weave4fun

I am currently in the process of designing a triple layered fabric. One layer shall carry conductive warp threads (one out of every three), another layer shall carry conductive weft threads (again, one out of every three) and a third layer shall lay between them and act as an insulator, keeping them apart and preventing unwanted contact between the two conductive layers. Constructing a treble cloth is a compicated process. The way that a treble cloth is woven is that first the face cloth is woven, then the centre cloth is woven, then the back cloth is woven. This is a draft for a treble cloth. The crosses indicate weaving marks for the cloth currently being woven, the dashes are lifts and are used to indicate shafts that are being lifted in the case of layers that are above the layer currently being woven. Blue is back, Red is front, Green is centre (All three layers are plain weave btw) The cloth is constructed like so 1: Back cloth is woven. All red and green marks are lif...

i've been having fun today, weaving away and making up new drafts.  This is a selection of the drafts i've been making up as I idly whittle my time away, avoiding doing what i'm supposed to be doing in my timetabled class time. Also what I've been doing at home when i should be studying for a test on colour chemistry, which isn't going to be easy. We're also going to get tested on weave structures and processes, but I know most of that and besides it tends to conform to logical rules. Colour chemistry and dyeing and all that though you just have to know. I guess there probably is some logical consistency to it, but probably only if you already happen to be shit-hot at molecular chemistry and physics and biology. Which I'm not  I've also been weaving away (as I say) and have just finished my first sample of a pattern repeat i took from the knotwork book i mentioned before. It's working out rather well, although you can blatantly see the reed lines i...

and we're spending pretty much all of our time in the weave shed. pretty much everybody has ended up doing double weave, which means that pretty much everybody is behind. i'm doing an interchanging double weave with 2/2 twill on both shafts, meaning i'm using 16 shafts. my lecturer tried to talk me out of it, but i wasnae listening. i hadn't thought of this before i started, but it turns out that areas of the fabric where the two faces interhange often tighten up a lot quicker than those areas of the warp where the faces don't interchange. as you can see in the second one the interchanging is occuring every 8 picks, by the time i'd finished i had to cut the fabric off and retie onto the front stick 'cause the warp was slack on the sides and in the middle and it was becoming impossible to weave properly. that's why you're seeing these before i've finished the 3rd sample. we have 3 samples to do. it was supposed to be finished by the end of ...

i have to meet prince charlie. only for a minute or so, but still. i might end up with my picture in the paper. and i hate having my picture anyway. cos i set the loom up at castlehill heritage centre, and that's what that's for. i wasn't sure originally, but when i got an invitation letter in a fancy envelope i kinda knew. so that's that. i think the other people that'll be there are more important from a social point of view. Charlie ain't a decision maker, he ain't a politician or a businessman or a charity organiser. but there'll probably be a lot of them there. so it's probably worth me going. and i might as well shave, mightn't i? i mean, i don't think i'll be coming back to live in caithness permanently in the future, so in the long run it might just be a waste of time, but on the other hand there's always that chance that i might have to fall down the route of being an anachronistic backward-looking kind of a guy that's ju...

It's finally done. I've made all the heddles i think i really need for the castletown loom, and i'm going to go in and warp it up on saturday. or maybe friday. friday might be better now i come to think of it. anyway, i got some yarn for to put on the loom. a navy blue plain yarn, probably something like 28 worsted count i guess, and also a brown and white sorta flecky nep yarn. i think that's the right term, i really should know these things by heart now. anyway, i'm going to warp it up at 20epi or so with blue predominating in a sort of tartan check. so, my rough calculations go like this: 500/20 = (5/2=2.5x10=25) 25" or just over 2 feet. allowing for draw-in it could end up being exactly 2 feet wide, which is quite a nice width for a scarf. so i guess i'll make a 5 metre warp with that and get 4 scarves out of it if all goes well anyway, that's that. making 500 heddles is no joke. -andrew

i got bored when i was in the country. this is what i did for the 3D sculpture part of visual studies the front piece is a warp of plastic fishing line, which is tough enough to handle a weft of bramble and gorse stalks. for those not familiar with gorse, it's prickly as hell and almost impossible to weave with. you really need a shed about 20 cm deep to expect to not be snagging warp threads while using it. the warp was a chaotic mess by the time i'd finished using the gorse, the brambles were very little trouble on the other hand and this is a flower, think i had a picture up of this in unpainted state a while back. as you can see it's made out of gardening wire and masking tape the tutors thought the straw hanging all over it was intentional, something to do with the interface between nature and artifice. the truth is i ripped the wire out of a tangle of weeds. the suit is sort of an idea i had for aggressive textiles. textiles that harm rather than heal, y'know. the...

cos i'll be out of computer range and besides, my camera's broken first year's finished anyhow. don't know if i've passed CAD or Art History yet, but have everything else. away out west tomorrow to help build up a ruined house over the summer. took my copy of collingwood's tablet-weaving book to see if i can't get into some more complicated pattern. doubleface i could do with getting the knack of. i wish i hadn't misplaced that linen, i guess it's around in gala somewhere, but that's no use. need to buy a shitload more acrylic as well. always easy to get hold of. tablet weaving with wool pisses me off, it's too damn hairy, felts up awful as well. linen is lovely to TW with, i imagine silk is too, but i've never been able to afford any. anyone got any more suggestions for fibre for tablet weaving?