Show and Tell January 2024

Show and Tell

Johanna G – New Tunic

I first used a Butterick pattern to make this tunic with material donated from Gail B.’s stash. It is cotton Ikat. I used the material to check for fitting and do a practice run before using my own weaving yardage.
Then I wove the yardage for the second round using a Diversified Plain Weave structure or also called Thick and Thin, that our Structures group has been focusing on these last few months.  I used Laura Viada’s pattern, thanks to Gudrun helping me get an enlarged copy of the threading.  I used Borg’s 16/2 cotton in both the warp and weft, as well as Maurice Brassard’s 8/2 Tencel in both warp and weft. I wove 4 yards at 30 epi. It has a lovely feel and does drape, which is what I was wanting for the final product.
While I did struggle with getting it to all line up and of course there are some weaving errors, I am happy with the end product!
 

Gudrun P – Explorations of Diversified Plain Weave

DPW was the BSHG structure study group’s recent topic. DPW is in the family of two-tie “Thick-and-Thin” structures. On an 8H loom, shaft 1 and 2 are used for thin ties, shaft 3 – 8 are pattern shafts and are threaded with heavier threads. Traditionally a single color is used for all heavy warp threads and a different color is use for all heavy weft threads.

  

In an alternate project I wanted to experiment using more colors in the warp. I set up a threading that combined two colors in every block.

Using the tie-up this arrangement lets me choose colors for every pick. I can lift one of the colors in a block, or both or none of them. This gives you great possibilies to create patterns. Carpet warp is the thick yarn in this project, 20/2 or 10/2 cotton is used for the ties.

John H – Geometric ikat scarf

I made another of my geometric ikat scarves. I wanted to check out whether an AVL warping wheel could be used for ikat wrapping. It sort of worked, but I was unable to get accurate placement of the wraps. The pattern starts out OK but falls apart by the end of the scarf. Warp is 400 ends of 20/2 silk sett at 40 epi.