Designing Collapse Fabrics with Deflected Double Weave

The main reason I love to play with collapse techniques is the element of surprise they offer: What you cut off the loom is seldom the same fabric after washing! I wove the sample above on 8 shafts, using 4 colors of 10/2 pearl cotton. It's a simple design using 4 blocks -- but what makes the difference here is that I alternated Venne Colcolastic cotton with 10/2 cotton in the weft. (I purchased the Colcolastic from Giovanna Imperia at the 2018 Convergence conference in Reno. She offers a large range of exotic and energized yarns for creating fabrics with texture.)

Here's what the sample looked like before washing.

And here's a closer look, showing you (if you look very closely) the two separate strands of the Colcolastic, which is 93% pearl cotton and 7% Lycra.

As I wove the sample, I had a feeling I would like the results -- but not that I would like them this much! I decided to add plain weave at the end of the sample, because plain weave will ruffle nicely when it's adjacent to a collapse fabric.

It's just a sample, but you get the idea. I can see a lovely cotton scarf in this design, easy to care for and fun to wear.

Some background here: I'm weaving up a series of samples for a new workshop I'm putting together, "Designing with Deflected Double Weave." I will be teaching this December 13-15 at the Weaving and Fiber Arts Center in East Rochester, NY, and then again in February at the Telerana Fiber Arts Guild in Mesa, AZ. The program chairs in Mesa asked me to leave wool out of the mix -- because clearly they have little use for wool in Arizona! At first, I was puzzled, because wool is so often a key fiber for people who like to design Deflected Double Weave. 

But then I started sampling, determined not to use wool. And I came upon this idea, creating alternating layers and then leaving two layers separate from each other....

And then I wove this sample, alternating 6 picks of hand-dyed silk ribbon with 16 picks of 10/2 cotton. The cotton floats on the back of the piece draw in and make the silk wefts collapse vertically, which creates an appearance of horizontal ribs.

And then I wove this, a more traditional Deflected Double Weave sample, alternating gold gimp in the weft with 10/2 cotton.

And another surprise, on a second warp of different colors, created a "gang weave" of warp and weft floats on two of the blocks.

The workshop is designed to give participants a choice of drafts on 4, 8 and 12 shafts. The threading will remain the same as we explore what happens when we change the tieup, treadling, and weft yarns. 

The challenge I've found in designing with Deflected Double Weave is that the drawdown is harder to read than with other structures, so that what you think you see in the drawdown is not always what you get in the weaving! Which makes it all the more interesting.

Here, for your consideration, is the threading I started with for all these samples, before I began to alter the tieups, treadlings, and weft yarns. This draft was the one I used for the sample pictured above featuring the silk-ribbon weft in an olive color. Let me know if you would like me to send it to you. And 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!