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Exotica. 

When the Midlands Textile Forum decided on this title for an exhibition to be staged at the Botanical Gardens in Birmingham, (on from now until 30th September), I had to smile!  I could just imagine certain men of my acquaintance brightening up with the titivating thought of what they might see!!  But they would be disappointed.

Not in terms of the quality of work on show, but in the subject matter. 

Exotica refers to the plants that can be found at the Botanical Gardens which, although not large (15 acres), is perfectly formed!  Just like the exhibition.  22 works are shown by 17 artists in a long thin gallery with good lighting and plenty of space around the exhibits. 

Themes are good for exhibitions.  One study day at the Gardens led to different interpretations from each artist, and the range of textile techniques used, the different approaches, the different subject matter taken from the Gardens worked well together.

Themes are also good for individual artists developing their work.  I used to be a total scatterbrain, tempted by a myriad of techniques, a wealth of subject matter and influenced by everything.  (Some would say that I still am but I suspect they don’t know what I was like before!!!) 

For me, finding weaving was a turning point in my life.  From living the life of a musician, I found myself pulled to weaving.  It stimulated my brain cells, helped me to look at life with the eyes of a visual artist, and challenged me in many different ways.  Then, in 2006, I got the book Above The Earth.  Casually flicking through this lovely coffee table book, I was taken over by a total certainty that I had now found my genre in weaving - a total expression through weaving of what I am about.  I still have that feeling today, and am aware that this will probably be with me all my life.  Satellite and aerial images of the unpopulated areas of the world, away from the obvious visual physical damage that humans have perpetrated on this lovely planet, inspire me with thoughts of how to affect people’s perception of their world through weaving. 

The limitations of having a theme can be a positive thing - a jumping off point for delving deeper.  Limits are good for stimulating creative thought and lateral thinking.  As a child, how often can boredom develop into imaginative ideas for play, for making something out of materials close at hand.  I know for me as a child that I developed some crazy ideas that sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t, but I always had fun finding out. 

Now I have found my theme for weaving, my world is opening up in ways unimaginable to me before. 

Do you have something that inspires you in a similar way?  Do you want one?  Sometimes just thinking about it can help address that overwhelming feeling that can come from too much choice.  Perhaps this week might be a good time to ponder what you want to be your special theme…..

Over the last few weeks, I’ve indulged in some creative downtime!  After the hectic scheduling of Complex Weavers and Convergence, Agnes and I headed off for a road trip (aka Thelma and Louise - without the dramatic ending!!).  Agnes was in charge of itinerary, and we headed out to Arizona, aiming for Page, via the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest.  We took two days to get there, so we could take in unscheduled photo-call stops along the way.  Once at Page, after a day to get our bearings, drive around and see what was available, stopping in for quite a while at the lovely little Powell Museum in Page, each day we scheduled somewhere to visit in the morning, and then chilled out for the remainder of the day.  It worked well with the weather (thunder storms most days in the late afternoon and evening), and gave us some downtime to process everything we saw and experienced.  We both journal to help that filtering process, and we both took loads of photos, sometimes of the same shot, sometimes completely different things. 

Over the 10 days we had, we visited the Grand Canyon twice - the north rim was amazing both in sunlight and in cloud and rain - Bryce Canyon (which was simply amazing!), Antelope Canyon, took a ride down Glen Canyon, and came back to New Mexico via Monument Valley.  I haven’t got round to sorting out my photos yet as I’m teaching non-stop until September, but as and when I do, I’ll post a few with my Sunday blog. 

People had told me previously that these places are not appreciated until they are experienced, and I can wholeheartedly endorse that view.  The feeling you get when you are standing near the edge of any big canyon, especially when it is shrouded in mist and rain and you can’t see the edge (!), and suddenly the mist rolls back, the rain lifts and a peak is illuminated by a shaft of sunlight and glows a rich red is breathtaking.  This is when you appreciate the wonders of nature firsthand, and realise your place in the big scheme of things and acknowledge deep in your soul how small you are and yet how integral a part of the whole shebang.  It is a salutary experience and worth remembering when back in the hum-drum of everyday routine.  What food for the brain and visual stimulation for the eyes. 

