Wonderful Video Featuring a Current Textile Exhibition in Milan, Italy

Inspirational! Make sure you notice the loom invented by Leonardo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOTIO3MI1p4#action=share

'Patience... and the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown'

This old Chinese proverb comes to mind when I weave. It seems like such a long journey from winding a warp to finishing a garment.

Well, at least I am not reeling the silk from the cocoons... to make the strands of fiber... and then to spin and ply them into yarn.

Here are some photos documenting my latest project: a vest and jacket made of deflected double weave fabric, finished for differential shrinkage, using two painted warps. The photo above shows the fabric on the loom: an 8-shaft deflected double weave structure using two warps painted in two different color palettes. The "background" layer is 18/2 merino painted in a range from burgundy to orchid purple to gold to rust, while the pattern layer is 20/2 pearl cotton painted in turquoise, yellow, lavender, and pale green.

What I enjoy most about working with the merino is that it fulls beautifully, making a sturdy and forgiving fabric and emphasizing the pattern made by the cotton. Here's a detail photo.

Here's the draft, showing only one repeat. There are lots of variations, and the back of the fabric is just as interesting -- but very different -- from the front. This is characteristic of deflected double weave.

I won't bore you with the problems I had at the start, aiming to weave at least 10 yards of fabric in deflected double weave as a collapse-weave fabric. Well, then again, maybe I WILL bore you a bit. When you're weaving with two different yarns -- which is necessary, if you want to achieve a collapse weave -- the selvages can be an issue. You have two separate layers because it's a two-shuttle weave, leaving the ins and outs of two very different yarns on the selvage. Even when you add a section of plain weave on the selvages, you still have the problem, because of the two different yarns. I struggled with this, and finally added fishing line about 3 inches away from each selvage, affixed to the front and back beams (so it did not advance with the warp). I wove around the fishing line and, every time I advanced the warp, I cut the loops around the fishing line, creating a fringe along with weft. Problem solved!

So, days or maybe weeks later, I had about 9 1/2 yards of fabric to wash and then full. I started in my bathtub, stomping on the fabric much as I would do if I were stomping on grapes to make wine ;o)

Then I put it in my front-load washing machine, on a rinse, drain, and spin cycle only. That's all it took to become a nicely fulled fabric, making the cotton pucker into an interesting pattern.

The photo doesn't show the color shifts with the two painted warps, but you get the idea. Here's a somewhat blurry photo showing the yardage as it dried -- indoors, of course, since it's wintertime. You can see the fringe along the selvages.

It's hard to cut into fabric that you have spent hours (seems like years) weaving, but it is essential if you want to create a garment. Unless you want to make a toga, I guess. I adhere to the Nike slogan, "Just do it." One suggestion: it helps to weave way more than enough yardage, so you know that you have extra fabric in case you make an error.

Suffice it to say that I wove enough fabric for a jacket, using a wonderful pattern by Marcy Tilton (Vogue 8693). (Applause here for Marcy, as her patterns work so well for handmade fabrics.) I won't show the photo yet, because I am entering it into a juried fashion show and I don't want to tempt fate!

But -- at the top of this post and below -- here is a glimpse of a simple vest I made, using my leftover yardage. The pattern -- this one is Vogue 8713 -- is so very easy that I sewed it up in an afternoon!

Deflected Double Weave for Collapse Fabrics

In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, "It ain't over till it's over." This phrase is true not just for baseball, but also for achieving texture in your fabrics. You plan and warp and weave and cut off -- but the fabric isn't finished until it's finished, because it looks entirely different after washing.

Here's an example. Below, the fabric on the loom.

And after washing -- after "fulling" by agitating and scrubbing by hand with soap in hot water, to be exact.

Now THIS is cloth with character! Lots of wriggling shapes, thanks to "differential shrinkage," in which one fiber (wool) shrinks while the other (cotton) doesn't. And lots of strong color, thanks to deflected double weave.

I wove this on my trusty little 4-shaft Structo loom, pictured here.

I have always wanted one and finally purchased one this year. I took it on a trip to Chicago -- and simply packed it in my suitcase. Portable weaving studio!

