IT'S ON! Marian Stubenitsky's 4 Colour Double Weave Workshop, Dordogne, France, May 2016

Workshop Participants are:
Margreet Ward
Jane Flanagan
Alison Daikin
Jane Deane
Kathryn Rudy
Sam Hayden
Gill Back
Lauren Back

Reserves;  Belinda Rose, Pat Griffiths

Multi colour double weave Echo Irridescence scarves based on Marian Stubenitsky's Dordogne workshop

 Two Tencel scarves based on the threading used in Marian Stubenitsky's workshop held here in my Studio May 6-9 this year

4 colour warp in 8/2 Tencel with two weft yarns - Tencel and colcolastic (cotton with a lycra thead)

The right hand one uses black Tencel and red colcolastic.

The one on the left is black tencel with light blue colcolastic





It weaves both pockets and integrated weave. Wet finishing produces block ribbing due to the contraction of the lycra - 40cm wide on the loom and 22cm finished.

The Drawdown in WeaveIt!

Echo and Irridescence Workshop by Marian Stubenitsky held here in my studio on 6-9 May 2015

The workshop was a great success and enjoyed by all.
Thanks to Marian for delivering such an interesting workshop and keeping us all on-task.
Thanks too to all the lovely new people I met (and the not-so-new  lol) and learned so much from.

Everyone except Agnes (behind the camera) on the last afternoon

Margreet in the spotlight!

As well as the weaving it was a great social occasion with everyone getting on so well; a good job really as we were together from breakfast until the wine ran out late at night!

A few images of the workshop

Agnes 

EVALUATION TIME

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/

Back!

Bought new puter last summer with Windows 8 and couldn't find a way into my Blog and couldn't really be bothered to delve into sorting it!  Well now I have so can post again :-)

Echo, Iridescence and Double Weave for Dummies!

UPDATED 19 SEPTEMBER:
Spent at least the last month iterating and reiterating the sections on double weave in the book (Echo and Iris) before I really got my head round it. This is a fantastic book and I would recommend it to anyone other than a beginner. Whilst the earlier chapters 'teach' the materiel clearly, I feel the double weave sections could do with more alliteration and a few extra steps in the explanations; just a little too much is assumed and left hanging on the assumption the reader will make the link, though to be fair I have done so and others might be able to do so easier and quicker than I.

The breakthrough for me with the double weave sections was working out how to quickly produce drawdowns on my software: as with the echo/iris sections, this enabled me to experiment, make the 'missing' links whilst an idea was fresh and work out my own rubrics for the techniques. Fortunately, the alternative approach given in the book for producing tie-ups in double weave fitted perfectly with WeaveIt's software (without that, producing drafts for 32 shaft double weave is VERY laborious; you 'aint going to do too many of those 'manually' before you get fed up and just plump for the first iteration of your design!).

Once grasped though, the technique with echo and iridescence really does take double weave to a level beyond anything I have seen, read or heard of before; as with the earlier sections, it's really inspirational work so looking forward to trying the first design I have produced.

In order to readily use the techniques in the book to produce and experiment with lots of design variations I now have what amounts to a 'Mike's Dummy's Guide to Echo and Iris for WeaveIt' - about a dozen step by step instruction sheets for each technique. For anyone using WeavIt they would make a useful appendix to either this book or the WeavIt manual.

24 Shaft Echo 4 Iridescence - The Finished Panel and a Serene Model

We do have a Buddhist retreat nearby so maybe they would like some!

Interesting now its finished; things I was expecting and others that are surprising.

I was expecting the iridescent effect to be light and directionally dependent, which it is, but was surprised that it's effect really comes alive when the fabric drapes naturally - making it great for a garment but less effective as a screen or wall hanging. As usual, the photo really doesn't show the sheen and glow but it does at least show the blending of the colours.

The close up shows it better and the extreme close photo shows the interlacement detail.
The background colour is black, so it has a very high contrast with lots in the blue and purple spectrum but, in real life, the yellow is the real standout colour which makes it glow.

The vertical stripes are a distinct feature of echo on more than 8 shafts; the point at which the blocky appearance of the weave gives way to stripes. However, I really think the colours need to be threaded 1/1 in the reed to ensure perfect separation, otherwise there is a second effect coming into play adding to the vertical stripes; one that was not part of the design.

There is much to be learned from this first piece

24 shaft Echo 4 Iridescence Panel - Progress

These are the true colours.

Well, iridescence really does look, well, iridescent.....it works!
This is my own 24 shaft design using one of Marian's twill tie-ups giving maximum 6 end floats with my threading/lift plan. The lift plan is a single, undulating non-repeating line over 2460 picks which I wrapped until I got the colour balance I liked.
I made a few changes from the draw-down I designed and blogged earlier in the week based on my 2 year old 'Schizophrenia' design idea; made to accommodate the colours I eventually chose and the much finer Ne 20/2 cotton - it's now 608 ends and 48cm wide.

