New Zoom Workshop Beginning October 14: 'Weaving Outside the Box: 12 Projects for Creating Dimensional Cloth'

 

Based on my book of the same name, this workshop is being offered for the first time online -- thanks to MAFA, the Mid-Atlantic Fiber Association, which is offering Zoom workshops this fall for weavers near and far.

For three Saturdays in October, you'll weave a project of your choice from the book, on 4, 6, 8, 12, or 16 shafts. The photo above, woven on 4 shafts, is one of the projects you can choose from. 

Here's the link to register: https://www.lessonface.com/apply/Weaving-Outside-Box-12-Projects-Creating-Dimensional-Cloth

And here are photos of a few more of the projects you can weave at home, on your own time.

"Ruffles Scarf," 8 shaft doubleweave using differential-shrinkage

Shawl on 6 shafts, detail, deflected doubleweave and fulling techniques

Scarf from the book cover, 4 shafts, wool/stainless-steel and 20/2 cotton yarns

8-shaft scarf in 60/2 silk, pleats in turned twill

4-shaft scarf in deflected doubleweave, using Colcolastic (cotton/elastic yarn) 

to create shrinkage in center

Woven-shibori scarf on 4 shafts, differential-shrinkage techniques

Participants will learn how to optimize the effects of structure, energized yarns, and finishing techniques to achieve three-dimensional texture in their cloth. The goal is to venture off the rectilinear grid of handwoven cloth, exploiting texture to work with color and form, adding interest and tactile appeal to your woven creations. It all happens in the wash and the results are often surprising!

A summary of the focus of this workshop, taken from the back of the book:

Color and structure are key elements in weaving, of course. But we often overlook the importance of texture. Dimensional fabrics, with their pleats, puffs, and curves, take us off the grid, reflecting the organic forms of nature. We can both see and feel the tactile quality of dimensional cloth, which adds much to the beauty of handwoven fabric.

If you're interested or if you have questions, please send me an email (click on the "About Me" section on the front page of this blog, at the right, then click on "Email" underneath my photo). And yes, one enticement: Lunatic Fringe Yarns is offering participants a coupon on the special yarns that are used on several of the projects.

Thanks for reading!

Color Chords Make Your Warp Sing!

Pictured above, "Tesselations": an eight-shaft design on a four-color Echo threading. This is one of the samples I'm weaving up for "Echo and Jin: Playing with Color Chords," a workshop I'm teaching at the MAFA (Mid-Atlantic Fiber Association) 2023 conference in June in Millersville, PA.

Weavers will choose their warp colors based on the theories of "color chords" presented by Johannes Itten, author of The Art of Color and The Elements of Color. Many consider him to be the 20th century's master of color theory. 

In addition, The Color Star (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,1985) is a tool for color study based on Itten's theory of color harmony and his 12-point color wheel. The kit (not really a book) includes eight templates that outline a series of chords of his color star. As an example, looking at the photo at the top of this post: The colors of the warp yarns (in 10/2 mercerized cotton) are bright green, orange, burgundy, and royal blue. Together, they form a rectangle, a quadratic chord, on Itten's color star.

The full complement of templates, placed over the color wheel and cycled around the wheel, are as follows:

1) Dyadic chords, the six sets of complementary colors: yellow and violet, yellow/orange and blue/violet, orange and blue, red/orange and blue/green, red and green, and red/violet and yellow-green.

A dyadic chord showing the complementary colors yellow and violet

2) Triadic chords that form either an isosceles triangle or an equilateral triangle on the color wheel. An isosceles triangle will give you four color chords, among them the primary colors of yellow, red, and blue and the secondary colors of orange, violet, and green. 

Triadic chord: an isosceles triangle showing the primary colors

Triadic chords can also be equilateral triangles that yield twelve chords, a.k.a. split complementaries.

Triadic chord showing the split complementaries of yellow, blue/violet, and red/violet. This chord is useful if you're choosing colors for a two-end parallel threading and its accompanying weft -- although if I had a warp of royal blue and magenta I would choose a darker shade of yellow, something more like bronze, because yellow can overwhelm other colors.