Agnes and I had a ball!  We are both still friends <G> and found we have more than weaving in common.  We think in a similar way, so we appreciated the wonders of everything we saw, in both nature and in the people we met along the way.  We now have brains full of inspirational images and ideas that will, at some point, find their way into our different forms of weaving.  We’re now waiting with baited breath to find out where the next Convergence and Complex Weavers Seminars will be - so we can plan our next road trip in the US!!

In my last texture blog post in July, I was talking about honeycomb.  At the same lecture that I gave at Complex Weavers Seminars on honeycomb, I also showed the results of shibori and seersucker techniques in creating texture in single cloth. 

Shibori is usually associated with tie-dyeing.  There are two fabulous books on Shibori that have been inspirational to many people.  These are : 

1)  ”Shibori - the inventive art of Japanese shaped resist dyeing” by Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada, Mary Kellogg Rice and Jane Barton.  The book covers tradition, techniques and innovation. ISBN is 978-4-7700-2399-5. 

2)  ” Memory on Cloth - shibori now” by Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada.  ISBN is 978-4-7700-2777-1.

I started reading these with interest, but no real thoughts of applying this to my texture research, until I came across some images that showed the resulting fabric in physical textural relief as a result of the shibori process.  Many of the designs created visual dimensionality on the 2D surface, but these few actually showed the 3D potential of shibori.  This piqued my curiosity and I decided to focus on this as a method of obtaining dimensional effects in my fabric. 

I also had “Woven Shibori” by Catharine Ellis, ISBN 978-1-931499-67-5 and decided that using loom-controlled shibori effects were what I was particularly interested in.  The chapter written by Kay Faulkner on warp-controlled shibori got me thinking deeper still, and then I attended a workshop given by Kay in December 2008.  Whilst the focus of the workshop was on the dyeing effects created through the warp shibori technique, several of us were fascinated with the textural possibilities. 

Back at home, I started investigating all the books in greater depth, teasing out the textural applications and then exploring.  These explorations are going to be included in a monograph that should be available in mid-October, but I’d like to share with you a few ideas from my lecture to the Complex Weavers!

There are several ways to create the supplementary warp that is the shibori warp.  You can use a shrinking warp yarn for your shibori ends so that you don’t have to remove them from the warp in order to create the pulling up.  You can also use a thicker yarn such as a 3/2 or 6/2 cotton, so that you can bunch the fabric up easily on your shibori ends in order to create the puckering you want.  Kay Faulkner uses fishing line or monofilament that is very strong and very slippery.  (NB: don’t use a cotton that loses its dye when washed or steamed at hot temperatures!! - How do I know?!!!)

If you are using supplementary wefts for your shibori pull-up, then you can use fishing line/monofilament or strong cotton (crochet cotton does a good job as well) again.  However, I found that wool didn’t work as effectively in the weft.  However, if you tried elastane or Lycra, that might give really good results…. 

For your main warp yarn, use a non-shrinking yarn.  I used 18/3 cotton because I had a lot of it!  But any good cotton, or maybe linen, would give you a great result.  You can also use worsted or superwash wool, if you prefer. 

Next week, I’ll explain how you can create simple ridges and bumps with a few shafts, and some simple wave shapes.

I promised to send attendees at my seminar ”Beneath the Surface” - textures in double cloth, that I would send you the Resources page of my presentation.  If you would like to receive this, please email me at stacey@theloomroom.co.uk and I will email it to you.  If you have a problem receiving it (sometimes US isp’s block UK static addresses, let me know and I will send it via a web-based server. 

Thanks for attending my class and I hope it piqued your curiosity (pun intended!!)