Colours are Flame Red, Deep Yellow, Pistachio Green and Cyan - warped in that order at 13epcm. Weft is Black 34/4 Tencel.

I have sampled other wefts and only very, very dark, low value colours really work with these weft colours. So the other two panels will use a Deep Nay Blue and Grey/Burgundy.

In close.

The close up shows how the range of colour variations appear across the boundaries of the shape.
The weft is packing at 15epcm. I was worried the sett was going to leave it too weft faced. However, though the overall effect is slightly darker due to more black weft than if it were balanced, the effect is actually enhanced as there is more contrast overall between the areas.

This yarn could be sett at 15-16epcm for this mix of twills, but with more of the prime colours visible, I think the contrast might diminish.

The structure is great and could certainly be used as fabric for a garment......my Bohemian friends would love it ;-)

My Clients Shadow Weave Shawl

Finished the second of the shawls I wove using the shadow weave drawdown.

It's in a finer yarn than the first one so is lighter and more appropriate for summer use.


This one's destined for a client who saw Gail's in burgundy and grey.

34/4 Tencel in lavender and black, 200cm x 60cm
Sett 9epc woven at 10ppc

Selvages double threaded 4 heddles - 40/100 reed threaded 2,2,3,2,2

24 shaft Echo 4 Iridescence Panel Design

   

Schizophrenia revisited.
I have had a design idea for a couple of years, which I tried to work out for overshot which I called 'Schizophrenia'. I never managed to work out how to weave it satisfactorily, so I thought I would try echo weave. The original design idea was based on the fMRI brain patterns of patients which were then turned into music (sonification). I looked again at the scans and the design here is what I have come up with.
Here is the link:- 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd6GwIWiHho

Echo 4 on 24 shaft, 4 colour warp 800 ends

x18 wrap

Threading and treadling are on a 3/1 network; one treadling repeat is 1920 picks.

Hoping to use it  for  two 60cm x 150cm wall panels, and either changing the warp colour for each panel or alternatively, wrapping the lift plan to change each panel; a second evocation of its inception of 'schizophrenia'.

Wrapping x 12 does a full inversion of the colours. This is a wrap of  x18. (right) emphasising the orange and green echo's more.

This is quite a clever technique when visualised in lift plan mode as, though these are two repeats of the same threading design line, by wrapping the threading, you can merge the left hand pattern  seemlessly into the right giving the impression of just one pattern.
I have managed to do this with quite a few design lines; the key is getting the horizontal wrapping correct before doing the threading repeat - you have to get the two to overlap.

Even The Sky Isn't The Limit......or is it?

I have had this photo of the Helix Nebula taken from the Hubble telescope in my projects file for a couple of years now. 

Helix Nebula- Eye of God

When I saw the book on echo weaves and iridescence I thought this might be the route to weaving, not only this inspiring image, but to be able to interpret the many hundreds of other galaxies and nebula for which there are now images.
This technique seems ideal to reproduce the iridescent nature of the colours and the way they blend and echo. Maybe Photoshop can create the patterns and liftplans; maybe I can find a suitable threading that, when combined, produces the combination I need to replicate these amazing images - we will see; the biggest problem I can see at the moment is controlling the float lengths in the warp.

So this is going to be one of the directions for my off-loom designing and experimentation ove the next 12 months leading up to the workshop by Marian in May: Objective - maybe if I crack it, to have an exhibition next Summer on the theme of  Space.

Our Day Out at The Marche Des Tisserandes and Expo

Miroir, Miroir - as the french deemed it should be seen ;-)

Seven Swans

We had a fantastic day out and the chateau was at its most resplendent on a perfect sunny June day.

There were a wide range of textile media exhibited this year and here are a few of my favourite woven pieces.

Three Short Stories

The String and the Pebbles

Pentecost week-end is the weaving exhibition and this year I exhibited a piece or the first time. We had a fantastic day out, met up with Julie, the artist whose painting I have been asked to interpret, and the chateau was at its most resplendent on a perfect sunny June day. There were some amazing things for sale which really stimulated the imagination and gave me some great ideas.

We were a little miffed that the expo committee chose to display my piece as just the three boards side-by-side, omitting the lovely gnarled wooden staff and missing the point entirely that they were placed at different heights and angles. Kind of negates the concept of an art exhibition when the numpty that hangs them gets to decide a carefully selected component is superfluous on the basis that the piece didn't fit the fixings she was given.....clearly the French should never be given

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves

Henry Moores 'King and Queen' to exhibit, as they would saw off the bench they are sat on because the light fitting in the room hung too low!

My favourite is called 'The String and the Pebbles'

I loved this one too, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. You needto see it really as its not well represented in a photo....simple but nice concept.