Bling that isn't (quite)

This is not really "bling", I suppose - but is sure makes me shine!

To tell the truth, I did start this while still on the train. Drafted a few figures, contemplated the possibilities of detail (and how much patience I had, on the swaying train...) Cut out a couple, started appliqué-ing.
After a while I decided I did not need to do them all on the train...

But now I have "blinged" two coats and two jackets for me, two coats for my mother and two jackets for DH. I even made a few of them in the shape of my logo.
A small test:

In the middle picture, I am about 20 metres away, in the right-hand picture I am nearly 50 metres away. And remember: this is just what can be seen with the flash of my cheap camera! (Click to biggify)

(Yes, I'm sure a solid band might be more visible, but this is more fun! For elegance, it beats the neon-coloured banded vests any day - AND: I don't have to put on anything "extra".)

Being both a pedestrian and a driver, living in the country where the nearest street light is about 7 kms away, I feel strongly about reflecting gear.
Even if you think you are visible and don't care if you get hit or not - spare a thought for the driver that easily can have a heart attack (or something) when s/he suddenly sees a person in front of the car! (And get something for the dog, for the pram... too!)

Bling

(part 2 - or maybe Time travel, part 2)

The reason I went to Town was the Gaultier retrospective. There are many, many (better) pictures out there on the 'net, but these are the things that I will remember. (Again out of focus, but flash wasn't allowed. I, unlike some, respected that)

First impression: you can bling just about anything, crutches included:

Second came attention to detail:

(I like the Swedish text better - it says nothing about painted and printed)
Another fantastic detail - a tartan that is not (click to enlarge):

(There was also a leopard skin mantle that on closer inspection turned out to be embroidered of seed beads. I guess it would be way out of my budget, but also way gentler on the leopards...)

Another idea, possible (probably?) inspired by the London Pearlies

All (all!) the white blobs are m-o-p buttons, graded in size... (did I mention "attention to details"?)

An original upcycling idea: what you can do with all your old (analoguos) films, and all those old and worn measuring tapes:

At the exit, there was an opportunity to try on a Real Gaultier Outfit (I know I was there, so it must be me!):

Now I have may blinging ideas.... watch this space!
But before that: the water spout:

(Yes, you have seen it before, from another angle)

Time travel

(or: Bling, part 1)

I went to Stockholm last Friday. Cheap as I am, I went with the "low fares trainline" - . (Some years ago, I wowed never to do that again, but you know how it goes ;-)

Just to see their trains is a travel in time... been there, done that, worn out several t-shirts: these cars are from the 50-60-ies. And it shows.
However, this time they had a real restaurant car (without what used tro go with those "way back when" - paper plates and cups, microed "food" etc). This car was (I asked) from Norway, from 1968. I forgot the camera, but I just had to have some pictures (warning: all are out of focus, all snapped with my 'phone - they may be the first pics I have ever tried to take with the 'phone...)

The whole interior was... amazing: the wooden panels were real wood, all upholstery was royal blue with golden crowns (and some details in "solid" gold), even the lamps were gold...
And there were real chairs! Moveable chairs! (Haven't seen that in 30 years, at least.)

Pictures:

(just so you can get an idea of the whole thing - )

And yes - the crowns were sparkly (or had been).
Maybe this car started out as the Norwegian Royal Dining car?

To end: here is another royal crown, this one stationary in Stockholm:

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.

Secret sample

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

Width in reed: 2 cm

(click to biggify)

Another V

For reasons to be revealed later in this post, I needed another smallish V shawl. (Given the size it perhaps should be called scarf?)

This one should be wool, and threaded to a point.
As usual, I wanted to use more colours than one, and I wanted to warp with four ends.

Being lazy, I looked at the yarns in the loom room (the rest are downstairs...) and found two nuances of turquoise. To add someting more, I also picked some green (the same nuance, this time).

So I warped with four ends – two of each nuance, added two stripes of green.
This means each warp loop holds 8 ends (4 “coming” and 4 “going”), which means the pre-sleying (using the reed I was going to weave with) was done with one loop in every other dent:
(remember that all pictures can be clicked for a bigger version)

The two nuances do not show in the pictures taken with flash. The next photo is not in focus, but the colours are more true.

I threaded the colours so that each layer had it’s own nuance. For the outer stripes, I reversed the colours. (As you can see from the picture above, this means that the ends withing each group of four can be "twisted" – but as four ends represent 1/4 of a cm, it is impossible even to see that "twist".) I then wove with the "opposite" nuance, making the body of the scarf "solid coloured", that colour consisting of both nuances.

The trick to weave double layers is that all the sheds have to be clear – here are two of them:

When you come to the joining/shaping, you have to cut the whole loop. In this instance, the cut loop gave me 8 loose ends. To cope with that, I first take all ends over the shafts and hold them with my left hand (I do the join from the right).
After opening the shed, I can tension the loose ends to make the shed clear.

The trick to get a good join is to make sure there is no draw-in.

As the web gets narrower, it is all too easy to beat too hard. Also, the tension easily gets tighter. So: make sure the tension does not get too tight (let it off some), and be very careful with the beat. The narrower it gets, the hardet it is to get the weft tension correct. But: it is always better to have loops at the join than to have draw-in.
The last few ends are almost impossible to weave with any kind of "correct" anything, but that can be fixed after it is cut off.

After having adjusted most of the irregularities, it looked like this:

Some plain-weave joins within reach of the camera:

A double-weave join can be seen here, the third picture down.

After wet finishing and pressing, parading on the steps on Spinnhuset:

Now this one, together with the tencel one, is on the way to Handweavers in London (UK), to promote/illustrate the V-book (also on the way to London).

The book (in English) can also be bought from Laura Fry (click on "store", then "Weave a V"). I have them too, both in Swedish and in English.

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?