Like many other weavers, my blog this week is about old friends and new friends.  After visiting New Mexico for the Complex Weavers Seminars and HGA’s Convergence 2010, in Albequerque, many of us are buzzing with new techniques and information that we’ve learnt, and ideas from seeing others’ work and the surrounding areas in New Mexico.  The art galleries that have been visited, the different approach in cultural terms that we have absorbed, and the camaraderie that we’ve shared are all food for our brains, our eyes and our souls.

On stepping out of my taxi at 11pm after a very long day travelling the first person I saw was my room-mate for 3 weeks, Agnes Hauptli from New Zealand.  Agnes and I first met at the last Convergence in Ruby Leslie’s workshop, the 3Ds of 3D.  Then last year, Agnes came to me on a bursary to study jacquard weaving on my old card-driven jacquard sample looms, and then we met up a week or so later for the European Textile Network’s conference which was held in Haslach, Austria with the theme of jacquard weaving.  On the strength of getting on well together, we decided to be room-mates at the two Albuquerque conferences and then to go on a road trip together (more of that another time). 

The next day it was wonderful to meet up with lots of Complex Weavers I’d met before, and lots of laughter and hugs abounded!  The fashion show was good fun, although I didn’t really get to take a close look at the wonderful garments and scarves that were paraded round as I had to read out all the technical information on each item, but this has to be one of the great parts of the Seminars.  The work is outstanding and the reception of each item was warm and admiring.  The weavers’ handshake (going up and feeling someone’s handwoven item) was very evident and this is one of the few occasions when you know you aren’t going to get funny looks at the mildest, and a slap on the face as the most extreme reaction! 

At each meal-time, we try to sit at a table which has people we’ve never met before and have a chat, and the atmosphere is so congenial.  Every meal is a time to enlarge our friendship pool and find more soul-sisters (and brothers!!) 

The seminars are all given by the knowledgeable CW members and what a variety!  From historical techniques to cutting edge techniques, from kumihimo to shibori, and everything in between, it is a feast of knowledge, experience and enthusiasm!  Also I just have to mention the Lillian Whipple Retrospective and the wonderful surprise event of an animated weaving movie created by Alice Schlein with the woven help of many of our most respected weavers!  It was awesome!! 

There’s loads more I could say but I’ll run out of room to talk about Convergence if I don’t move on now.  Convergence had a wide range of classes of various lengths, from 1 1/2 hours to 3 days, some practical hands-on, some lectures.  The vendors hall was busy and there seemed to be more booths there this year than on the previous occasion, at least to my eyes.  There were so many wonderful, delicious yarns and gadgets to drool over, and looms to try out and covet!!  There were lots of events going on in several places and it is my one regret that I didn’t have the time or the energy to go to them! 

My heartfelt thanks and congratulations go out to both the organising teams for their wonderful skills in pulling off two excellent conferences.  Meg Wilson and her team at Complex Weavers broke new ground in setting up this Seminar, and Candy Burbag and her team had a huge task (usually thankless!) in putting on Convergence.  Thanks guys for a wonderful, inspirational, heart-warming, friendship-enhancing time in Albuquerque!

Today’s post is about honeycomb. The first thing to clear up is what I mean by honeycomb.  In old weaving books, and in UK and Europe, what I am talking about is distorted weft.  In the US it is known as honeycomb, and I am using that terminology because it looks like a honey-bee’s honeycomb to me.  What is known a honeycomb in UK and Europe is known as waffle in the US, because the result looks like a breakfast waffle.   Many of the new books on weaving are coming from the US and are widely known in the international weaving circle, so that is another reason for me to use the US terminology.

Anyway, on to the basics.  The honeycomb is created by using a minimum of two blocks in the threading.  Each of those blocks consists of 2 shafts, and the threading and liftplan looks like this.

As you can see, you only need plain weave to create honeycomb.  The cell that you are not weaving consists of warp floats and weft floats. 

