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Archive for January, 2007

Jan 29

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Crinkle Weaving

My weaving is getting very interesting at the moment. I wove this shibori pleat fabric a couple of years ago using Jo Anne Ryeburn’s creative instructions in Handwoven but it over felted as I forgot about it in the washing machine and although it looked very interesting it was only useful for a belt not a draping fabric.

This time I’ve modified the pattern, adding a plain weave selvedge and I’m using 20/1 wool/lycra for the shibori wefts. The warp is 30/2 tencel and 60/2 silk ground weft.The result is shown at the left. I will also cross dye the wefts.

I decided I wanted much deeper furrows so have now modified the pattern up to 24 shafts. Although the more shafts the better, I think there are ways to make a similar fabric with less shafts. You just need a very steep point twill. Joanne included an 8 shaft version in September/October 2002 Handwoven.

I’ve added the beautiful native Australian flower, just because I can. I read of someone who named the the local flowers with her own names, which I thought made a lot of sense. Otherwise, like me, you feel inadequate because you don’t know the ‘agreed’ latin name for it, or if you do you forget it all the time. It’s much nicer to have your own poetic naming system. Now that’s given me an idea. The struggle with naming and folder management of weave designs…be more creative and less focused on rigidity and convention.

 
On the loom


Close up of washed (left) and
unwashed (right) sample

Australian bush flowers don’t flaunt
their stuff…this one is teeny and
hardly noticeable when you walk by.
It has an inbuilt fringing, which
appeals to my weaving sensibilities.
It must be called the "purple fringy"

Jan 28

6 Comments

The MAD weave


The Mad Weave

Do you have to be mad to weave…I think so. This is an example of mad weave. Seems it is also called Malaccan weave and triaxial weave. Normally weaving has two elements – warp and weft. Tiaxial weave has an additional third element.

I started this basket with instructions from Shereen LaPlantz book "The Mad Weave Book". It is an authorised copy of her book sold by The Caning Shop. The illustrations are great and easy to follow, especially when you consider the complexity of the structure. It’s the sort of thing that is probably easy to show but not so easy to write.

Basically it is a twill weave of over one, under two, followed by a third weaver interlacing. It’s fun to do but I always seem to have trouble weaving things into container shapes. It’s a struggle and it can’t really be left incomplete. It insists on completion. It insists on patience and perserverence.

The struggle to become….a container

Jan 22

1 Comment

More Textile Imagery

The Online Weavers computer workshop is developing all sorts of new ideas using filters and various photos for inspiration.

Basically I start with a photo. For the top image I used a photo of my own textiles, then modified it with filters and colour adjustments. I’m then able to cut and paste slices of the design into a new canvas. For the top image I used a profile draft image from Fiberworks to create the little diamond shaped Hmong motifs and I used a separate canvas to create the black and white striping, then pasted the stripes into the image.

But wait! there’s more. You don’t really need an original image at all.
As you can see at this site you can start off with just a cloud effect then render, colour and filter it like mad. I also tried Haberdash textile filters on the bottom two designs. The purple one is just the inverted colour of the green one.

Are they weaveable? I think this process has many functions. One is purely for inspiration, to develop colour and texture ideas to base a design on. Another is to develop an idea based on your knowledge of weaving ‘rules’. These rules will be different for everyone depending on the type of loom you have. For example the black and white stripes in the first photo would be made using a warp faced (very close sett) textile with one end black one end white. The coloured sections would require warp painting or some type of inlay. The diamond Hmong motifs would be picked up by hand or loom controlled if you have enough shafts.
Using Photoshop to construct a textile

Using ‘no photo’ to construct a textile,
followed by Haberdash filters.

Jan 12

4 Comments

Using Weaving Designs in Image Manipulations

This image is based on the Clown photo from yesterday’s post.

 Working with the Online Weavers Computer workshop again I had a ‘what if’ pop into my head.

What if I could take an actual weaving pattern out of PCW Fiberworks and use it as a layer in the photo editing?

How I got the weaving pattern out of PCW Fiberworks:

In Fiberworks, I just opened up a pattern and set the zoom to a pleasing appearance on screen (not too small or too large).

Then pressed the PRINT SCREEN key on the keyboard which copies the screen shot into that invisible clipboard (there are no bells when this happens just silence).

I then opened Photoshop and a new canvas (File>New>OK). Then Edit>Paste for the weaving pattern to appear. You then have to select the pattern only (not the threading/treadling) and crop it to size.

This image on the left requires a program like Photoshop which can create multiple layers with different images on them (Gimp may also have this). It is then possible to change the opacity of the images so that one can show through the other .

Jan 11

Dreaming Up Textiles [without weaving them]


The Online Weavers computer workshop is continuing and here is my new addition. Taking the top brightly coloured clown photo I was able to emulate a watery ikat textile with Photoshop. This type of playing around doesn’t take long once you’ve discovered some of the tools to make it happen.

For this image I cut and pasted some rectangular segments of the first image into a new canvas. I then treated these with filters – noise, followed by wind blast. I then interspersed plain coloured and gradient coloured stripes (actually elongated rectanges) into the image. Some of the colours here have been picked up with the eyedropper tool from the original image. The wind filter had an unexpected result breaking the image up at the sides which gave a weft ikat look. What fun! Thanks Leigh.
Original photo for editing
Textile image created in Photoshop

Jan 10

4 Comments

Weighting Warps

I’ve had a couple of questions about my makeshift method of weighting when using the trapeze for winding the warp (thanks Laritza and Leigh). Here’s a close up photo of the situation. Knotted plastic shopping bag from anywhere containing dumbells. A S hook is added and is secured to the warp chain.

The only problem with this method is its difficulty in sliding the weights down. I have to reset the warp chain each time.See Vavstuga for a video of a trapeze with a very sleek weight sliding. Anyway, refinement will come along after the trapeze is ‘tested’ for usefulness…maybe.
My makeshift plastic bag weights
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