Picture perfect - but I forgot :-(

Meg (over here) called all weavers to publish "beauty shots" of something woven.

I decided to participate, but... I forgot. What can I say? Old age, other things to occupy my mind, or just hopelessly sloppy?

Anyway, too late or too late, here are my contributions:

A "sun screen" with cotton warp (fishing line for accent), horsehair weft, fan reed:

Scarves with differential shrinkage:

More differential shrinkage ('cos it photographs well... or, at least, looks interesting)

Even if I am too late, kudos to Meg, and get over too look at the other contributors! (link at top)

Secret sample

Warp: linen 16/2 (with addition of some handspun wool)
Weft: horsehair

Width in reed: 2 cm

(click to biggify)

Sieves - or sifters?

It may have been 1994, when I first wove with horsehair.
I wove fabric for 20-something chairs for Skansen. I also was an attraction for the tourists, kitted out in "genuine" clothing (and freezing my b*tt off. Do you know how cold it can be in an un-insluated timber building in early spring, when it has stood closed and un-heated for 8-9 months??? Especially when threading and sleying dark brown cotton 40/2 to 22 ends per cm, in natural light only...)

I sat in the kitchen annex belonging to Skogaholms herrgård, inside that window:

As it happened, the 20-metre warp was done before the season ended, and I asked if I could try weaving sieve (sifter?) fabric for the last weeks.

I was allowed to, but only if I did it at home. (They wanted no experimenting on the premises.)

I had studied the sieves I owned, and what writings I could find. The biggest question was: how do I get the warp onto the loom? (Isn’t it interesting, the way the ethologists have of glossing over the hard bits? How many times have I read complicated descriptions of how to ... until we come to the "interesting part": then, "proceed the usual way"?)

In the end, I laced the warp to the back apron, just as lacing onto the front apron (only harder to do, as there was no way of applying tension). I then proceeded "the usual way" (threading, ... – well, you know...), including weaving.

I did not get to try (or even see) the mounting – but here it is, sieve/sifter ready:

As you can see, I had some tension problems...

All this rant, just to show my two new (old) sieves, one of which is even patterned:

I wonder what the odd-shaped one was used for? The sieve-part is about 15 cm, at the logest side.

Some random thoughts

At the beginning of the new year, it is time to study the statistics from the old.

But first a short story:
in the middle of the autumn, I went to a weavers' meeting. There, we were, among other things, introduced to a New Important Project: a national crafts assoc has decided to promote handweaving.
They had several reasons for this - the first mentioned was that there is nothing about weaving to be found on the 'net ("If you search for weaving, you get no hits").
Another reason mentioned was that there are no weavers in Sweden anymore, and, after all, Sweden was once famous for its weaving and weavers.
Also several techniques (among them trensaflossa) were "dead", and needed published instructions.
So, the proposed main goal of this New Project was (among other, smaller, goals) was to create a 'net portal to contain "everything" about handweaving - .

At that very moment I searched (Google) for "vävning", with no qualifications, and got about 63000 hits. Among the first 50 hits about 4 were about other things than loom weaving (weaving intrigues, weaving horses, which probably is called something else in English, and two hits for dictionaries).
"Handvävning" only yielded about 1600 hits, of which about 30 of the first 50 were about weaving, the other 20 were from yarn sellers.
As it happened, my guild had had a program about trensaflossa just a week earlier - and, lo and behold, our page about trensaflossa was already to be found - on 3.rd place among about 850 hits. (Ok - our page wasn't there when she prepared her talk...)

Sigh.

Now I have been looking at 'net statistics from 2010.
I have my own web page, but I am also responsible for my guild's page.
Vi KronobergsVävare has had web presence since late 2003. We have accumulated about 100 different pages, of which maybe 10 has a content other than weaving (a few annual meetings and so on), but I really try to make sure that there is some weaving content on every page. We have an index page (in English - for Swedish, go "home" and choose "register") which lists content sorted into weave techniques, material, dyeing, ergonomics, theory, ideas, guild projects and exhibitions, curiosities. (Granted, some of the pages/meetings fall under more than one category.)
We also have a fairly large links page, linking to many "foreign" organisations.
A number of our pages are also translated to English.

So, what did I find in the statistics?
We had 2300 Swedish visitors, 470 from the US, 380 from the rest of the world, making up a total of about 3150 visitors. That makes an average of between 8 and 9 visitors per day. Those visitors viewed a total of 13150 pages, which gives an average of 4 pages per visit.
We had a total of 100 (clicked) outgoing links (I have no idea of how many links there are on the whole site), of which only 35 had more than 10 clicks. 35 had less than 5 clicks - of which 18 were to foreign organisations/resources (such as Weavolution, Complex Weavers, HGA, GCW, Atasda, Italian and French sites... AND handweaving.net). (No, no links here. You are all invited to use our links page, to better the statistics for next year... ;-)

The pages in English (about 20) all have more than 15 hits. Of the 8 outgoing links (from pages in English), 6 have more than 10 clicks.