You can use an outline weft, usually twice as thick as your cell weft, to weave plain weave all the way across the warp in between the two different cell positions.  If you lay in the weft with extra curve(by this I mean making the weft curve in an arc when you insert it instead of a diagonal straight line), then when you beat it up (firmly), the yarn starts to bend around the cells you have just woven, curving into the non-woven areas of warp and weft floats.  Then you weave the alternating cell, and repeat the outline 2 picks, again putting extra curve into the thicker yarn.  That will then start to bend around the cells and into the unwoven areas, thereby creating the undulating effect, and hence its UK name of distorted weft.  Also, as you start to weave the second block of cells, they will pack down into the non-woven area below them and form more of a rounded shape than a square block.

This cannot be seen on the drawdown as the rectilinear approach cannot depict what happens in the real world in this instance. 

Here’s what honeycomb looks like.

There is a lot you can do with honeycomb.  You can use as many shafts as you have on your loom so long as you use 2 shafts per cell.  With more shafts, you can play with how and where you place your cells.  I’m just about to include this topic in a seminar at Complex Weavers Seminars, using 10 shafts. 

If you play around with different outline wefts, and different fibre compositions to your cell wefts, you can get many different versions which look completely different from each other. 

I find honeycomb incredibly versatile and fun to use, and I hope you’ll explore it a little….

I’m going to take a short break whilst Complex Weavers Seminars and Convergence are on, and will resume posting some texture blogs later in August.  I hope you’ll join me then.  In the meantime, if you’ve a topic that you would like me to cover, drop me an email :  stacey@theloomroom.co.uk  and let me know!  I’ll do my best to post a blog on it for you!

As you might know, I subscribe to a great magazine on philosophy for people who aren’t necessarily philosophers but who like to ponder on some of life’s more interesting questions!!  This quarter’s edition of The Philosopers’ Magazine has a number of interesting articles including one on the intelligence of dolphins and contemplating that we should perhaps consider them as ‘nonhuman persons’. 

However, that is not what I am writing about today.  The central theme of this volume is should philosophy be taught to children in primary and secondary school?  Research which has been done in the UK over the last 20 years on teaching philosophy to primary school children has found that children ‘who have been through sustained Philosophy with Children improve in almost every other academic area.  Philosophers are traditionally asked awkward questions and to come up with alternative answers, and it really breeds independent thinking.  If we want a generation of people who will begin to tackle and solve the problems we have, we need people who think for themselves and who think differently.’  So says the author, Brooke Lewis, a journalist who is now working in Cambodia. 

I’ve been concerned for several years about the dumbing down in school of original thinking by students.  Because of the constraints of the National Curriculum in the UK, many of my teaching friends find themselves handcuffed not only in the content of what they teach but even how they are to teach it.  I am, perhaps naively, encouraged by the new coalition government’s view of giving schools back to teachers and reducing the bureaucratic restrictions of the National Curriculum and maybe philosophy can help our youngsters to think for themselves once more instead of the seemingly primary goal of regurgitating set facts and figures at exam time! 

The Philosophy for Children programme sounds heavy, but it isn’t.  Imaginatively taught, children are encouraged to think about morals, ethics, choices, through the medium of books, TV, films, songs, and practical life situations.  There’s an example of this in the article - discussing clones prompted by a new movie. 

It is this kind of in-depth, curious, thinking that I find myself searching for in myself and in others.  Quite often when I go out socially, I am dismayed at the level of surface conversation - inane chatter that skims across the surface of everything.  I know I am one of those people who gets too deep too quickly, and that this is uncomfortable for many people to handle, so I more often than not keep very quiet unless I’m with people I know or people who are happy to get meaty in a discussion.  But when you do find like-minded people and a wide-ranging, give-and-take discussion involving lots of different ways of thinking and sounding each other out, the joy is just wonderful! 

I’m not a person who does confrontation, but I am a person who loves to think about other people’s opinions.  These sorts of discussions lead to more open minds and personal mental growth.  My son and I still have great discussions about all sorts of things and it’s interesting to see how differently his mind works from mine. 

