With another opportunity to run a workshop with ‘live’ weavers I was over the moon….and in Melbourne too. Double over the moon! Thanks to the weavers and especially Amanda (and Mae) for being a most generous host.The workshop was fantastic. We focused on ways of warping with a horizontal warping mill, a vertical warping mill and a warping board using multiple cones of warp to speed up the process. Most of the weavers were or had studied at RMIT School of Textiles but had never had the opportunity to warp with multiple cones. To do this we needed a warping paddle or a rigid heddle to create the cross as the warp is wound. Very different handling techniques were needed with the different warping tools. I usually use a vertical warping mill so the other types were of interest to me too.
I am so motivated to continue in my craft by these types of workshops. I learn so much from other weavers as well. We started comparing tips and ways of doing things.
Could we improve this or that? Would this work in my situation, with my tools or would this be better?
Most of the weavers used a guide string to measure their warps, something I’ve never done. Michelle even had coloured warping guides for different warp lengths. I think I learnt more than I ‘taught’. I don’t believe you ever ‘teach’ adults because they are so full of experiences possibly quite different and more diverse than mine. I just try to be open to a learning exchange within this.
Here are photos of the warping, the dyeing and ikat tying and Amanda’s weave in progress and completed textile. Beautiful.
The Textile design and weave workshop was beyond great. It was so wonderful to have a group of students, even for such a short time, that were excited by the prospect of learning how to create and design textiles for the first time. This is something I haven’t experienced for a while as I’ve been teaching subjects that aren’t so immediately hands on and creative like weaving. I didn’t even have to engage them as they were highly motivated and ’self primed’ when they got there!
Nikki, pictured here, designed, warped and completely wove off her first textile in the 4 hours, closely followed by all the other new weavers.
All the weavers wove the same design but used different colour selections, each full of vitality and individuality. Each wove a different self into the work, which was particularly rewarding to my teaching persona. What a way to see experiements and variations in colourways without doing it yourself.
The next workshop is on Saturday 14 November and I can cater for more advanced or experienced weavers too, if you let me know beforehand. For beginner everything is supplied for a small fee.
I’m teaching a Beginners Weave workshop with Inkle and Saori weaving at Adult Education in Taree on Thursday (10 September) and wanted the participants to explore textile design in a quick, easy, taster sort of way. I thought about coloured pencils and paint but the restricted time of the workshop didn’t really suit this approach. So I opted for adhesive coloured board which is easy to find in the abundance of scrapbooking supplies.
Essentially I use cut strips of coloured card to represent stripes which are the basic building blocks of all warp faced textile design such as those woven on an Inkle loom. These can be any colour or multiple gradings of the same colour or any width. It’s best to combine a number of different widths for visual interest.
The next basic building block is the horizontal bar. These bars alternate with 2 colours only i.e, black and white, and are created by threading one black, one white etc. These can be different widths and by doubling up on a colour in the middle of the bar you can interupt the bar, changing its look.
This week has been a great learning challenge week.
Two new experiences; the fly shuttle on my Toika Loom and playing the three stringed Strumstick. Each came with their own enticing guarantee. The fly shuttle enables wide cloth to be woven which is beyond the normal human reach for the shuttle and the newly invented strumstick touts ‘no wrong notes and no talent required!’ The strumstick is beautiful but I still managed to get some ugly notes out of it. The fly shuttle is amazing but, like a musical instrument, it too requires the deft, subtle, skilled touch of experience.
I’m just shy of a metre woven with the fly shuttle and already the memory of my learning is leaving it’s mark.
As you can see in the montaged second photo, the mean looking metal tip of the fly shuttle has bashed repeatedly into the side of the right entry box. It has also occasionally flown off in high speed and gouged the wooden studio floor. I don’t mean to scare you off with all my adjectives of the process but people have been killed by these things. I’ve also photographed the string which propells the fly shuttle being worn off on the left side which helped the bashing process and eventually snapped off before the metre weave mark was reached. I was amazed at the damage I did in such a short time and the evidence of my uneven strength when pulling one side.
I had read that it could take a few days to get the skill of weaving with a fly shuttle so I’m prepared to do the time. I think this applies alot in weaving ….and music. You just have to enjoy the time to build skill.
The recalcitrant warp from my pevious post became too twisted a short time after I began weaving.There wasn’t much I could do about it and I sadly had to cut it all down and wind off the warp of 11 metres. It is certainly wasteful but more frustrating to continue so sometimes you just have to cut your losses and get on with it.So with encouragement from my husband, I made myself immediately wind up a new warp with only 19 epi rather than 72 epi and get it on the loom. It’s also a great excuse to set up my new fly shuttle and get weaving.
I had alot of 6/1 wool with nice colours so decided to make a couple of woollen blankets in a standard twill weave design.
Part of what is holding me back is the growing demand that everyone has to develop their own unique patterns to weave with and the need to weave in new ways. I can’t always do this all the time and look to patterns of the past, guiltily. When I first started weaving this wasn’t an issue and I could weave all sorts of patterns and experiments using patterns I’d found in magazines and books gradually finding my own way of designing by standing on the shoulders of others. If it was up to me to think up the weave process or a pattern beyond plain weave it would never have been invented!
I finally had a small slot of time to finish my gigantic double weave threading job and the threads started coming through the reed and forming the textile. It’s looking good. You can see the two layers of fabric here and the reed marks are quite prominent as I have 9 ends per dent on an 8epi reed which equals 72 dpi.Strangely, I had this real feeling of excitement as I was nearing the completion of the threading. Now I can settle back and weave. I’m really so busy with other work committments at the moment that I hardly get a chance to do anything but knit in odd moments. I have another niece on the way so all the knit patterns are out again.