3) Quadratic chords that are either a square or a rectangle on the color wheel. (I consider this the barbership quartet of Itten's color theory, which I'm certain would not amuse him.) This is the main part of my subject matter for the MAFA workshop.

Here's an example of a square quadratic chord of warp-color choices, starting at the top left and going clockwise around the wheel: lime green, orange, wine, and royal blue. Unfortunately I didn't line up my yarn cones in that order, but you get the idea....

Here's what those colors look in black and white, defining their relative values:

Predictably, the deep wine color has the darkest value and the orange has the lightest value. Here's an 8-shaft sample woven up with these warp colors, using a turquoise weft.

And here's what this sample looks like in black and white, showing the different values of the color blends:

The darkest values, outlining the motifs in the pattern, are where the turquoise crosses the wine and the royal-blue warps, which stands to reason based on the black-and-white photo of the warp yarns.

Looking again at the sample at the beginning of this post: The warp yarns I used are bright green, orange, burgundy, and royal blue. Together, these colors form a rectangular quadratic chord on Itten's color wheel. 

Here's a black and white photo showing the values of these colors. You'll see that the burgundy on the bottom left of the photo has the darkest value and the orange on the bottom right has the lightest value.

The different values shape the pattern, defining the forms and adding depth. The burgundy adds a shadow, almost an outline, while the orange/yellow appears to sit on top of the sample. 

4) Itten's five-tone chords combine the equilateral and isosceles triangles. These templates are useful when you're creating a four-color parallel threading, for instance, and you're looking for ideas for weft colors as well.

Five-tone color chord of green, yellow/green, red/orange, blue/violet, and blue

5) Finally, there are two different six-tone chords that are revealed by rotating a hexagonal template on the color wheel, the first one giving you two six-tone chords, each consisting of three complementary colors. Both templates in this category use two equilateral triangles: the first one has all colors equidistant from each other, giving you four different chords to choose from, and the second combines two equilaterial triangles to form an irregular hexagon. These two templates are useful in choosing warp and weft colors for Echo woven as doubleweave, where you have four colors in the warp and two colors in the weft. 

Using a hexagonal template for a six-tone chord, I've chosen warp colors that form a trapezoid on the six-tone template -- suggesting, for doubleweave, I should try orange/yellow or blue/green in the weft.

A plug for subjective color choices: Here's a Jin sample where I went rogue and, weaving with the warp colors above, chose hot pink as the weft. Further, I used a wool/stainless-steel yarn in the weft, which gives the fabric pleats (how firm or soft depends on how you shape it, because the stainless steel has memory).

Six-tone chord forming an irregular hexagon (using two equilateral triangles) and showing green, yellow/green, orange, red/orange, violet, blue/violet. These would be great colors to choose for doubleweave, with four colors in the warp and two in the weft.

There's a lot of science involved in how we perceive color and value, obviously. For example, the rods and cones in our eyes allow us to interpret value and color, respectively. Simply put, the rods are more numerous and highly sensitive to light; they work for night vision and peripheral vision. The cones, each devoted to the colors of red, blue, or green, work together to allow our brains to detect the full spectrum. We weave for what we perceive visually in form and color (and substance, which is tactile, but that's another subject).

This is not to say that Itten's chords are hard and fast rules to weave by. (If they were, I would break them a lot.) Instead, I see his theories as objective road maps, a guide when I'm in search of color ideas to achieve interesting color blending for parallel-threaded warps. 

Certainly, I believe that subjective color choices are as important -- perhaps more important, who can say -- for our weaving because, after all, if we don't like the colors we're working with, we probably won't like the end results.

Whatever colors we choose -- objective, subjective, analogous, complementary, harmonious, discordant, even black and white, which aren't colors at all -- it's a joy to learn as much as we can, to sample, to gain insights, to venture outside our comfort zone, and then perhaps to return gladly to our comfort zone, a bit more aware of how best to dwell in it. 

Turquoise. Gets me every time.

Thanks for reading!