There’s also a young lad of 12 who visits his granny across the road from me.  We were looking up at a passing plane and the stars and got into a discussion about space the other night at a barbecue, and he was both very knowledgeable and very curious, sucking up all the information I could drag from the depths of my mind.  We had a brilliant chat about infinity and his granny said that that’s what he would do all the time if he could, but no-one has the time to talk with him in that way.  If our children learn to access deeper levels of thinking in this way, we could find ourselves in a more considerate, thoughtful era, and I’m all for the parents and schools that will help in this task!!

Conversations about intelligence seem to have popped up all over the place this week….

How many different sorts of intelligence are there?  So far this week, here are what’s come up in conversation….

There’s the obvious academic intelligence which seems to be all about remembering lots of facts and figures to be regurgitated at required times such as exams (which are thankfully coming to an end now). 

There’s IQ.

There’s common sense, and practical intelligence - things learnt by watching and absorbing practical things over the years.

There’s what I call ‘native’ intelligence - the kind of intelligence that puts separate bits of information together to make up a complete picture. 

There’s lateral thinking - which is separate from native intelligence but closely related - where seemingly random and unrelated things can be the trigger to solving another problem entirely.

There’s emotional intelligence - where people are aware of how others are feeling and respond accordingly.

There’s social intelligence - knowing how to interact with people in many different situations whether one-on-one or in groups. 

I also rate curiosity as a form of intelligence.  If you are curious about life, how things/nature/science works, if you are curious about how people think, if you want to keep learning about many different topics, extending your life experience through reading, listening to others, experiencing different situations, then to me, that is an intellectual form of intelligence. 

Why this discussion on intelligence?  My son, who has just turned 21, decided he wants to go into the army.  He took various tests, including one that measured ‘intelligence’.  From what he described, this test was designed to search out speedy reactions to many different situations - comprehension, lateral thinking, native intelligence, and others.  What it was not designed to do was measure academic intelligence - lucky for him because he is not that way inclined!  However, in other forms of intelligence he rates pretty highly.  In fact, so much so that he scored high marks and has been selected for a number of possible jobs that require his brains rather than his brawn.  A huge relief for his mother!!! 

The whole process led to a number of discussions with several people about intelligence and I find it fascinating!  What other forms of intelligence have I not included in my summary?  We place so much store by academic intelligence, and yet, once we are out of the education system, that is virtually the least used intelligence.  It is a rare school that teaches students about the other forms of intelligence that will be so useful to them in the outside world.  Why is that?  And what is the benefit of such a skewed approach to intelligence? 

My son, on exam results alone, although no dunce, is not a high flyer.  Yet put him in a situation that calls for a cool head and an ability to weigh things up quickly and accurately and he is a star!  And with a razor-sharp wit!  The army will give him the opportunity to develop those skills that he possesses, learn new ones and keep him interested and engaged.  Although as a mum it’s been a shock to the system, I know that he will have a purpose and be part of something much bigger than he is.  His intelligence is finally being given the recognition it deserves.

Last week we looked at introducing textural elements into your plain weave to give instant changes.  This week, we are looking at a technique called Warp Repp.  This is a fabric where the warp yarns are so closely sett to each other that the weft yarn cannot be seen.  This is known as warp-faced cloth.

Firstly, a little information on sett and how it impacts your cloth. 

Imagine wrapping your yarn around a ruler so that each new strand touches the one preceding it, so you can’t see in between the strands, but the strands aren’t overlapping each other.  Normally you would use this method to give you the total number of wraps per inch, and then mentally replace some of the threads to allow space for the weft threads to pass through the warp ends. 

For instance, if you wanted to weave a balanced plain weave (which we talked about last week), you would need to create space after each strand so that a weft yarn of the same size could fit through the gap.  If you did that all the way across the inch, you would find that you had halved your original number of strands.  So if we want plain weave, we divide the number of wraps per inch by 2.  That gives you your sett. 