Laverne - BackStrap Weaving
Back Strap Weave Delights
On another note in relation to backstrap weaving, weaver Laverne has some wonderful photos of weaves, process and teachers in her flickr site. She’s an Australian living in Bolivia and has the most wonderful exposure to specialist teachers.
Laverne says ‘ …I spend my time weaving traditional Andean designs on a backstrap loom. Every chance I get, I travel within Bolivia or to neighbouring Peru and Chile or farther afield to Ecuador or Guatemala searching for indigenous weavers to spend time with and learn about their weavings and techniques.‘ See more of her photos on Weavolution
Most references in eTextile electronics mention the memories of ‘6th grade electronic projects’. This must be a distinctly American concept as I have never heard of electronics education in primary or high schools here in Australia and I was never exposed to it in any way. Thus, as school can tend to immunise you against some activities, I was just totally enthralled having had no exposure at all.
When the componets arrived in their neat little box I just looked at them wondering how I would proceed. A bit scared of tiny little, harmless looking dynamos. Then I bought Switch Craft and Fashion Geek, while searching the net for tutorials. (Threadbanger has loads.) …just to give me the confidence to go. As I was weaving conductive threads to Lynne’s suggestion using the clasped weft technique, my husband suggested that I test the circuits by just tying the thread to the power source. In this case I used a coin cell battery holder which is sewable without taking bits off it. Guess what – it worked! the little LED lit up brightly and happily adding new dimensions to my usual textile weave.
But I was still worried about the battery holder. Yes, I can sew it on here and there etc. etc. But wouldn’t it be better if the weaver in me could contribute more. Double weave, of course. Weavers are made to do double weave. So I experimented with a hand manipulated double weave pocket situated in the middle of the fabric. The pocket had to be accessible to take the battery in and out and change it. So I wove a slit on the front top only. Then the battery holder and battery could be inserted and connected, hidden from view and incorporated into the textile design itself. You can see the emergence of this in the photo. It has far more applications when I get onto a 24 shaft loom to further control the double weave with shafts. Another new adventure…
I’ve begun threading my heddles with my double weave design – rock weave after the frustrating warping process. It’s going nicely. However it isn’t a straight draw so I really have to keep track of the threading plan. I’ve divided the threading into about nine sections and I pull out all the heddles, on the designated shafts, that I need for each section as I thread. Then I check each section before moving onto the next one.
It’s going to take many hours to thread but with great music in the background it will be enjoyable. Just hope my maths will be right.
This week I attended the Sydney Craft Show via a 10 hour bus trip for the day. It was an absolutely great day as I caught up with my daughters and our friends.The craft show itself was good but it was mainly a trade show. I went many years ago and it was full of makers of craft. Apart from a quilt show this year all the stalls were traders. This is a bit disappointing but I guess I’m a dinosaur from the past and have to get with it! Craft kits are on the rise and maybe I would have brought one if I found a weave one.
I didn’t realise that my knotty dilemma in my last post would attract so much empathy. Thank you. Knots are what we do sometimes and it does..hurt. I took a few photos as I wound and combed. Look at the end – almost neat and chopped off ready to go.
Beautifully dyed and luscious and very harmless looking. This is the photo of my latest warp.
Fifteen metres of changing colours and moods looking ripe for warping and weaving. I don’t usually put on 15 metres and now I know why. As I nearly always hand paint my warps, this wider width combined with the long warp length has lead to a disasterous warp. I got greedy wanting to weave more than a couple of scarves on one run but the time spent in winding the warp is days.
What happened? It became knotted. Horribly knotted. Depressingly knotted…Maybe I should….give up. The dyeing process on long warps affects and disturbs the order of the warping process making the warp more uneven and unpredictable. It also doesn’t help that I’m warping two different types of yarns for the double weave. I may have to cut off each scarf as they are completed. More waste of the yarn I was trying to save.
What I should of done is wound a different warp for each of the two yarns which would have helped. This at least would absolutely ensure that each type of thread would be tensioned correctly throughout the weaving.
This next photo shows the state of the warp at the moment. Not a pretty sight. I’m combing and beaming, combing and beaming, but with great difficulty. I shouldn’t get myself into these situations but they just seem to arise despite my experience and knowledge. Sometimes a burning desire to create something overrides all sense. Patience, patience is that what this warp is teaching me.
Sometimes bad warps become good textiles and I’m hopeful that this will be the case here.
PS: If anyone is having problems with my comments could you email me at curiousweaver at yahoo dot com. Thanks.
The Textile design and weave workshop was beyond great. It was so wonderful to have a group of students, even for such a short time, that were excited by the prospect of learning how to create and design textiles for the first time. This is something I haven’t experienced for a while as I’ve been teaching subjects that aren’t so immediately hands on and creative like weaving. I didn’t even have to engage them as they were highly motivated and ’self primed’ when they got there!
This week has been a great learning challenge week.
and 
, while searching the net for tutorials. 
I’ve begun threading my heddles with my double weave design – rock weave after the frustrating warping process. It’s going nicely. However it isn’t a straight draw so I really have to keep track of the threading plan. I’ve divided the threading into about nine sections and I pull out all the heddles, on the designated shafts, that I need for each section as I thread. Then I check each section before moving onto the next one.
What I should of done is wound a different warp for each of the two yarns which would have helped. This at least would absolutely ensure that each type of thread would be tensioned correctly throughout the weaving.
