Shadow Weave - A New Love?

After finding that gem called "shadow huck", I thought I was done - successfully - with trying to find a way to like shadow weave.  Moving on, I started weaving some samples from Peter Collingwood's The Techniques of Rug Weaving, starting with the 2/2 straight draw twill and all its color-and-weave combinations.  But then I started "reading ahead" and what did I find but shadow weave! This is the draft from page 291, a simple 4-shaft with the 4 blocks in a straight twill order, with a reversal.  The first sample on the left is treadled as normal for shadow weave, alternating 2 colors pick-and-pick.

Then he gives a couple ways to expand or extend the treadling so that the pattern isn't so "squashed".  I won't attempt to redraw his nice diagram; this is straight from that page. The second sample above uses (a) and the third is (b).






I needed to convince myself I understood this well enough to apply it to a pattern using more than 4 shafts, so I chose a classic draft from Carol Strickler's A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns.  This is #301, an undulating pattern that can be treadled to look a bit like leaves. This is actually only a segment of the threading as my samples were only 32 ends wide.  Again the 3 samples are normal straight treadling and the 2 extensions.

That pattern was too large for the tiny sample, so I tried a smaller pattern, this diamond shape flanked by a zigzag, a segment from Strickler #298. I think the design shows best with the (b) extended treadling.

New Tricks

It's always fun to try out new techniques.  A little rug sample got a treatment of Damascus edge plus these cool little triangular knotted bits that taper the warp down in a protected way to be braided.  I tried these both out with the help of our old friend Peter Collingwood.  Open book is The Techniques of Rug Weaving, and on the tablet is his Rug Weaving Techniques: Beyond the Basics.

Convergence 2012 - Beautiful Endings

Another Convergence has come and gone.  What a great time I had, seeing friends and meeting new people, viewing exciting art work and getting some great new ideas, learning some new techniques and reinforcing previous ones.

The final workshop I took was two days studying krokbragd rug weaving.  Judy Ness is a wonderful teacher who led an organized yet relaxed and calm class, complete with mini yoga and stretching sessions.  Krokbragd is a traditional Norwegian rug pattern threading. Here is the patterning I did on my sample.  I stuck to mostly traditional patterns, but some of the other students did some really creative variations.





But the most beautiful thing I learned to make this entire wonderful, busy, stimulating week was this finish, a double Maori edge.  Instructions for the Maori edge is given in Peter Collingwood's Techniques of Rug Weaving.  Here the braid is done along the edge, and then back the other direction.  Isn't it lovely?  I want to weave another rug just so I can make this edge again.





Of course, this is the only bit of the rug sample that looks this neat.  Look at all the ends I still have to needle in!  This should be a good after-work down-time activity.

Mondrian minus 30 degrees

The 2008 challenge was called a "Conversation in Fiber", where we were to interpret the style or works of either Piet Mondrian or Georgia O'Keefe. I chose Mondrian, which presented the first challenge, since he worked only in primaries in his signature works, and the pallette was to include colors from the upcoming conference in Riverside, none of which were primaries. I decided to assign three of the conference colors to be "my" primaries. These were a red-violet as "red", a gold as "yellow", and a teal green as "blue". These are pretty close to an equally-spaced triad as primaries are, just "rotated" about 30 degrees on a color wheel.  The little marks in my diagram each count an inch in my layout.

 I designed a block threading for a taquete rug, where the black lines alternated with the white
rectangles, Mondrian style, and wove the colors in some of the rectangles by a "meet and part" sort of method where I exited the shuttles at a point in the center area of the warp. In a couple places, where there were more than one of the colors, I had 3 shuttles going up and down at various points...fun! This was one challenge where I did not end up with a handbag. I almost feel like I have to do this project again in miniature and sew it into a bag, just to have the collection complete.  Here is the rug on display at our guild's November annual event.