 

Convergence 2016 in Milwaukee: A Sneak Peek at the Classes I Will Be Teaching

Sample scarf for "One Warp, Three Fabrics: Weaving with 60/2 Silk"

For a workshop on "Sawdust, Leaves, and Bugs," shibori-dyed silk 

in osage orange, cochineal, and indigo

A Dorset button, subject of a 3-hour super seminar, "How to Make Dorset Buttons"

There is still time to register for upcoming workshops and seminars at Convergence 2016 in Milwaukee. Weavers come from all over the world to meet and study at this bi-annual conference sponsored by the Handweavers' Guild of America.

Yes, I will be there! I'm teaching a 3-day workshop, "One Warp, Three Fabrics: Weaving with 60/2 Silk," that focuses on how to weave with fine threads to achieve three very distinct samples. The first is a structure of twill blocks, using a 60/2 silk weft -- suitable for light garments and scarves with wonderful drape. Here's a student sample from the workshop I taught at MAFA in 2013.

Beautiful, I agree! The second sample we will weave uses a plain-weave structure and a silk-ribbon weft to achieve a fabric similar to that of rag rugs -- but in this case, far more elegant. I recommend people use this kind of fabric for jackets and vests.

The hand is lofty, almost spongy, which is part of its appeal. The last fabric is great fun: a collapse weave using an overtwist weft woven in twill blocks. The fabric looks like gauze on the loom but shrinks and collapses after washing. This type of weaving works for garments and scarves and can add immensely to the texture of any piece when combined with a 60/2 silk weft woven in plain weave, as shown in the photo below.

Here's a closer look at another fabric, woven with a similar weft.

There are 18 students signed up for the workshop to date, so I have been VERY busy winding warps. I will hand-paint them -- color just adds to the fun, even though this workshop focuses on texture and structure.

The second course I'm teaching is completely different from the first: It's a one-day studio class focusing on shibori techniques with natural dyes, appropriately named "Sawdust, Leaves, and Bugs." We will use some basic shibori-resist techniques as we work with osage orange (sawdust), indigo (leaves), and bugs (cochineal). The silk wrap below was dyed using these dyes and techniques, in a 6-step process. I began by immersing the silk in a vat of osage orange, then I clamped it and immersed in in a vat of cochineal (creating an orange color), then I folded it and immersed it in indigo (which produced green when added to the yellow and orange). Next -- and I believe that I did this twice, once on each end of the fabric -- I rolled the piece on a thick rope, scrunched it up, and immersed it in indigo. Finally, I dipped one end of the fabric in indigo. 

I find that the best results come with multiple clamping, folding, dipping, winding, etc. The takeaway from all of this is that more work produces better results!

A detail of the natural-dyed silk garment

And then, on Friday, I will be teaching a 3-hour "Super Seminar" on "How to Make Dorset Buttons." The technique, which was developed in Dorset, England, in the 17th century, is still useful for fiber artists today, as we can make custom buttons to match our creations or custom pieces to wear as brooches or clasps. While there are many modifications in making these buttons, I will be teaching a basic technique known as the Wagon Wheel.

Above, embellishment with beads adds to the whimsy of the piece.

So far, I have my class list for the 3-day workshop -- and I'm delighted to see that it includes folks from 10 states and Canada. So excited to meet everyone and watch the creativity unfold!

Just Back from MAFA 2015: Paint Two, Beam One

That's the Mid-Atlantic Fiber Association (MAFA), which sponsors a biennial conference -- and this year, the committee members outdid themselves. Lots of learning, excitement, friendship, and for my class, a terrific classroom space.

"Paint Two, Beam One" refers to the warps: You wind two identical warps, paint them in two different but harmonious color palettes, beam them together on your loom (as in the photo above), and weave the entire warp in a structure that shows off the colors to the max. Typically, that's a warp-emphasis structure such as twill or Turned Taquete.

Our class was in the pottery studio at Millersville University in Millersville, Pennsylvania (Lancaster County), which was ideal. The work tables were counter-height -- maybe higher -- so we could stand and paint comfortably, rather than bending down as we painted out warps.

