Handed in

Daff completed, and handed in. (There is to be a big jubilee exhibition for Hemslöjden Kronoberg 100 years)

Hung as a curtain, to show how much light it lets trough (left), and as a room divider:

(The size? "It" (ie whatever one wanted to make) could not be more than max 160 cm. I suppose it can be called a "sample")

Here are some construction details. First, if there has to be a hem at the bottom, the layers have to be woven separately. I also chose to weave them simultaneously, to make them even at the bottom. Thus, the start sequence:

It could be done with only one pick at a time, but it is so much faster to weave two picks in each colour.

When the hems were long enough, I switched to the "body plan" (here shortened; I had 24 ends/picks per layer). I put in three "empties" between colours. The turquoise pick in the middle is to remind me to (and facilitate) pass the light green shuttle from top to bottom, to match the unwoven warp.

When I got to the upper end, I wanted to make a sleeve for the mounting dowel (provided by the organizers). Decided to end the middle, white, layer with a hem in the middle of the sleeve. This meant a white-hem-but-outer-layers-going-on (still shortened):

Which then gave way to the two just-green-with-empty-distances part:

Yes, I did not need to use 12 shafts, but from the beginning I had planned for a different enlacement of the "layers".
(I did weave the whole shebang "backwards", according to the software: "reverse direction)

The parting shot: daffodil with trimmed petals

(And nobody has commented on the hems... yet)

- maybe I should also add: 100% cotton, 24 ends/"column", also per inch, same in weft. Yarns used were mostly 16/2, but there were several both fatter and thinner, total of maybe 12 colours/nuances.

A moment of suspense

Done: hemmed (but not showed to the hemming police, so it might still be rejected), put in mesh bag, put in washing machine.
Out of the machine.

Dare I open the bag? Deep breath, shake fingers to loosen them up, get the pins at the ready...

I pinned it from the bottom, for as far as I could get on the ironing board, pressing (but not really hard). Folded gently, pinned next section...
Got to the top, where there is (will be) a sleeve of sorts, for the mounting dowel.

There are two snowdrops and one daffodil, but I haven't yet tried to untangle the "petals".

Now it is hanging over a shower rod to dry.

The un-trimmed "daff"

As there is more warp on the loom, and as one never can know what happens with the weather (and thus with the outdoor daffs):

I guess it will be trimmed some, before the whole thing can be called finished :-)

The first snowdrop, the first daffodil and a mystery solved

The first snowdrop is outside the front porch:

On my other blog I have a label for the first snowdrop. I haven't had that label for more than 4 years, but it sure seems as if they start earlier and earlier...


"The first daffodil" (which may come to be the title of what is on the loom):

(but I plan to have one complete with petals a little higher up)


And the mystery:
I have noticed that hand-throwing shuttles on the AVL makes me tired much faster than on weaving on the old CM.
Today it dawned on me: the shuttle race is in the way!
On the CM I can hold the beater away with the thumb of the catch-hand, and put the hand with the palm under the shed opening. This way the shuttle flows right into the hand - but with a shuttle race, I have to catch the shuttle as it comes along the "shelf".
Also, the AVL beater is heavier than the other, so the thumb has to stay in its "holding-away" position a tad longer. So to catch the shuttle, I have to do the actual catch with the fore-finger on top, which in the next instant means I have to shift the grip on the shuttle to be able to throw it into the next shed...

(I tried to get a pic of this, but would have needed an extra hand for the camera)

Swedish weaving books, a list

... and some commentary, now on my website: here for English, here for Swedish.

If you see something wrong, or disagree with me, please send an e-mail (link on the page)

I have also some older texts for download (they are all on the page, but in the middle of the text) - collected here (English version, but there is a "button" at the upper left for toggling between languages. In fact, the button is there, same position, on all my web pages.)


To give this post some physical weaving content, here is a sample:

The warp is on the loom, the serial-to-usb works even for weaving proper, but the structure will be changed some.
Maybe the result will be called "the first daffodil".

(Sample above is hemmed but not wet finished. Once I saw the hemming idea worked, I was just interested in the float lengths vs how I think it will survive the "muggle" handling. Decided shorter are better.)

