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Finding My Fade
Weaving My Fade
The inspiration shawl and the woven shawl are different yet related. Both use the same colorway, both are soft and warm, and both made me happy, although for different reasons. But just between you and me, I would choose weaving over knitting any day.
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Well, that is really questionable in my opinion. I have never enjoyed hemstitching. However, I have 2 really good tips to make it a little easier.
Tip 2: The second tip improves your visibility for hemstitching. Depending on the color of my warp, I find that seeing the warp ends and counting them correctly can be challenging. I place a contrasting sheet of paper UNDER the warp, and voila: visibility improves dramatically.
My favorite weave structure happens to be turned twill (also known as block twill). I love this structure because there are an endless number of ways to vary the threading, tie-up and treadling, and the structure lends itself very easily to color changes in both threading and treadling. A veritable weaver’s wonderland!
Block A in the above draft is threaded on harnesses 1-4 and Block B is threaded on harnesses 5-8. With this tie-up, when treadles 1-4 are weaving the following happens:
Now, for my magical scarf. I wanted my scarf to have just 2 warp-wise stripes, so I changed the threading so I had only one Block A and one Block B, like this:
Finally I changed the tie-up to make the horizontal stripe disappear on the right side. In the above draft,
By changing the face of the right lower quadrant of the tie-up from warp-faced to weft-faced, Block A (harnesses 1-4) will weave the same way whether it is being woven with treadles 1-4 or with treadles 5-8. The stripe in Block A has disappeared!
Now I wanted to weave a second scarf with stripes on the other side. Further modifications to the tie-up allowed me to weaves stripes on the variegated side of my warp (in Block A on harnesses 1-4) while keeping the solid green side of the warp consistently weft-faced.
For the first half of the scarf
These experiments with the tie-ups for turned twill have taught me a lot and opened up a world of possibilities for more experiments with shapes and colors. I have another color block experiment going on to the loom now. I will shared the results in the near future! -- Pattie Lamb Over the years I have gathered many tools that have become indispensable to me in my studio. Here are a few that are easy to find online.
Treadle Bands Goody Girls Ouchless Elastics, 2 mm, No metal Target or Amazon, various counts and prices I use these on my treadles so I can treadle without peaking: “Braille” for my feet. I put them on all of my treadles and slide certain ones down so my feet can feel them and others up out of the way so I cannot. I like to put 3 on each treadle so they are "bulkier" and easier to feel with my feet.
There were only three possibilities (all cats):
So Lizzie was found guilty by a process of elimination. I pulled the rug up and growled and fumed for a few days while I debated what to do. Fully a year later, I finally got around to repairing this debacle. Fortunately, I still had some of the linen I used for the warp for the rug. And the structure of the rug was a simple plain weave.
A photo journal of the steps for replacing the fringe follows. The basic steps are:
What a relief to finally have this little project done and the rug repaired. I have missed having it at my front door.
I have long used rubber bands on my treadles to mark my path and help me treadle without peeking. It is a great tip. But I go through rubber bands like they are water because they dry rot very quickly. And they are hard to roll up and down the treadles between projects.
Walking the treadles: I tend to walk my treadles from the center out whenever my pattern allows me to do so. When I do that, I will put bands on the two center treadles so I can find my way back to center without peeking. I also place bands on every other treadle going out from the center.
Treadling straight across: On the rare occasion that I tie up my treadles straight across, I simply put bands on the odd treadles and leave the even numbered treadles naked.
Treadling pattern with tabby If I have 2 tabby treadles and a group of pattern treadles, my personal preference is to have the tabby treadles on one side and the pattern treadles on the other. If the tabby treadles are on the left, I will put a band on tabby a and leave tabby b naked. I will then put bands on all of the odd numbered pattern treadles and leave the even numbered pattern treadles naked.
Remember: You can click on any picture to zoom in!
Step 2: I gathered the tools I would need for repairing the broken warp threads The warp used in this rug was 8/4 cotton rug warp used double, and luckily I still had some on hand (this will not surprise anyone who knows me and has seen my yarn stash). So now all I need was a tapestry needle threaded with a doubled strand of the warp thread and a little patience. The weaving should be easy because the rug was woven in plain weave. Step 3 - Fixing the Broken Threads
All done! And I think the rug looks better with short fringe anyway.
I was prepared for the 5K walk. My husband John and I had actually "trained" for the walk for several weeks by walking regularly and getting our mileage up to close to the 3 miles we would need to do for the walk. As an aside, as a not-so-long-ago long-distance bicyclist, I thought it was pretty sad that I needed to train to be able to walk 3 miles, but walking is harder that I thought it would be. I was NOT prepared for many things that I saw and felt that day.
I was NOT prepared for how emotional the whole day would be.
I was NOT prepared for the walk.
Our team raised a lot of money for Pam's Parade and the Susan G. Komen Foundation, and I think we would all do it again in a second.
It is not too late to make a donation. So far $800,000 of their $1 million goal has been raised. Fundraising will continue through early June, 2017. To donate now, just click on this link http://www.info-komen.org/site/TR?fr_id=6796&pg=team&team_id=376896. Thank you! -- Pattie Lamb
But first we wove. We decided that scarves were in order for a bunch of weavers walking in a More Than Pink event. Some of these scarves would be worn by the walkers. Some would be sold and proceeds donated to the cause. I put on 3 pink and white warps for 5 scarves each:
The Linen Scarves
 Threading & tieup for the linen scarves
The Pink Scarves with White Stripes
 Threading for the pink scarves with white stripes
The White Scarves with Pink Stripes
 Threading for the white scarves with pink stripes
The Walk We will walk on May 6th, and I will post photos of the event in the next blog post: Walking More Than Pink. Check back after the event! In the meantime, if you would like to make a donation to my fundraising team and the Susan G. Komen Foundation, click here -- Pattie Lamb My niece (and goddaughter), expecting her first baby, requested that I weave a handwoven baby wrap for her. Favorite color: turquoise. Style request: "grown up". I knew she grew up around the water and teaches yoga so I immediately was thinking of something soft, peaceful, organic with colors flowing from one to another. We discussed using shades of turquoise and grays and samples went on the loom.
I would weave 3 sister wraps so I measured the warp: 6 chains, each 20 1/4 yards long. A total of 1000 ends of 10/2 pearl cotton in random stripes of 4 colors: light gray, medium gray, light turquoise/aqua and deep turquoise, to be sett at 30 ends per inch. I "ombred" the transitions from one color to the next so that the colors flowed smoothly from one to the next across the warp - all color changes being made on the warping mill.
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Pattie LambI have been happily weaving since my son was born in 1988. Archives
June 2019
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