Guild day

Weaving has taken a backstep these last few weeks so I have been quiet.

But Spring has definitely arrived and the world is getting greener by the day. I love this time of year.

Yesterday we were going to weave with paper at our local Guild but plans had to change when the tutor could not make it. So we switched to Inkle weaving. I had not done this before. At Online Guild last year there was an Inkle weaving workshop but I had no loom to use. This time I was able to borrow one I'm now weaving my first braid using 8/2 cotton.

The photo's above you can see the colours of the warp. One mostly blue with one red thread and the other is mostly pale green with a red and a blue thread on each side.

Very simple but I like my "on the spot" design that I did when warping the Inkle loom yesterday. Changing some threads to get the colour changes.

Here the pattern is more visible but the colours are not as they are, they look a bit paler in the photos.

Small project on the sample warp

After weaving lots of samples I made a scarf on the same warp. I had made a longer warp so that there would be enough to make a scarf and samples. I threaded the warp on 8 shafts so that I could make blocks in the scarf. The blocks are 1 cm wide and woven 3/1 and 1/3 alternating.

The scarf is wett finished and pressed.
A detailed photo here:

I was using my Leclerc Minerva loom and had lots of problems this time. Like the cord of the brake treadle snapping and the cord that connects the bar with the warpthreads on to the back beam also snapping. Not all the shafts were lifting as they should. I suppose that is getting familiar with the jackloom system.
Before I put on another warp on this loom I will go over the loom thoroughly so that the next warp will give less problems hopefully. Are there any other weavers reading this blog that are using a Minerva? I'd love to hear your thoughts on the loom.

The last samples looked like this using all 4 warp colours in the weft:

The finished samples are washed and pressed, the unfinished ones are not washed or pressed.

Back from UK

I had a great few days away, visiting the UK.
Meeting up with some old friends. Visiting the new Quilt exhibition at the V&A which was well worth visiting.
I visited Handweavers Studio, unfortunately they did not have the handy balloon spring anymore (and no more coming either) that Dot was showing in her blog. The access to Handweavers is good and lots of choice but the area was not very pleasant and I missed the lovely atmosphere that Handweavers Studio was with Nancy.
I also visited Selvedge getting some back copies of the magazine and seeing where they do all the hard work making the magazine. Next stop was Margo Selby, she was not there herself but Tref, who won the scholarship at Mastercrafts was there and so was his work and that of Holly that they made as their final piece at Mastercrafts. There is lots to see here so highly recommended for a visit.
On the last night I went to see War Horse which I found very moving. I'm glad I was able to see the show.

More sampling, Textile Festival and UK travel

I'm weaving another colour warp, this time with blues and a red.

(tabby sample, left side is unfinished, right side washed and pressed)
I had hoped to have finished the warp today but it will now have to wait until next week as I'm leaving for the UK tomorrow morning.
Today I went to Leiden where they have a Textile Festival. The website is only in Dutch unfortunately. There was so much to see, to much to take in. But it was an enjoyable day. The main festival was in the Pieterskerk (church) but at about 30 different locations were exhibitions. I only managed to go to 2 different extra locations. That was as much as I could manage. We went with our local Guild but we split up in small groups. It will be nice to exchange what we have seen today at our next meeting in April.

Cross twill samples

I have finished the warp and was able to weave 5 more sample + a very small one. Having cut the samples of this warp twice has left me with less warp to weave but it was a good lesson to see that the sett was correct for the twill. Had I gone on weaving after the plain weave at the same sett as the plain weave, the twill weaving would not have been as it has come out now.

I have woven one sample twice so that I can keep an unfinished and a finishes sample. You have to feel the difference! The unfinished one feels hard but the finished one is nice and soft.
So these are a good addition towards my sample archive.

Top is the finished sample, bottom the unfinished one. Left are the front and right are the back of the samples. This is a cross twill. Here part of the drawing:

Spring is on it's way, they are forecasting 15C this week, huray!!!

Sett for twill weaving

When I started weaving the twill samples I just felt that the sett was not quite right. So I made some small samples, cut them of and washed them to see what would happen. The first sample I started by weaving far to tight so after a few centimeters I changed the beat and it looked as if it was far to loose. The warp is threaded in the reed like this: 3-4-3-4 (4 openings per cm) and the bundles of the warp threads were so visible during weaving, I just thought it would not be ok. But having washed them they look allright.
The samples are woven 3/1 twill and the smallest one is a 3/1 cross twill

Left side is the front side and right the back. I used one warp colour in each sample as weft. I have not used the lightes warp colour yet. Not sure how much warp is left having cut twice, but I will keep on weaving now that I know that after washing it comes allright.

More on colour

I've now been to 2 of the 5 colour course days. It is such an eye opener to really look at colour. We are also painting our own colour wheel by mixing paint colours ourself. Next time we should finish this assignment, I find it not easy at all to get the right colours. We are using 2 reds, 2 blues and 2 yellows + black & white for the mixing.
We have also been playing with all the different colours that the Venne cotton yarn comes in. In 2 groups we had to make some kind of order in the colours. We found that there were some colours that did not fit in very easy. (like not fitting in with green or blue, yet they did look like green or blue)
It was a fun exercise to do together.

The home assignment is to work with 3 colours that we like and being close together + 1 colour that is an opposite. We had to make a yarn winding these colours for a warp idea.

I have gone for natural colours + a purple and I've just finished the plain weave samples, weaving the weft as the warp colour order. One I have washed (sample on the right side) and the other I will keep unwashed for my record keeping archive.

 The rest of the warp will be woven in a 3/1 twill + 3/1 cross twill, weaving with just one weft colour.

We have had some lovely sunny days these last few days and it gave a feeling of Spring arriving may be. But oh now, we have more snow forecasted for this weekend and freezing temperatures. A good excuse to stay indoors and do more weaving.....