A Double Weave Wall Hanging is Next. Designed with Photoshop and WeavIt Based on Marian's 4 colour Double Weave.

Basic 4 colour drawdown

I have finished the design for the next piece - 70cm x 70cm panel. The design is called  'A Sea of Smiles'  and is based on a drawing of smiling lips I made in Photoshop.

It's going to be the decorative 3-part, centre piece wall hanging for the new studio room using the basic design, it's lift plan inversion and the inversion with an additional high-contrast weft colour to highlight a row of 'smiles'

It's inversion with the contrast  colour

Its a 24 shaft echo 2 double weave. The design line generated in Photoshop was networked to create the parallel threading - i.e echo 2 with an interval of 12.

Warp is Plum and White whilst weft is Black with White Gold. All in 8/2 Tencel,840 ends @ 13epcm.



Though designed on 24 shafts, ends 95-167 (which represents the second block from the right, a block using only shafts 1-4) are actually threaded onto shafts 25-28 and assigned their48 treadle tie up plus an extra 4 treadles of 3/1 twill.  
This allows me to choose to weave a third layer, using just this block, in a fourth weft colour - it produces a quasi-overshot block. The placing of this block will make one single focus point in the design (the weaving software doesn't allow me to show this)

Options for overall colour scheme.

Black with Burgundy and below it Black with Moss Green.

A Scarf Called 'Warped by Design' :-)

4 colour double weave Echo 2 interval 12. Plain weave
 and 3/1 twill with a heavily modified 6:6 lift ratio

From an uneasy first impression as a sample, I am so pleased with this design I am actually sad that it marks the end of the 10 metres of warp, as I still have so much more I can do with that particular tie up.

With all of the quirks designed into this pattern, I think this has to be the representative piece of "Warped By Design" 

As I had only 1.8m metres of useable warp left, I decided to make a scarf so I hemstitched the beginning and end, so had a finished scarf when cut off.

The curve effect is a break in the progression
of the treadling; the treadling is wrapped forward
by 10 treadles and it's direction reversed.

I love the illusion of the curve-lines cutting across, now that it's not just a single repeat of the diamond.

This approach to colour choices is also something I am going to use for the next double weave project: having just one colour in the warp (the second being white) and one colour in the weft (the second being a grey) produces a full range of shades with no chance that is subtle but still striking.

The final pattern repeat with its own echo.

I have a dislike of symmetry that borders on phobic!! And this is, after all, an echo weave; so I designed it with the last pattern repeat having it's own 'echo', by skipping back 150 picks on the treadling. When worn each end of the scarf is slightly different.







Close up of the final pattern repeat with the echo in the pattern

Warped By Design Products will be in Aubeterre for 2015

Great news! One of Gail's clients is opening a new shop in Aubeterre this Spring, wants to include woven items and art in her product line so has asked me to provide them!!!

It's a great opportunity as Aubeterre sur Dronne is a stunning place, second only to Brantome for tourist footfalls and her shop is in a prime area, right in the main square.

I think the end of course meal for The Echo Weave workshop will now be in Aubeterre at the restaurant opposite the shop :-)

Wet Finished Double Weave - Improved my Sample but Ruined my 6 metres of Upholstery Fabric!!

After Wet Finishing

Washed and pressed the sample and the changes to the structure afterwards has stopped it looking like an unintended glitch in the pattern. The relaxing of the threads has, as I expected, evened out interlacement so the change is softer. But the biggest effect is due to the definite pebbly texture it now has - a result of the differential behaviour between the pocket weave and integrated sections.

After Wet Finishing

The raised patches of plain weave pockets can be clearly seen in the wet finished photo of the earlier project from the same warp and threading.  I wet finished this too, BIG MISTAKE and don't know what I was thinking really, because I needed the crisp, stiff , upholstery-type 'as woven' finish for this because it was to be panels for a vanity screen. Now it's all springy, soft and elastic and not really suitable for this at all Duhhhhhh....IDIOT!!!!

Not sure I am getting the effect I was hoping for??

I can't decide whether the 'illusion' of the curve in the horizontal weft looks more like an error in the weaving than a deliberate design?

Interested to know what other's think.

The effect is actually more prevalent in the photo than I am seeing it on the loom so maybe when its wet finished and pressed it will look OK...still not sure I like it.

Thinking perhaps just the off-centre 'break' in the pattern and not the other two?

Double Weave and Illusion inspired by Marian Stubenitsky

Marian Stubenitsky posted some photos today of some superb woven panels based on optical illusion and it got me thinking as I have had the classic curved line illusion in mind for some time: since I started looking at the Hubble images.

 With a warp already on the loom, I had just finished a new, very geometric draw-down using this threading from the last project and it gave me the idea that I could use the double weave to create patches of the (diagonal) twill as in (b) then mess-around with the treadling to control the colour mix  across these areas, using the horizontal weft lines, to give the impression of curves.


To my un-ending surprise, it worked!

I changed the tie up method to the one on p111 (which is particularly easy with my software) as it's much easier to see what your doing in each layer.


Right, off to weave it now though I might modify these treadling design lines in Photoshop first so I can stretch them x4, as I know this is going to weave at 16th/cm, so it's going to have an aspect ratio of 13/16 and would prefer much elongated diamond ending up with a 35cm x 110cm panel.

Echo Double Weave Project Retrospective

Photos of the project whilst on the loom and the finished 6 metre roll of yarn.

Half the woven length used a weft pairing in Burgundy and Gold Tencel (which can be seen as the fabric under the front beam), whilst the other half produces a lighter complimentary shade using Red and White Gold yarn.

Close up detail. The random changes in the lift ratio in the tie up break up the uniformity of the pattern by introducing patches of colour where the ratio suddenly changes.

The textural effect of the plain weave areas amongst the 2:2 twill is one I particularly like as they coincide with the areas of colour change.







The finished article - the lighter shade is on the left. This will be made into framed panels to form a vanity screen. I will post pics of the finished project when it's done......but as my woodworking workshop resembles the aftermath of a gas explosion, it 'aint going to be any time soon :-(

Echo Double Weave Project

This is what I have been working on since late summer. The project is finished, in that 6 metres of material is off the loom and ready to be made into panels for the vanity screen.

This is the technical information for the project. It's based on "Echo and Iris".

DESIGN TECHNICAL FACT SHEET

Weave Structure: Double Weave: Plain + 2:2 Twill with Basic Ratio of 10:2 and Plain Weave Design Elements

No. of Shafts; 24

Category: 4 Colour Double Weave

Threading: 500 ends advancing threading - Echo 2 with offset 12

13epcm (6.5epcm per layer)

Treadling: Advancing diagonal treadling. 364 pick repeat. Each repeat is advanced x2 (wrap x2) repeated 12 times giving total of 4732 picks.

Yarn 10/2 Tencel woven 16ppcm

File Location: Double Weaves/myfirstproject/projectinformation/