For those who are interested, the pattern is an adaptation of one designed by Madelyn Van Der Hoogt, featured in the January/February 2007 issue of Handwoven magazine. I altered the threading slightly and substituted 18/2 Superfine Merino by JaggerSpun for the white sections and 20/2 pearl cotton for the black.

Here's the drawdown:

All of this was in preparation for a workshop I recently taught at the Weaving and Fiber Arts Center. The idea was to use an 8-shaft pattern, threaded with 18/2 merino and 20/2 pearl cotton, and create a sampler using lots of different treadlings. The sett is very important for collapse fabrics. For differential shrinkage, you want a loose sett for the yarn that will shrink and a normal (plain weave) sett for the yarn that will not shrink. So I set the merino at 18 epi and the cotton at 36 epi. Same for the picks per inch: I wove the wool at 18 ppi and the cotton at 36 ppi.

This is what the main pattern looked like, before washing.

And here's what it looked like after.

Lots of interest and bold graphic designs. I apologize for the lack of color in these samples -- this blog is named "Random Acts of Color," after all -- but I wanted to create samples that very clearly illustrate what was going on. Deflected double weave is an easy structure to understand, once you get the basics down.

Again,  for those who are interested, here (below) is the draft for the threading and tieup.

The sample above was woven tromp as writ -- but if you're interested in the different treadlings I gave people in the workshop, here they are. (The blue horizontal lines are there simply to visually separate the different treadlings.)

Weave it up, try lots of different treadlings, and remember, it ain't finished until it's finished!

Workshop with Bonnie Inouye, "Opposites Attract"

Pictured above is my sample from last week's workshop, "Opposites Attract," with the wonderful teacher Bonnie Inouye. We spent the past three days immersed in the myriad possibilities for designing a variety of weave structures beginning with a profile draft and then expanding it with what is termed a "parallel threading."

Fundamentally, parallel threading means that you are working with two colors in the warp, with both colors weaving together in parallel designs. (Interleaved threading is another topic, one that we didn't really delve into in this workshop.)

So on 8 shafts, for example, a straight draw in a parallel threading would be: color A on shaft 1, color B on shaft 5, color A on shaft 2, color B on shaft 6, color A on shaft 7, color B on shaft 8. Your tieup and treadling will vary all over the place depending on what structure you choose to weave -- which was, after all, the entire scope of this workshop.

If, for instance, you want to weave an 8-shaft twill in an extended parallel threading, you could use a 4/4 tieup and treadle for a straight twill, which would appear like this in the drawdown:

This is a very simple example of how to design a fabric using parallel threading. My own sample was woven on 12 shafts using two colors (red and purple) of 18/2 JaggerSpun Superfine Merino. The samples below were all woven on a parallel threading.

The first sample (above) was woven as warp rep, using a bulky orange wool weft alternating with a fine cotton navy weft. I used a 6/6 twill tieup and for each pick I wove three on each treadle alternating with tabby. So the treadling was 3-tabby-3-tabby-3-tabby-4-tabby-4-tabby-4-tabby, etc.

The second sample was a Turned Taquete pattern, a one-shuttle weave using a 20/2 cotton weft in navy. The treadling was an advancing point twill (alternating with tabby, of course, as this is Turned Taquete) and the tie-up was 6/6.

This third sample was what Bonnie calls "Decorated Turned Taquete" because it has a little flourish of color around the edges of the purple design. I wove it with a 20/2 cotton weft in sage green and the lift plan was an S-shaped treadling using a 5/7 tieup -- again, alternating with tabby picks. The reason the pattern gets longer in the top portion of the sample is that I doubled each pattern pick, to draw out the "O" shapes.

We covered a LOT of ground in this workshop, so my samples get smaller as the time went by! The weave above is Echo, with a 20/2 cotton weft, first in sage green and then in navy. My liftplan is a 12-shaft advancing point twill with a tie-up of 2/1/2/3/1/3, which includes a 3-shaft twill.