If you wanted to weave a balanced twill weave on 4 ends, that structure needs 2 threads to be adjacent to each other, then a space for the weft, then another 2 threads together, then a space (for 2/2 twill).  Alternatively you might want 3 threads adjacent to each other, then a space for the weft, followed by just 1 warp thread, followed by a weft space.  Either way, you have pushed 2 strands out of the way to create the space for the weft.  Therefore, only 4 out of 6 strands are required for a 4-end twill, so you would divide your total number of wraps per inch by 2/3 to get the sett you would need for twill.  This is very approximate, and varies depending on the weave structure you want to use and the yarns you are using.  If you have hairy yarns( ie mohair), you may need to leave more space for the weft, and for very smooth yarns (such as rayon) you may need to close up the gaps a little.

Anyway, the closer together you sett your yarns, the more warp-faced it becomes.  If the warp is all you can see, that is called warp-faced.  If you can see a little bit of the weft, then it is called a warp-emphasis  fabric.  If you can see equal amounts of warp and weft, then you have a balanced cloth.  If you can see more weft than warp, but you can still see some warp, then you have a weft-emphasis fabric, and when you can only see the weft, and no warp, then it is weft-faced.  Both extremes are very useful for rugs! 

Note:  it is a very useful exercise on its own to do a sample warp where you do a sample with warp-faced, and resley for warp-emphasis, then resley for balanced, then for weft-emphasis and finally for weft-faced.  This gives you an idea of how the different setts can affect your weaving, and the texture differences that are created just through a change in the sett.

Warp Repp

It’s quite fun to have two different colours, or combinations of colours, in your warp and to sley them so closely that you can use thicker and thinner weft yarns to create colour ridges.  This is called warp repp, and to do this you need to put one colour (or combination) onto two shafts, and the other on two more shafts, and sley them through the reed twice as closely as you would for a normal balanced weave.  Once you have done this, you weave using the two shafts with one colour as if they were one shaft, and alternating them with the other two shafts with the other colour. 

 Warp  1

Warp 2

Why bother putting the two colours on 4 shafts?  Why not just use 2?  Well, if you put the threads that closely together so that the weft yarn doesn’t play any visual part on the surface on the fabric (other than its thickness making one colour warp more prominent) then it is really hard to lift all the warp ends you want in one colour without snarling them up with the other colour.  4 shafts enables you to spread the threads out just a little, and raise one shaft first to raise half the threads you want, and then the other shaft to raise the other half, before putting the weft yarn through.  

The fun comes here with the varying of the thickness of the weft yarn.  Basically the weft yarn just sits in between the two different layers of colour which alternate being on the top or the underneath of the fabric.  If you use two wefts of similar thickness, both warp colours have equal prominence.  Don’t forget that the weft yarn won’t be seen except at the edges where it turns round to go back into the next pick because the warp yarns are so close together. 

However, if you change the thickness of one or both of the weft yarns, so that one is much thicker than the other, you change the emphasis on the colour showing on one side of the fabric.  The opposite colour will show more on the other side of the fabric.  If you create a thicker weft yarn by doubling, tripling or quadrupling the number of strands of weft in one pick, you can vary the amount of colour showing on one side at will.  If you choose to graduate the thicker yarn so it gets thinner over a period of several picks, whilst the thinner yarn gets thicker over the same period, you will effectively be changing over the predominance of the colour on one side, with the reverse happening on the other side.  This is what I did here….

 Warp repp side 1

         Warp repp side 2                                                           

If your warp happens to include some textured yarns in it, then there is even more interest in the appearance of the fabric.  However, do be aware that because it is sett so close together, textured warp yarns might well be hard to separate into their respective layers. 

These illustrations are from a series of samples I developed from a greetings card.

In the process of weaving one of the samples, I made an error.  I was not a happy bunny about this mistake at the time, but the next day, with a cooler head and a more objective eye, I realised that this mistake could be turned into a distinctive feature and here is the result.

Sunset at Sea.

The moral of this is that there are no mistakes in weaving, merely opportunities, which is what my first weaving teacher told me in my first week of weaving.  What a mantra to live by!!

Next week, combining different setts to get different effects.

In future weeks, I shall be introducing one of my favourite simple weaves - honeycomb, introducing you to overshot for texture, crepe weaves and woven shibori.  Later blogs will include creating texture in double cloth. 

