On page 408 there is a description of how to get triangles just by combining colours. The result is pictured in the gallery section:
I tried that (the very uppermost part of the uncut sample).
Here is what it looks like when cut:
My triangles are not very... well defined... But, perhaps, using "proper" rug quality yarns would have helped?
Oh, and I should point out that I did not even think about selvage treatment - that will be for another sample.
I had studied the corduroy chapter in The techniqes of rug weaving and wanted to try several ideas.
The first experiment was using two colurs in various sequences, with and without ground picks (front and reverse):
On page 408 there is a description of how to get triangles just by combining colours. The result is pictured in the gallery section:
I tried that (the very uppermost part of the uncut sample).
Here is what it looks like when cut:
My triangles are not very... well defined... But, perhaps, using "proper" rug quality yarns would have helped?
Oh, and I should point out that I did not even think about selvage treatment - that will be for another sample.
17/07/2010
Grass carpet
Now the "grass carpet" is woven, too, still in twill coruroy. I used five or maybe six different yarns for the weft, in cotton and linen.
Here it is, hot from the loom:
About the cutting, Collingwood writes that there are two ways: either you cut "straight up" or you follow the "twill line". I may have misunderstood how to cut "straight" - found it very difficult to identify the logical "straight".
Anyway - to the leftit is "twill cut", to the right it is "straight". The right side has pile of different lengths, but it doesn't really show.
Apart from the fact that a table loom is too flimsy/weak to properly beat a structure like corduroy, I also found that I have too long tabby stretches (or perhaps I should have used a different pile weft) - the ground shows too much.
(OTOH - we've had a dry spell here - it almost looks like my real grass-carpet, er, lawn:
As a comparison, here's my only previous experience of corduroy - a proper rug quality, with proper rug yarns. I wove it ages ago, and usd it for my weaving bench. It is double corduroy, and the two parts are cut with different methods, with a bit of un-cut in between. I tried to figure out which part was which, but I couldn't...
Still pondering how to achieve the flight of the cellophane one. Maybe I should try it with fishing line for warp... but that has to be on a "real" loom, if at all.
Here it is, hot from the loom:
About the cutting, Collingwood writes that there are two ways: either you cut "straight up" or you follow the "twill line". I may have misunderstood how to cut "straight" - found it very difficult to identify the logical "straight".
Anyway - to the leftit is "twill cut", to the right it is "straight". The right side has pile of different lengths, but it doesn't really show.
Apart from the fact that a table loom is too flimsy/weak to properly beat a structure like corduroy, I also found that I have too long tabby stretches (or perhaps I should have used a different pile weft) - the ground shows too much.
(OTOH - we've had a dry spell here - it almost looks like my real grass-carpet, er, lawn:
As a comparison, here's my only previous experience of corduroy - a proper rug quality, with proper rug yarns. I wove it ages ago, and usd it for my weaving bench. It is double corduroy, and the two parts are cut with different methods, with a bit of un-cut in between. I tried to figure out which part was which, but I couldn't...
Still pondering how to achieve the flight of the cellophane one. Maybe I should try it with fishing line for warp... but that has to be on a "real" loom, if at all.
16/07/2010
Flying carpet?
The new theme for our guild is RUGS.
As you may have guessed, rugs is not what I usually weave. So, to make things more interesting, I decided to weave (very small) "different" rugs. Like... a flying carpet?
Literature studies did not yield much on the construction of flying carpets, so I made a few guesses: wings, it will need wings to fly, yes? And wings... fly wings, bug wings, fairy wings, they are all transparent and shiny? So: cellophane for weft.
The first technique that came to mind was rya knots. But I wanted to thread for something more, er, efficient, so I threaded up for what Collingwood calls double corduroy.
Here are the first samples:
The knots were impossible. After two rows the tension was completely off, and my patience was rapidly waning.
Went on to the double corduroy. In the first sample I used the warp yarn (linen 16/2) for the tabby picks, and also extended the tabbies some.
For the second sample I used the cellophane for all wefts. It looked better, but was too stiff for the hazy idea I had about mounting (a flying carpet has to be flying), so I re-threaded to what Collingwood calls twill corduroy.
It is now woven. I meant to do a "woven edge", but (as you can see) I have to practice a lot before I can do one that looks ok. With patience thin again, I decided I could do a plaited fringe at the other end...
This, too, is a bit stiff, but if I re-think the mounting...
In the meantime, I'm weaving off this short warp as a grass carpet (the word "lawn" could work in a textile environment, but hardly about rugs).
The techniqes of rug weavingcan be downloaded from handweaving.net.
As you may have guessed, rugs is not what I usually weave. So, to make things more interesting, I decided to weave (very small) "different" rugs. Like... a flying carpet?
Literature studies did not yield much on the construction of flying carpets, so I made a few guesses: wings, it will need wings to fly, yes? And wings... fly wings, bug wings, fairy wings, they are all transparent and shiny? So: cellophane for weft.
The first technique that came to mind was rya knots. But I wanted to thread for something more, er, efficient, so I threaded up for what Collingwood calls double corduroy.
Here are the first samples:
The knots were impossible. After two rows the tension was completely off, and my patience was rapidly waning.
Went on to the double corduroy. In the first sample I used the warp yarn (linen 16/2) for the tabby picks, and also extended the tabbies some.
For the second sample I used the cellophane for all wefts. It looked better, but was too stiff for the hazy idea I had about mounting (a flying carpet has to be flying), so I re-threaded to what Collingwood calls twill corduroy.
It is now woven. I meant to do a "woven edge", but (as you can see) I have to practice a lot before I can do one that looks ok. With patience thin again, I decided I could do a plaited fringe at the other end...
This, too, is a bit stiff, but if I re-think the mounting...
In the meantime, I'm weaving off this short warp as a grass carpet (the word "lawn" could work in a textile environment, but hardly about rugs).
The techniqes of rug weavingcan be downloaded from handweaving.net.
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