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.

"Not much to write home about"

is a Swedish saying.

I lost interest in the fan project, at least in its present incarnation, and turned it into a bigger sample. This is now properly wet finished and mangled. This colour turned out to be extremely difficult to photograph - or maybe I just don't understand how to handle the new-to-me picture-manipulating software.

I used three nuances from two manufacturers for the warp. This time all warp yarns are cotton 16/2, but they have different twists. For the "contrast" part I used a 16/2 with higher twist (thus apparently thinner), and for the "same" part I used one of the softer (thus apparently fatter) warp yarns. The "fatter" yarn gave a slightly wider result - something I had not anticipated.
On the whole, I think I like the "same" part better - that is, the use of one block only in the treadling. But maybe the contrasting weft was better...

I also pictured it hanging in the window - maybe this is the best use for fan fabric?

Now, what to do with the rest of the warp?
Hmmm... the warp is the same I used for the "leaves" scarves - maybe I could combine the two ideas... except I would go mad with such a treadling sequence. Or I would go mad trying to use the fan reed in the AVL. Maybe not a good idea, after all.

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?

Some things never change, do they?

And – just to prove Laura is not the only one:

All this from here

I have accomplished the impossible!

And not only that – I did it (first time) more than 25 years ago.

And I have done it several times... no doubt because I didn’t know it was impossible.

The other day, when surfing the 'net, I came onto a site that states that it is impossible to weave lace (that is, to have the lace structure show after wet finishing) with wool, unless the wool is either superwash or "non-fulling" for other reasons – worsted-spun with lots of spinning twist, for instance.

Below is a potholder made from the "ultimate vadmal" woven of this same yarn (albeit green). The cloth was first treated in a hammer mill, then abused in the washing machine until it would not shrink more. (This took 10 cycles in cold water – read more here – the statistics are towards the end or the article).
(Maybe I should add: the scarves above were not treated the same, they have got just an ordinary wet finishing in the machine set at the "wool" program)

The potholder has been in constant use for the last 8-or-so years, has been washed many times (but not recently, as you can see...) – and the structure had no floats longer thas 3. It is actually woven of two different greens, as in the draft.

Conclusion: what you don’t know, you don’t have to worry about!

(My second warp ever was half-bleached linen 16/1, for overshot with handspun linen for the pattern weft. As nobody had told me it is "impossible" to use linen singles for warp, that, too, worked. And has worked again.)

Two shawls from the profile draft challenge

Remember the Profile Draft Challenge?

This is the original profile

I wanted to make something narrower, for a shawl, runner…

This is the profile I used for weaving

What I did, to get from the original to the profile I used:
First I mirrored the profile.
Since I wanted something narrow, I took out the middle, until only the outer motifs were left.
Hmm.
Something was needed in the middle. I put in an "opposite" motif.

This would be the ends of my long and narrow weave.

I selected a short sequence to be repeated for the long "middle piece".

As it is summer at the moment, I wanted to weave something light and airy - say a summer shawl in all linen.

"Airy" - that meant some kind of lace weave. (I’m hopeless with the names/classifications of lace weaves)

I used my weaving software’s block substitution feature to create a threading - the threading named "Atwater-Bronson lace". (I use Fiberworks-PCW.)
Then I played with the tieup, and came up with two different ones that I would look both "same" and "different".
Details of the upper right-hand corner, tie-ups included:

Overviews of the whole start end:

I wound a warp long enough for two shawls - linen 16/1 in four nuances of light blue, sett at 12 ends/cm. I wove it at about 9 – 9,5 picks/cm, the theory being that "drape" in a scarf is more important crosswise than leghtwise.

For the first shawl I used a light blue linen yarn (still 16/1) for weft; for the second I choose a slightly darker blue cotton 16/2.

Lace patterns rarely show on loom (especially with no difference in colour)

Both shawls after cutting off, fringes secured prior to twisting:

The fringe twisting was difficult - linen has a mind of it’s own! First, fringes had to be twisted "backwards" (they look so much better if one uses "uptwist" - since the singles are spun z direction, the fringes should be twisted z, too). After having twisted a gazillion fringes in the s direction, there was a lot of muscle memory to overcome to do it the other way - . Next, linen is a lot stiffer than cotton, and therefore it was difficult to "place" the fringe knots consistently. (I really should re-tie all of them, but that will have to wait some time…)

After wet finishing (machine wash, normal cycle at 60 C, very short spin) I let them dry a bit, then mangled. After mangling I "polished" them with a hot iron.

The one with cotton weft, hanging on the loom:

The other one was hopeless to photograph, but here is a detail:

Linen, especially newly washed, mangled and pressed, is not famous for drape :-).
However, when it has been worn some, it becomes very soft and drapey (but then you can’t really see the pattern…)

Twist and ...

then, more twist.

One can go to any lenght in search for the perfect fringe.
I don’t.

What I do is cut (in this case both layers) the unwoven warp to the desired lenght, on a gridded cutting board with a rolling knife. Usually I cut the other end to the same length (but not always – the double-layer shawls with offset selvages and offset beginnings/endings don’t necessarily need to be symmetrically fringed, IMO).

After that, I knot all "half-fringes", Then I twist them two-and-two, and trust my fingers to make all end-knots "the same".

The reasons I knot "half-fringes" are two: I don’t like too skinny fringes, and I don’t like too big/wide knots. In this case the fringes contain 12 ends, and at 10 epcm that would be over one cm, which I think is too much.

Of course I take care to count the number of turns, adjusting for yarn grist (in this case the blue warp is finer than the brown, so the blue fringes need relatively more twisting), adjusting for different lengths. (A longer description of my way can be found on my website, here – for Swedish, click here.)

Does it work to use fingers for final length-adjustment?

As you can see, the answer is yes (and no – but I think it is "good enough".
(For those of you who think my practices are sloppy, I recommend Susan Harvey’s tutorial. Myself, I never twist "backwards", for reasons given here.)

Fringes done, it is time for wet finishing.
I forgot to change the spin-cycle, so I had some very wrinkled scarves to deal with. No pressing was gong to help... but I decided to try mangling before I put them back in the washing machine. A small smoothing with the iron, twice through the mangle and another good press with lots of steam took care of the wrinkles.

Here they are, on the rack for the final drying:

All the same, but all different...

Success – and exhibition opening

I made another warp, and wove it off (no breaks!) – somewhere I made a mistake, 'cos it was shorter than I had meant. So I wove it as long as possible... using another (more even) wooden reed:



Cut, moistened, mangled, let dry, glued the ends (including a hanging device and something to weight the bottom).
I hung it this morning:





At two o’clock the exhibition opened:



with renaissance music:



More pictures from the exhibition can be found on my other blog.

And, even though there are oodles of water spouts in the mill, I forgot to take a picture...