13 Jun 2015

Points

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Of course the huck sampling rapidly ran out of control again. This is partly because I am very good at thinking one thing and pegging something entirely different, which then leads on to another train of thought… and so on. However, the result is that I have raced through my warp – there’s about a metre left, or a bit less – playing with shapes more than with structure, which was a bit naughty.

I mentioned only being able to get two blocks on 16 shafts. This is a limitation. However, the individual units can be swapped as mini-blocks too, and the advantage of the three-unit threading…

double huck threading

…which I’m using is that the units are in point order: B-A-B-C-D-C-B-A-B

So I can do this.

double huck points

And this.

double huck points colour change

And this.

double huck diamonds

Those diamonds are plain weave on the face but there is lace on the reverse, and it led me to several different configurations of ‘swapped ends’ – see where the blue lines criss cross on the grey shape? One of the things I like most about this structure is the ease of switching pattern ends independently of tabby ends, as in this earlier example. However, I don’t seem to have photos of the floatier iterations. Or rather, I am sure I took them, but am having difficulty finding them again… The PC has decided all of a sudden to disown the iPad, so it treats it as a new device every time I plug it in which is proving to be a bit of a pain. On the plus side, you have been spared several screens-full of triangular variations.

As I am running out of warp, the next step is to make another one. This time I am planning to use some yarn that I would be likely to use for the ‘real thing’ once I get going. However, I am weighing up two options and dithering between them. The extent of my dithering is quite severe, and I realise that this is always the area where I have the greatest difficulty in decision-making in spite of obsessive sampling! It’s not that I can’t settle on a ‘good yarn for this project’, but that there are so many good yarns I find it hard to choose one set of characteristics over another.

“Points” was posted by Cally on 13 June 2015 at http://callybooker.co.uk

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13 Jun 2015

Website updates

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Last weekend I had a bit of a website tidy-up and added a couple of new pages. The ‘Classes’ link on the menu bar at the top is now called ‘Learn’ and it opens up a wee sub-menu:

website menu

I have been writing for Craftsy for the best part of a year now and, as most of the topics I choose are based on the questions I get asked here, I have been meaning for a while to index them somehow. This page is a first pass at that, thanks to the clever folk who produced the Link Library plugin.

website craftsy links

I have also added a new page for our Discover Craft Dundee group, so I’d be feeling quite a sense of accomplishment if it hadn’t then taken me a whole week to get around to writing this post… Ah well.

“Website updates” was posted by Cally on 13 June 2015 at http://callybooker.co.uk

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6 Jun 2015

Back to huck

4

It’s taken a while, but I’m back at the double huck samples. The ‘while’ is the whole month of May, which got away from me, so is it any surprise that the notes I had made as I wove are now completely incomprehensible to me? Really, what does “all warp swap as before” mean, for instance? What had I done before? Was it “spots(warp)” perhaps? That appears to be the nearest entry, but the two manoeuvres described under these headings are mutually incompatible, so that can’t be it.

Anyway, moving on. When I wove the first few samples (here and here), I started with a peg plan which gave me the basic layer exchange – blue on top or grey on top – and a block exchange. Incidentally, it’s quite expensive to set up blocks of huck as you need four shafts per layer-and-block, so my 16 shafts only give me two blocks.

double huck threading

I tried this out for a bit and it was working very nicely. Alice Schlein has written an article about double woven huck which is now part of the Best of Weaver’s book on huck: I hadn’t read it before I started, so I am relieved to find her approach confirming my own, even though we favour slightly different threadings! Interestingly, Alice’s examples use two layers of the same colour but she uses the block exchange to create a lovely quilted effect in the cloth. Everyone who has handled my samples has commented on just how soft and puffy they are – it really is a delight. My own starting point was the simple wish to see two layers of huck lace in different colours back to back, which I can report is truly as pleasing as I thought it would be. Why would it be pleasing? Because the warp and weft floats allow you to stitch the two layers together completely invisibly, and if you set it wide enough you get holes lined up through both layers, and this combination of features really tickles me. I am smiling just thinking of it.

I’ve digressed again. So I started with the chain pegged to do the above. But the beauty of pegs is that you can think as you are weaving, “what if I swapped over the pattern ends in that block?” and quickly do exactly that. So I gradually tried swapping pattern ends, swapping units and so on, and my notes were supposed to record which swaps did what. It’s not that difficult to work out, especially once you’ve tried it, but I do sometimes have a mental freeze when I am trying to mix and match different parts of the pattern: layer? block? unit? end?