What can I conclude from that?

Combining the "information" from the Project Person above with the fact that only 1/3 of our links have been popular, perhaps I can say that Swedish weavers don't care about a) information available on the 'net and b) weaving in other countries.
(Yes, I know: English is a foreign language to us, and the study of English hasn't been mandatory in Swedish schools for more than about 50 years...)


Combining the above with the fact that my own site has had 3600 Swedish visitors and almost the same number from the "rest of the world" - well... that was the reason why I decided to write my blog in English. And, in fact - this blog has had more than twice the numbers of visits from the US (only) than from Sweden (1550 and 650, respectively).

So, again: who is interested? And of what?
... looking at keyword statistics for the guild site, the vast majority is after free weaving patterns/instructions.
Most just search for vävmönster, vävnotor (patterns, drafts) but several add "gratis" (free of charge).


There has been several discussions here in Sweden over the last couple of years about the "fact" that there is no handweaving information to be had on the 'net. And that that is especially unfortunate, as all "youngsters" are supposed to search facts on the 'net only (supposedly they can't read books?). Said youngsters have complained that us "oldsters" (if it isn't a word, then it ought to be!) do hoard our information/knowledge, and besides, we only weave boring things like tablecloths.
What I'm wondering is: HOW can us oldsters "share" - if a) books are "out" and b) the 'net is "out", too?

To add some weaving to this (over)long post, here is a boring old thing (sunscreen?), woven on a boring old countermarche, using 4 shafts (but could have been only two...):

Mercerized cotton 50/3 and fishing line for warp, white horeshair for weft; tabby, but woven with a fan reed (sorry, I won't disclose the sett :-) - there is a limit to what I want to share...)
And: no, on account of the fishing line, it could never be used as a tablecloth.

Below the collar...

there had to be something - a jacket, perhaps?

Again I browsed my Arnold (Patterns of fashion, ISBN 0-333-38284-6), and found this interesting sleeve cut:


It comes from a Spanish book (Geometria y traca, by Francisco de la Rocha Burguen, 1618)

So I made a simple front, a Spanish sleeve and a pleated back.
After having made the pattern, I wove the approptiate amount of material, using the weave I showed here
I used the same warp yarn as in the collar, merc cotton 30/2, but in two shades. For weft I used a softer merc cotton, still 30/2.

... as one cannot use a jacket like this over jeans, I also had to make a dress to go with it :-)
I found some shot doupioni silk in a slightly darker shade - and this is the result:




Now I only have to wait for the perfect party to wear it...

Horsehair collar

I have always loved the Elisabethan oversized collars - like this (from the cover of Arnold: Patterns of fashion, ISBN 0-333-38284-6).



As I also like to weave with horsehair... why not combine them? It ought to look, well, at least "different", with a horsehair fringe hanging to the back...

As these collars are curved, the first problem to overcome was the curving - .
Hmmm. IF the fabric was pleated at the bottom of the collar...
Or - if the fabric was elastic - could it them be persuaded to stay wider at the top? Kind of "built-in" pleats?

OK - I had read several articles about self-pleating fabric. (I had also tried making self-pleating fabric several times - most of them not being successful.) Tried to ask my local friends. Nobody had any idea.
Started to sample.

Several samples later, I had something that worked.

Now, I was concerned that, perhaps, the collar would not stand up to its own weight. What if it just "collapsed" and folded down?
So - I needed a stiffener. And it had to be integrated in the collar, as both sides were to be visible.
As it happens, I know about double weave ;-) - so I constructed a weave with pockets of double weave. But what to put in the pockets? I tried "polyester boning" - too wide, would not be folded double, and too weak if cut in half. Tried some other stiff plastic band thing - no. Then I remembered: a sewing friend had used these:


They are used for tying-together cables and such, can be found at the hardware store. (After nearly 14 ears in the neighborhood, half of the hardware store staff hide when I enter - the other half enjoy my "impossible" requests.)

In the sampling, I had found that both the number of picks per stripe ("block"?) and the number of hairs per pick were very important. In this case, I got a nice pleating with 12 picks of 5 hairs each before changing block.
As horsehair does not "turn the corner", I needed to do something to secure the selvages. Two tabby picks after each stripe was the solution. (The double-weave pockets were woven "to size", and the stiffeners were inserted on loom. As usual, I'm using different colours for the two layers, 'cos it is easier to see what's going on.)


I wove about 120 cm for the collar - hoping it would be enough. Every sample that is "smaller than life" is in some way deceptive... percentages sound (are) easy, but the smallest inaccuracy will turn into a big inaccuracy at double the length.


I cut it off, and - nothing much happened. Until I threatened it with the steam iron, that is.



