Friday, February 10, 2017

Annual 24 Shaft Challenge

If it's February, it must be time to weave samples for the Complex Weavers 24 +/- Study Group.  For some reason, it's always a last minute thing for me.  This year was pretty last minute, although I have been later in past years.

For this round of samples, I played around a little with network drafting.  I use Fiberworks PCW software to help plan my designs.  One of the features of the program is that you can draw a shape in the threading area and convert it to a network draft.  This makes the process fairly easy although you still have to make sure the transition between the repeats works OK.  I honestly didn't spend too much time tweeting this design.  I wasn't entirely happy with it but the samples are a time to experiment.

For the tie-up, I decided I wanted to have the fabric be weft faced.  That way I was lifting fewer shafts that were left down and I would get something different on each face of the cloth.  I was able to "draw" diagonal lines in the tie-up box to create the tie-up.  I planned to weave it as threaded, (i.e. trop as writ).

Sample Design - one repeat

I picked 10/2 cotton for both the warp and weft,  since I have a lot of it and for a change pick colors I like.  (Normally, I use this exercise as a way to use up yarn colors I don't particularly care for.)  I selected two colors for the warp - UKI Crab (green) and Lt Turk (blue).  I alternated these colors across the warp.  I find that using two colors in the warp of similar value will often give added interest to the finished textile.

I wasn't sure what color weft I wanted to use, so I wove a couple inches of four colors.  From bottom to top they are:  UKI Spec Turk (blue), Hummingbird (purple), Ind Orange and Lt Orange.

Color sampling

I decided to go with the complementary color Ind Orange which would give some value contrast as well.

Final Project Colors

I like the resulting cloth.  It was a shame to cut it up because there was both iridescence and shine that I'm not sure the 3" x 3" squares have.  The warp- and weft-faced sides are nicely complementary.


Finished Textile - Back and Front


I need to go back to the design and work on it a little.  Also there was a threading error that kept me from using the total width of the cloth.  I have several more yards of this warp left to use for experimentation.