weave4fun

3200 ends. Double cloth tartan at 84 epi. Should take at least two days to pull through. This time I will remember to take a cushion to save my bum from the numb. Sloppy selvedges of course, but this is to be expected when you push everything to the absolute limit.

  These are for the latest project. The idea is to push tartan outside of it's traditional boundaries. I'm doing this by combining two cloths together.  Some of these are more "different" than others.  The hope is that someone who will look at some of these and recognise them as tartan. But on closer inspection someone who knows what they're looking at will realise they've been fooled .   These are currently my favourites. I spent about a day and a half putting them together on Scotweave.  I've got to now go and choose 6 warp sections to work with and start planning my sample warp. I'll start building the warp tomorrow. I expect it'll take a while. It's going to be a little complicated.

 This was from the last 4 weeks of work (or so). My routine was a little disrupted and I wasn't concentrating very well. As such I didn't put as much serious design work into this colour pallette as I would have liked. I basically did a little trend research, alighted on a colour scheme or feel that appealed to me and picked about 8 yarns off the shelves.  As well as a kinda soft blending effect I was also trying to create a subtle textural effect, with lines of raised surface texture running diagonally up the cloth. I can't be sure how well it comes across on the screen. I seriously need to invest in some proper photography equipment, like a stand and lights, and things like that.  I feel this one is a little "strong", but it added a little contrast to the others. Some people think it's their favourite. Some people don't like it very much at all. There's no accounting for taste. This is the final group of ten. I spent hours mount...

This device was made by Tom from Edinburgh Hacklab. I gave him some knitted conductor fabric and he's turned it into the actuator of this funky little noisemaking device. I believe that he's got a 555 square wave generator there, like I was mucking about with last year and having so much fun with. Apparently the video's a little out of sync, but nevermind.

My first two rugs from the new loom. Actually finished them some time ago and forgot to mention. One is made of all my scrap jeans I didn't want, the other is wool/nylon (20/80 I think). The wool one is for in front of the hearth at my parents house. The other one is mine and sits at a funny angle between the couch and the telly. Putting the couch at a funny angle is the only way to make the room work with 2 couches, a loom and a dining table in it.

Well, at the end of threading up this 1200 end warp on 24 shafts I have 4 extra ends. I swear I individually counted off each bunch of 24 ends and yet I have extra ends. I'm going to assume I put in an extra cross or two somewhere when I was making the warp on the stand, because that wouldn't really be much of a problem. The chance that I have on 4 occassions both missed a shaft in threading and also miscounted the same batch seems far fetched. Also, I didn't take as much care as usual in counting my crosses when I was making my warp, so that's probably where I made my mistake. Also, this is a Texel loom, from France. I've never used one of these before, I gather the programming box is somewhat arcane. But they really are beautiful machines. Some people moan about them, but I suspect they just haven't given them the time needed. A little bit awkward to thread through, but I think I've got the hang of it now, you just have to sit side on so as you don...