Jul 26 2007

Warping Makes the Cloth

This next warp is totally great fun.I don’t know why I don’t just do this type of textile every time. The design I was working on is finally at loom stage. It took alot of dyeing and a bit of knot tying for the warp ikat blocks. As you can see the knots I use in the photo are tied from a plastic raffia which I like to use. The knot is from Japanese Ikat Weaving by Jun and Noriko Tomita (p29). At first it took ages following the step by step diagrams but I’ve persisted and now the knot comes easy. Knotting on the warping mill/board like this before dyeing is the most basic ikat process you can do. It’s random and free but adds a real zest to the weaving. Pictured is one of the warp stripes wound and tied on the warping mill.

Now the painstaking process of ‘getting it all together’ for the loom. As each segment of the warp was dyed, painted or tied differently they all come together at the warping stage. Here I am spacing the threads in the raddle and putting the lease sticks in. It is very slow work for me as the narrow warps can get tangled easily and I find that a bit of extra patience at this point will reward me with a problem free warping. For this warp I wanted to get a jet black dye which is quite difficult in the fibre reactives I use. I use the black dye to achieve an indigo effect as it is very blue. However, I spoke to Kraftkolour and Graeme told me to add 10% Orange to 90% black – and wow! it worked great.

5 responses so far

5 Responses to “Warping Makes the Cloth”

1. # Vickion 26 Jul 2007 at 6:52 pm

   

   Every time I see your work the little voice says, “Need to weave again!”. I can’t wait to see this warp on the loom and see the work in progress.

2. # textillianon 26 Jul 2007 at 11:57 pm

   

   Is this ikat method of wrapping sections, dyeing, then unwrapping sections, and dyeing again? Also, are you wrapping for a particular length so that the colors fall in a particular area of the design?

   The colors are very eye-catching.

3. # Leighon 27 Jul 2007 at 7:47 am

   

   I’ve always been fascinated with the ikat look, but never understood much about it. I would like to try this someday, maybe when I’m better set up for dyeing.

4. # curiousweaveron 27 Jul 2007 at 1:53 pm

   

   Thanks for your comments.
   The ikat sections are just randomly wrapped then dyed. In this case I dyed the warp sections in a red..then I unwrap the sections leaving a little block of white. You could dye the whole thing again – thus changing the red colour but I just left the sections white for weaving.

5. # Syne Mitchellon 28 Jul 2007 at 8:58 pm

   

   Thanks for sharinG that tip about a really dark black. Orange, who’d a thought?

   Syne

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