And we could make a mess without any worries. Here are a couple of images.

Autumnal hues, reminding me of Gauguin's palette

Midnight blues and greens, 

thinking of Chagall

Our only challenge was when it came time to dry the painted warps using hair dryers. We kept tripping the circuit breaker! Fortunately, Jason Thompson was working in the studio next door and help us out immensely.

(Plus, he is a great metal worker. Check out his website: Jason Thompson Sculpture.)

Finally finished unpacking. Thanks to everyone who worked so hard to make the conference a success! And thanks so very much to my students, who were a pleasure to work with.

Echo and Jin: Optimizing Color with Two Painted Warps

The headline is a mouthful, but the photo above says it better. It's an Echo pattern on eight harnesses, designed by Bonnie Inouye and published in the January/February 2008 issue of Handwoven magazine ("Two Patterns for Two Scarves," available by clicking here.)

I wove this sample using 17/2 silk noil for the warps (two separate warps painted in two different color palettes using Pro MX Fiber Reactive Dyes) and 20/2 pearl cotton in navy for the weft. The warp is threaded on opposites, allowing for two different colors to play with (or against, depending on your eye) each other in the pattern. The treadling too provides for wonderful curves and waves in the design.

The beauty part of this Echo draft is that you can also weave Jin by adding tabby. This is the second pattern that Bonnie refers to in the title of her article. Here is the same threading, with tabby, woven as Jin.

Yes! It looks longer, of course, because you've added tabby. But it's equally lovely, in my opinion, and the color shifts are just as interesting, thanks to the painted warp -- warps, really, because (at the risk of repeating myself) you're using two different painted warps together.

(A brief promotional bit here. I'm teaching the technique in July at the MAFA Conference at Millersville University in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Providing the course fills, that is. The name of the course: "Paint 2, Beam 1," and the aim is to create an ever-changing color palette for your warp, maximizing visual interest using a range of weaving structures.)

In the Handwoven piece, Bonnie has offered a different tieup and treadling for the Jin, which looks like this.

The drape of this fabric is wonderful, by the way. I wouldn't use it for a scarf, by any means, but it would certainly work for a jacket or coat. One caveat: silk noil in the warp is a bit tricky, as it tends to fray and break easily. The two-ply yarn offered me some surprises, to say the least, but the way it took the dye -- simply gorgeous! Silk never fails to please.

New Warps, New Camera Lens, New Year!

To paraphrase the old cliche: I don't know much about photography, but I know what I like. And I really like my new "Nifty Fifty" lens that my children gave me for Christmas.

All I know about photography, other than a class I took back in the day, is that a digital SLR takes the best photos because it has the most powerful sensor. That and something I learned from Rachel Biel of Rayela Art, founder of TAFA, the Textile and Fiber Art List. When I joined TAFA, she looked at my Etsy page and made a valuable comment: While my photos were good, they could be even better if they had a shallower depth of field. This would highlight the garment and make the background all out of focus, both literally and figuratively.

How to do this? I had no idea, as I had learned about photography back when you manually set your own F stops and shutter speed. On the new digital cameras, I hadn't a clue. So I asked my son, a professional filmmaker and videographer (visit Jake Kovnat at Sons and Daughters in Toronto by clicking here). He told me that all I needed was a "Nifty Fifty" lens, which meant a 50mm lens that you could set at a 1.8 F stop. (Don't ask me; that's all I know.)

So now I'm good to go! Oh yes, about those two warps: They're silk noil, I think a 17/2 weight, that I dyed using WashFast Acid Dyes. The colors are what I call "Chagall," meaning that they derive from one of his wonderful paintings set at midnight with lovers flying through the sky.

The warps are ready to beam for a sample for my upcoming MAFA class, "Paint 2, Beam 1," looking at how to achieve an ever-changing color palette in your weaving by painting two individual warps and beaming and weaving them together as one. (For more on the Mid-Atlantic Fiber Association and its July 2015 conference, click here.)

Here's an example of what you can do with "Paint 2."

Updates to come, as I beam and weave my Chagall warps....