Further experimenting

The three-layer false doubleweave got another washing, this time with a gentler program (I did not want it to shrink further, I just wanted to get rid of the pressed look).

Of course I forgot to measure brfore, but it can't have shrunk much (I think). However, the pressed end still showed as flatter than the rest. I think the mangled end reverted to "almost untreated".
I let it dry out completely. It then had this, um, slightly hard hand that line-dried things can have.
So it got re-moistened (not much!), put in the mesh bag again and was sent into the dryer for 10 minutes (no heat, of course). I think it improved the hand some, and it got more difficult to recognize the pressed end..
I also retrieved the "failure", wet it through, let it become almost dry amd mangled it properly. It came out flatter than before (of course!), but not as flat as the pressed variant.
Gave both to several people for hadling, and again got most votes for the mangled.

- my problem is that I still like the look of the un-treated/tumbled so much better!

I also tried to fix a threading/treadling (for three layers) to make the right-hand edge easier to shuttle.

For the "summer skies" it was easy - I just put the outer band on it's own shafts, and added treadles as needed. (I wove it on the dobby, but think it is easier to see what happens if shown in treadle mode).

(I opted for the easiest lifting, which is why the white "back-and-forth" ends come out over the edge. After all, I had 24 ends/picks of the cotton, so it made quite a difference. What can I say - lazy?)

So I tried to do something similar to the three-layer one. But I only have 16 shafts, so I had to restrict myself to the two outermost bands. I could not find an easy way, but after a while I think I found a work-around. It has to be woven on the dobby, and would rely on a couple of "empty picks" to make me notice when the light blue should cross to the other side.

From the bottom up:
The blue comes out on top of the green (it should go over the red, too - for some reason I didn't see that before making a picture of it :-(
It comes out over the green, because the unwoven blue warp goes over the green.

The green comes in fron the bottom, goes out on top, because unwoven green goes over red.

Before the red picks, the blue should cross to the underside - the two outer bands go up, to make that easy.
Blue stays on the underside for the red band.

Blue goes in from the underside, and goes out still on the underside (because the unwoven goes under green).
Green comes from the top, but comes out under (unwoven green goes under red)

Before the red, the blue should come up - outer bands go down to make that easy.

And so on... I think.
- probably I will have to make some adjustments, once I start weaving, or rather: IF I start weaving.

Experimenting

I had been thinking of "upgrading" this old idea - making it in wool-only. Would the pattern be visible, if doing it with the same open structure as the simple lattices?

Just cut off, it looked very un-interesting:

Well, if I was in for a disappointment, I might as well try another idea: a three-layer all-wool version.

I decided to make the grids the same size as for the two-layer versions - would it be possible to tease the layers apart after the machine-finishing? Or would the whole thing come out hopelessly felted?

After pre-sleying it looked open enough:

Of course, it was a bit less open on loom:

Each layer has 1 cm (8 ends) wide "bands" placed 5 cm apart, which only gives 1 cm of empty dents when combined (1cm layer1; 1cm empty; 1cm layer2; 1 cm empty; 1cm layer3; 1cm empty - repeat)

Both experiments fringed and ready for their bath - each in it's own mesh bag:

After washing, they both looked, well, tangled...

The brown-and-blue looked exactly as uninteresting washed as it did before. One disappointment done with. (Maybe I will look closer some other time, but for now it is placed in the "failure" bucket.)

The three-layer one was surprisingly un-felted - that is, it was quite easy to tease the layers apart. I liked the look, but we all know that pressing is part of the wet finishing, right?
I decided to experiment further, so I pressed one end as hard/flat as possible. The other end got treated in the mangle - but not very much. (As I wanted to leave the middle untreated, I had to wind it on and off the mangle many many times - it got maybe 6-7 short passes.)

The mangled end to the left, the pressed to the right:

Completely dried, arranged on a mannequin:

I have showed the result to several persons, both weavers and non-weavers. So far, ALL have preferred the mangled end. Myself, I think that perhaps "nothing" is good enough, maybe it could be treated with a short time in the dryer.
And maybe I could try with a slightly more open "mesh" - like 2 cm empties instead?