Please feel free to share the blog with your weaving friends.  The more the merrier!

© Stacey Harvey-Brown 2010

Texture in Plain Weave  - Starting Simple

As promised last week, here is the first post on how to introduce texture into your weaving.  This is especially for people with simple looms, rigid heddle, 2 or 4 shafts.  I’m not going to go into tapestry here as there are many people with way more expertise than me in tapestry, so I’m focussing on looms that can create 2 sheds through some kind of mechanical means – either a rigid heddle or a shaft system. 

When we first start to weave, it is my experience that most people begin with a balanced cloth.  By that, I mean that the warp and the weft show equally in the fabric.  You space the warp so that you can insert weft threads of roughly similar size to create a cloth with equal effects of the warp and the weft.  The simplest weave to use is plain weave, the interlacing of weft over one warp end then under the next warp end, and repeated over and under across the width of the fabric.  The next pass of the weft sees it doing the opposite of the previous pick, with the weft going over the warp end that it went under last time, and under the warp it went over last time.  This basic interlacement is called plain weave, and quite often is what is referred to as ‘tabby’ in weaving books.  Why tabby?  I’ve no idea and if anyone does know, I’d love for you to contact me so we can share it!! 

Anyway, with smooth yarns in plain weave, you get a smooth appearance to the fabric.  No surprise there.  But there are several things you can do to vary this right away. 

Balanced Plain Weave

1)         You can use a different weft yarn ( ie not the same as the warp), one that has little bumps (noil) or little loops (boucle), you can use a thicker yarn or a thinner one. 

2)         You can use two or more weft yarns and weave them using one for a while before switching over to the other one, and you can vary the stripe widths. 

3)         You can use two weft yarns, one thick and one thin, which you use alternately so you get a ridged effect.

4)         You can use two warp yarns and do any of the above.

5)         You can space the warp by sleying (put the threads through the reed) in different amounts so that some warp ends are crammed together and others spaced apart as you go across the warp.

6)         You can space the weft so that some parts you beat really hard, and other parts you beat really loosely.   

Finishing

Finishing can make a tremendous difference, depending on the yarns you’ve chosen. Generally the more wool content your yarn has, and the more the area of just one yarn being used, the more potential it has to full and pull in. 

If you use overspun yarns (not really recommended if you are new to weaving) then just immersing the fabric into hot water causes it to buckle and pucker - exciting to watch!  NB – you need to sett overspun yarns slightly more open that you normally would so the yarns have room to react. 

Cottons can get a slightly crazed look to them – called tracking – which can be very effective.  If you are using combinations of yarns, observe what happens with different finishing treatments, especially if one of the yarns is a cotton and one a wool.  You’ll find that if you have used them alternately across the warp that they cancel each other out a bit.

But if you have say a 1” group of cotton ends, followed by a 1” group of wool ends, watch what happens when you finish it.  The wool should shrink, causing the cotton to ruche up a little.  This is called differential shrinkage.  Try finishing off with cotton down the edges of your piece.  They will ruche up beautifully to create an undulating edge.  Lovely in a scarf.   Vary the proportions to see what happens.

If you want to start trying out texture in your weaving, have a play with the ideas I’ve suggested above as a means of finding out what you like and don’t like.  As with everything in weaving, slight alterations – to sett, to beat, yarn choice, washing at the end – can have quite dramatic results, so it’s worth experimenting. 

Have fun!  It would be brilliant if you were to comment on your results on this blog, and it would be wonderful if you would upload and share with us images of your experiments.   If you have a curious mind, you’ll find this fascinating! 

Next week I am going to post photos and talk about warp repp, and show you an interesting warp repp effect that I found quite by accident!  If you have any feedback you’d like to share, please feel free to post a comment on this blog, or email me Stacey@theloomroom.co.uk

Also if you’d like to pass this on to friends and weavers you know, I would be honoured. 

I look forward to your company next week. 

© Stacey Harvey-Brown 2010