Thursday, February 19, 2015

Collapse Techniques: Vertical Pleats with S Twist Wool and Linen Singles

I admire so many weavers, near and far, that I can't begin to list them all. But in the area of weaving dimensional fabrcis, it's a short list -- perhaps because there aren't too many who work solely with this technique.

My collapse-cloth honor roll, in no particular order: Liz Williamson of Australia, Ann Richards of Great Britain, Lotte Dalgaard of Denmark, and the late Anne Field of New Zealand. Richards, Field, and Dalgaard have all written books on the subject, and I just finished a project from Dalgaard's book, "Magical Materials to Weave: Blending Traditional and Innovative Yarns."

The beauty of these techniques is that, to paraphrase Yogi Berra, "It ain't over till it's washed." Here's a video I just made, looking at a sample woven from Dalgaard's book, both before and after washing.


And I want to make one more plug for my upcoming course, taking place the weekend of March 13-15 at the Weaving and Fiber Arts Center. To find out more, click here. Ready, set, collapse!

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Coming in March: 3-Day Collapse Techniques Workshop at the Weaving and Fiber Arts Center





Above: scarf woven in cotton and wool using differential-shrinkage techniques,
deflected double-weave sample after cloque shrinkage,
pleated scarf woven in twill blocks with overtwist weft

There's still time to register for my three-day workshop on collapse weave, March 13-15 at the Weaving and Fiber Arts Center in East Rochester. We'll be weaving samples on our own looms, in a round-robin setup, so that everyone will go home with fabric in number of collapse techniques. Topics will include differential shrinkage and cloqué, deflected double weave, weaving with S and Z twist yarns, weaving with crepe and overtwist yarns, weaving with stainless-steel-blend and other specialty yarns, and using weave structures to achieve a collapse fabric.

You can register on the Weaving Center website, available here. 

We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties. Please Stand By.*

*Warning: This post is just partly about fiber. Remember those test patterns on your old black and white TV? They were typically accompanied...