Weaving again

Sometimes life gets in the way and not much happens.
I've not been weaving much since the beginning of April.
Just did not have the energy. But I'm on a detox since a week and feeling better already.
However, I have been busy lately for this. Very exited to have joined the team.

I'm very fortunate to having a Louet Magic Dobby on loan from my tutor, to find out if it would be a loom that I would like.
Warping the loom was so easy. Mind you it is only a narrow warp of about 20cm, but I've never so easily warped a loom by myself. I've used just one colour in the warp, threading straight 1 through 24 and as weft using a contrasting colour. All cotton about 8/2.
And now I'm playing with the peg bars weaving different samples just to get to know the loom.
Here are my first samples:

Museum visit

Today, I made another visit to the Hermitage Amsterdam where the current exhibition is Matisse to Malevich. I had been in January when the Museum's first exhibition At the Russian Court was there with lots of dresses on show, that had been very special to see. This exhibition is totally different, I was blown away seeing all the beautiful paintings "in the flesh". Most paintings are from around the 1900-1915 period. I was fortunate to see the Dance as it is going back to Russia after the 9th. Here you can see a film showing how this painting has been transported from Russia to Amsterdam  (scroll down to the bottom of this Dutch page). I think the painting is about 3m high and 5m wide or near enough. Another big painting was Kandinsky's composition VI, the colours, wonderful. Very stimulating to see art like this.

Next week I will make another museum visit, this time about fashion, here.
But first we will have our grandson here for a few days. Really looking forward to this, though not much time for weaving than. I'm still planning my next warp, but hoping to make progress soon.

Inkle weaving

I've finished my first inkle weave band and I now have a strong coloured band of almost 2 meters.

 

So different from weaving cloth in so much that you really need to take care of the sides. I found that the band is not the same width overall, it will take practise to get it right but I did enjoy the weaving.

Therefore I will look into investing in an inkle loom in the near future as it is something I can do in between other weaving. Another thing I observed is that the yarn used needs to be strong as you need to pull quite hard after each new weft inlay. If you don't do this the pattern comes out different (looking longer). See middle photo above.

Here the band is still on the loom, almost finished. I was amazed how far I could weave to the end, ending up with very little warp waste.

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.