This approach to working with pegs is great fun, but it can get quite chaotic. To weave one repeat of five-end double huck takes 20 picks using 8 distinct lifts: two tabbies and two pattern picks for each layer. I prefer to peg up 12 lags rather than 8, so that I have tabby-pattern-tabby for each layer (interleaved with the other layer) as it considerably reduces the amount of winding back and forth. I then make a note for myself that lags 1-12 weave this configuration, 13-24 weave that one, and so on. But by the time I have carried out half a dozen experiments, the chain is a complete and utter mess. So my next step is to set up some chains specifically to repeat some of the things I have already tried out, whether I can read my notes or not.

First of all, I thought I would do a chain for the full “unit swap” (or “half-unit swap”, if you prefer), which gave me this rather alarming arrangement:

huck unit exchange peg plan

At the top of the photo you can just see the end of the more conventional one-layer-on-top peg plan, where shafts 1-8 are all lifted out of the way to weave on shafts 9-16. In the next section the units on shafts 2 & 3 swap places with their opposite number on shafts 10 & 11, ditto for the units on shafts 6 & 7 and shafts 14 & 15. I am still weaving grey with grey and blue with blue, so it is only the lift-this-layer-out-of-the-way pegs which are moving, but it looks a total muddle. Did the trick, though, and so I ended up with weft floats in blue and warp floats in grey:

huck unit exchange

Of course, you can then play around with these mini-blocks in the same way that you do with any double weave blocks (with the added bonus of those smiley holes).

huck units surrounded

All in all a good way to get back on track. More to come…

“Back to huck” was posted by Cally on 6 June 2015 at http://callybooker.co.uk

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4 Jun 2015

More dyeing

7

I spent another day at Kate’s yesterday, enjoying sunshine and creating colour. Except that the sunshine was never in evidence when I whipped out my phone to take a picture of the colour.

dyeing day

It was sunny, honest, it really was. But, to be honest, the setting is lovely whatever the state of the sky.

dyeing day start

dyeing update

dyeing day end

dyeing skeins

Don’t you like what Kate is up to with the chunky singles? It’s a Jacob, so the natural variation adds to the interest.

It’s been a busy week so far, both in and out of the studio. And then today suddenly it is quiet and the admin has had a chance to catch up with me. People often ask me how I ‘have time’ to blog, when there are so many other things which have a claim on me. I don’t feel that I manage to do very much blogging at all at the moment, but when I do it is almost always under the heading of Admin Avoidance. However, this morning I have already ticked off a few of the essentials, so this counts as elevenses.

“More dyeing” was posted by Cally on 4 June 2015 at http://callybooker.co.uk

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29 May 2015

Every May…

3

…I fall in love with this rose bush again. It is an old Scots rose, a rosa pimpinellifolia, which grows with reckless abandon and then does its thing, briefly but superbly, in a riot of rosy chaos.

I like the clouds reflected in the window too. And I am relieved to say that I have managed to get back into the studio this week, after the recent hiatus, and get on with some Actual Weaving. This…

…was supposed to be the final piece on this warp, but I seem to have a bit left. I’m not sure how much, but I’ll assume enough for another piece and if I run out sooner then I’ll stop.

On Wednesday I had a wee jaunt to Edinburgh for an event organised by Craft Scotland, which had the aim of bringing makers together with people from the tourism industry. A small group of us here at WASPS have banded together under the heading Discover Craft Dundee in order to offer studio visits and workshops on a larger scale than we can manage individually, and this was our first opportunity to test our ideas with the people who really know the market. We had worked very hard on our proposals so it was good to get some positive feedback, and a useful exercise in dealing with unexpected questions!

In fact, it has been an unusually social week, with a lovely visit today from Dorothy Stewart who is soon to get an exciting new loom. There is always much to talk about between weavers. The rulebook says that looms must be spoken of first, of course, but that conversation must also cover yarns, weave structures, ancillary equipment, exhibitions – and those are just the preliminaries. I do love weave chat, so thanks, Dorothy, for dropping in.

And now May is almost over and I have the feeling I missed quite a lot of it. There are several activities in the calendar for June and July, but the next couple of weeks are looking reasonably quiet. So, barring all the calamities which usually knock me off course when I set out to do some planning, I plan to set out to do some planning…

“Every May…” was posted by Cally on 29 May 2015 at http://callybooker.co.uk

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