What's this? Hard to spot, I know, but it's a 4-color double weave pattern. The wefts were 18/2 JaggerSpun Superfine Merino, alternating between gold and black. Not enough of a sample to give you much of an idea, I know, but the pattern is so unusual! The treadling was designed with a gentle curve. If I had used a non-shrinking warp for one of my pattern warps and non-shrinking wefts for both layers, this fabric would have allowed for differential shrinkage. The wool warp would full in the wash and the non-shrinking warp and wefts would have "puckered."

So much to think about! I have re-typed my notes and plan on putting them into a proper notebook, because the only way I can explore and learn more about these techniques is "practice, practice, practice."

The beauty of Bonnie's work reflects just how much artistry parallel threading can produce. Here is just one of her many beautiful samples -- this one a decorated Turned Taquete on 24 shafts.

Thank you, Bonnie! This workshop has given us material for years to come.

Beginning Friday, November 6: THE Fiber Arts Sale of the Year!

Every year, members of the Weavers' Guild of Rochester put forth their best work in a three-day holiday sale -- and it continues to grow in popularity. Last year, we moved to a new home: a gorgeous late 19th century mansion on East Avenue, the Century Club, and it was a great success.

Here are the details: The show hours are Friday, November 6, noon to 9 p.m., Saturday, November 7, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, November 8, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. There's free admission, free parking, major credit cards accepted. Also, we'll have demonstrations of a variety of fiber arts techniques and a fashion show on Friday evening.

Among the items on sale: handwoven garments and accessories, jewelry, felted and knitted garments, hand-dyed and hand-painted silk scarves, bags, ceramics, wall art, and much more.

And here are a few of the items I will have on sale.

A wool swing jacket inspired by African mud cloth designs

 A silk organza wrap dyed in indigo

A handwoven scarf of hand-dyed silk ribbons

Weavers' Guild members will be on hand to help you as you shop. Hope to see you there!

Next Saturday, October 17: Show and Sale at Temple B'rith Kodesh. Hope to See You There!

Free parking, free admission, all sales benefit Women of Reform Judaism (WRJ) and the Temple B'rith Kodesh Sisterhood. All the artists there will be donating an item -- and here's what I think I will be sacrificing for the cause:

It's a generously sized scarf in a cotton/silk blend, ombre-dyed in onion skins and indigo. The colors of a summer garden. (I know, I know, summer is over, but we can always look forward to the next one, right?)

Here are a few items I will be selling in my booth:

A handwoven, hand-dyed, silk ribbon scarf

A machine-knitted "crinkle" scarf in fine wool/stainless steel yarn

A silk gauze shawl hand-dyed in indigo and then discharged using arashi-shibori techniques

Temple B'rith Kodesh is on Elmwood Avenue in Brighton, not far from the Twelve Corners. The sale begins Saturday evening and runs through Sunday. Lots of great artists and a wonderful indoor setting. Thanks for reading!

More Dorset Buttons: Making Wagon Wheels When I'm on the Road

Dorset Button, wagon-wheel style, using hand-dyed silk thread and fiber-optic beads

What do you do when you're driving across 8 states? No loom, no room for a sewing machine or spinning wheel... so you take along small projects. This button, pictured above, kept my hands and heart happy from New York to Colorado, with three stops along the way.

Once we arrived in Canon City, where my daughter and her husband just bought a house, I finished it up with embroidery and beads -- emulating the yellow rabbitbrush plants that were growing all over the place. I call it my "Colorado Sunset Button," because the sunsets are really that colorful, in pink, mauve, and purple. It's a gift to my daughter's mother-in-law, Margie Stratton, who was so kind and gracious to us while we were there.

(Note to anyone who likes words: Why doesn't English have a word for the relationship between the two mothers-in-law? Like "co-mother-in-law" or "Sister Mom"?)

So then came more buttons, with a plan to make them into a bracelet, mixing colors of turquoise, purple, and orange. Colors of the Southwest again! Like this one:

And this one, the second one I made and my favorite, because I can't resist aqua:

And finally this one:

Next job: finish three more buttons and assemble them into a bracelet, hopefully with the help of my friend, beading teacher and artist Terry Byrne, at the wonderful store, Let's Bead. Looking forward to it! Even better, I have learned that I can survive for nearly three weeks without a loom ;o)