The most succesful sample has got a life of it's own. It has been in a couple of guild exhibitions - once as a fan, once as a vase:



And... should it ever get "tired", a little steam will restore the elastic quality.

the BAG bag

When weaving the chair fabric I warped for several generous samples, and put on some extra as well. After the chair was done, I had enough for a big floor cushion (not yet done), and a smaller piece for a bag.

As the text was centered for the chair, either the bag would be very small, or I had to piece the back. I chose also to turn the fabric, partly because I thought it looked better to have the leather band vertical. Now the horsehair is vertical on the front side, horizontal on the back.



Many years ago I had a bag that I loved - but all good things must pass, so, when it could not be mended any more, I threw it out.
NEVER THROW OUT THINGS THAT CAN BE USEFUL LATER... I could have used the leather and the hardware...
Anyway, the design of this bag started with the memory of that old one.





The resulting bag is about 40 cm tall, 30 cm wide at the bottom. It is closed with three magnetic buttons.

The leather pieces? They are from an old skirt - I never throw out things that can be useful later - if they can be stored flat...

Playing with the fan reed, part I

I bought my fan reed after having seen some very interesting upholstery fabric.



To get "waves" from the fan reed you have to change the height of the reed in certain intervals, forcing the warp to change postion. As I have a traditional Swedish countermarche loom with a traditional hanging beater, that was not very difficult to achieve. The swords already had a number of holes with which to adjust the height of the beater. I drilled a few more holes, with a hazy idea that I'd be able to "fine tune" the changes.



Below are pictures of the reed in its highest and lowest positions.




After some not very successful samples I decided to try a combination of cotton and horsehair, making a couple of sun screens.
First, I had the idea that it would be "interesting" if I shifted the reed in some irregular fashion, making irregular waves, so to speak.



Apart from not liking the irregularity very much, once the piece was off the loom, I also found I had beat it very loosely.

So, for the next piece, I a) counted the picks between each moving of the reed, and b) concentrated of the beat. I found that the fan reed needs a lot harder beat than what feels "natural" - not very strange, if you think about it: the sett is an average of 10 ends per cm, but in reality it varies from more than double to less than half. And of course you have to beat according to "more than double".

I also had to find some system to remember if the reed was on its way up or down. It was not as easy to see as I had thought... And it soon became apparent that the "sweet spot" was very short. I ended up making 20 picks, change the reed position AND moving the warp forward 2 "clicks", 20 more picks AND 2 clicks and so on.
AND concentrating on the beat, all the time.



The two sunscreens side by side - I sure know which one I like!
- oh, and the clear stripes are fishing line.

Latest woven words

This last winter, I decided that the third of the chairs should have a horsehair fabric with text. (Why horsehair? Oh - tradfitional, expensive and - today - uncommon) (Why text? Oh - because I can...)
After consulting the upholsterer it was decided that the horsehair should go from front-to-back on the chair. I also decided that the words should be in English. (Why English? - oh, hoping for worldwide fame... more people understanding English than Swedish?)

Ahem.

I felt that blocky letters (like for instance Arial) was too, I don't know, sinple-looking? - and besides, whenever I can, I use Garamond.
Decided on the words: SEAT, BACK - but what to put on the back side of the chair? CHAIR was one obvious option.

To make the draft, I used PCW: wrote the words in different ways and sizes, saved them as .bmp files, imported to sketchpad in PCW. The first thing was to get a draft that could "write" all my words in max 14 blocks (as I have a 16-shaft loom).
I soon found that lower-case letters were more block-hungry than upper-case.
After some experimenting I decided on Garamond 14 - that gave me 13 blocks, which meant I could use the 14th to put in the exclamation marks. I wanted them to give the surface a more "rounded" apperarance.

But... this time total size was very important - the words had to fit the chair.

So - sample time. Being adventurous, I wound the whole warp, but wider (to have room for making the sett closer) and significantly longer (to have room for many amples). I used a thin 3-ply merc cotton of unknown number (looks approximately the same grist as 30/2 cotton) in several shades of bluish pink - lilac. For the pattern warp I used it doubled and sett it at 12 "working ends" per cm.

For the first sample I used the draft exactly as it was.



The height of the letters was ok, but they were waaay to wide - . I tested using black and also one of the warp yarns for tabby.

As horsehair fabric can shrink a lot when the tension is off (the stiff hairs will force the warp to do all the "undulating"), I let the fabric sit without tension for 24 hours before evaluating the sample. The shrinkage was only about 8%, which meant I could now start to calculate the actual length of my letters.

I had to shorten the design. The letters had to be made narrower, the A could be made to start "under" the C and so on. I shortened the pattern area about 20%, and also softened some of the blockiness.



Lots of "fixing" later, I could start to weave. One pick with three (and only three) hairs, tabby pick in black cotton. Next pick three (and only three) hairs, tabby.
This may be one of the slowest projects I have ever woven... but, if I may say so myself, the result was worth it!