More lattice scarves

Still the simplest of patterns, but now woven on a "real" loom (meaning the old CM ;-), and therefore threaded on 6 shafts, to get the shuttles to always come out on the correct side. I also changed the tieup to have a better "bottom" of the shed, for easier shuttling for wider warps. Tieup for sinking shed:

Even though I use the same yarn as always, I haven’t got the wet finishing "perfect" (meaning it fulls/felts a little different for each machine load). Maybe I should invest in a few more mesh bags?

Anyway: finished and properly pressed:

I meant to leave them in the Lammhult gallery, but they looked too much like "trellis on trellis", so they will be in my home shop/studio instead.

Playtime is … playtime?

So: demo-day is over. Just off the loom:

Went home, twisted fringes, put in washing machine (in a mesh bag). Had problems decide which washing cycle to use: I wanted it to shringk/felt more than my ordinary differential shrinkage shawls, but not too much. Decided to do the same cycle, but suspecting I would have to do more.
This is what came out of the mesh bag:

Hmmm – it would (obviously) not need another cycle...

A deep breath and some coffee later, it looked more promising. This doesn’t really do it justice:

With a slightly tighter sett, it may even be for a small production "line"?

A better detail picture:

It shrunk about 30% in length and width - but it felted a lot more than (for instance) the "summer skies" in the last post.

Oooops – I forgot!

Tomorrow is the "culture day" – how could I forget?

What to do? What to bring? And it is almost 4 already...

Fish out the old Göta – not my favourite, but in many ways easier to handle than the table loom.
Not many heddles – and not much time; so why not weave for an experiment...

but this time in wool-only, hoping for an interesting result

Unfolded Göta at the kitchen table, helpers in attendance:

A while later: weaving started, waiting for tomorrow

Watch this space!

Autumn leaves, version 2

If it doesn't work...

There is another method to weave V-shawls, one I have heard of, but never tried. As I still thought it would be interesting to make a V in this technique, I decided to try it.
I wound another warp, twice as long. Threaded the same pattern as the "summer skies" shawl, using 10 shafts.
Wove one "leg" of the V.
Measuring out warp long enough to cross the warp and leave some for fringes, I put in a couple of tabby shots, then cut off.
Re-tied, wove the other leg of the V.

Now, the exciting part: trying out a new technique. It sounds easy: put the woven part beside the loom, take one cut end and weave in. Take the next cut end, weave in.



Well - it sounds easy, but is a little more tricky to actually do... I was glad I had made the tabby picks, I can tell you! I also was glad I had my special horsehair shuttle.

Just off the loom:



There was a lot of "massage" required... it was (as I suspected) difficult to join the pieces with the correct distance.
If (big IF) I will ever use this method again, it will probably be with a piece of more "normal" cloth (normal, as in woven all the way to the edge...)

After wet finishing, it looks quite ok - IMO, of course. (Those sharp of eye may notice that, in spite of trying to concentrate, I managed to join the first woven leg with the reverse side up...)

Autumn leaves, version 1

When this was just made, I thought it would be nice to make a V-shawl in the same technique. Someday.
The day dawned. Now it was autumn, and the yellow-green-orange leaves looked inspiring.



As the "summer skies" scarf is an 8-shaft design that in reality requires 10 shafts (2 extra shafts are needed for the rightmost stripe, if you don't want to cut the weft after every cotton block...), and I "only" have 16, I had to find a design that takes 6 shafts + the two extra.
I thought that would be a piece of the proverbial cake.



Before I had the design done, I selected the yarns, and wound the warp. As it was an experiment, I settled for scarf width, rather than shawl width.

The designing proved to be difficult - there aren't many designs possible with only three blocks. But, as I already had the warp on the loom, I went ahead anyway.



When I came to the weaving-together part I noticed that, somewhere, I had made a mistake... but, perhaps, it would not look too bad after the wet finishing?



It did. Look too bad, that is... 6-shaft designs are not good for this kind of technique, the non-shrinking layer has to be more interlaced with the shrinking layer. The mistake helps somewhat - the strange assymetry adds some interest, but, on the whole, I consider this a mistake not to try again.