Two block twills with multiple tie up opportunities

I'm a big fan of using a different tie up to alter the look of a design on my current warp.  I'm locked into my threading because I don't ever rethread for another design, but what I can do is change the tie up and the treadling to create a whole new look.

 

I started my experiments with two block twills after watching an episode of JST's School of weaving.  I suspect this episode was all about changing a profile draft into a two block twill and then weaving it on 8 shafts.  I used some of Jane's tie up suggestions and then looked for more.  I came up with many possibilities and will someday soon, weave a whole bunch of variations for towels.

 

In the meantime, since I haven't posted in a very long time, I'm giving readers of this blog some of my ideas.

 

Click on each photo for a larger view of the tie ups. 

 

 

 

  7/25/2024 I'm updating this post because something else occurred to me while talking about block twills at a weaver's meeting.  You don't have to abide by the four quadrant tie up approach I suggest in the drafts above.  Why not use an 8 shaft twill tie up?  Weave tromp as writ or change the treadling to a point.  For that matter, try other treadling sequences to see if any work!

This approach means you can put on a very long warp and weave many different designs - or if you don't mind changing tie ups during a piece, you could create a spectacular textile using several tie ups! 

 

 

Igor's Japanese Inspired Shawl

The Reno Fiber Guild is doing a year long study of Japanese Textiles.  Igor Raven started out with the idea of weaving a furoshiki (Japanese wrapping cloth) but wanted enough warp to weave a shawl too.  The furoshiki is still waiting to be hemmed, but the shawl has made it through the many layered process and is now a reality. 

 

The first step was to choose a draft.  The Handweaving.net has drafts from the Japanese book,  Orimono Soshiki Hen by Yoshida, Kiju which was published in 1903.  Igor chose draft 44385.  He wanted some gold threads in his piece, so he added another two shafts to the original draft for some plain weave stripes in metallic.  Also, there are 10 plain weave threads on each selvedge to form a border.

Igor's main warp stripes were 10/2 Tencel in bronze and red.  The metallic was a 20/3 thread (incidentally made in Japan) and he used two gold warp threads as one in the stripe between the pattern blocks.

He had planned the warp for 24 epi and a total of 611 threads plus 2 for floating selvedges (weighted separately).  That was 7 pattern repeats and would have used the full width of the special 26" reed for his Baby Wolf loom.  After he started weaving, it became apparent that the sett should be closer, so he resleyed the reed at 25 epi - thus losing that extra width he had planned on.

　

The weft yarns were two shades of lavender used in alternating shots - also 10/2 Tencel. These colors add an iridescent quality to the cloth when it catches the light at different angles.

Before washing the cloth the fringe was cut to 7 inches and twisted with seed beads added. Washing was by hand in hot water, wrapped in towels and then dried flat.

 It's a luxurious shawl - long and very fluid.  The beads in the fringe catch the light and sparkle.  A successful piece.

 

A little addendum to this post.  Igor's shawl won the best of the handwoven division at the Nevada County Fair (August 2016). 

Designing with Farey Fractions

This post may be a bit premature because I haven't yet woven off my Farey Fraction designs on this towel warp.  Who knows if the designs will meet my expectations or not.

The journey started with needing to do a paper for the Computer Aided Design Exchange for Complex Weavers.  I did the paper, had some errors that needed fixing and then got into a nervous nelly fit about whether or not my designs would actually weave into anything that looked like the vision I had in my head.  I don't know about you, but once I start doubting myself, it can be hard to go forward.  I kept the paper on a back burner and decided to weave some of my ideas on a towel warp which would either prove the design value or let me know that it was just a gimmick.

The paper is based on Farey Fraction denominator sequences used in weaving design.  That's a mouthful, isn't it, but not nearly as intimidating  in practice as it sounds.  Ralph Griswold wrote a paper about designing with the sequences  and you can find his work here.   I learned about the sequence and its design possibilities from a FaceBook post by Marg Coe, so I'm not working with brand new ideas, just trying to expand them with my own touch.

I found an online calculator to make the math part easy for me.  From there, I just used the denominators as a threading sequence and experimented with various tie ups and treadling sequences.  My idea was to have a complicated threading that could be woven with a simple treadling sequence on my Baby Wolf.  When I got right down to warping the loom, however, I decided that I would put in on the AVL, add a basketweave selvedge and treadling my threading to avoid threading errors.  To top off the complications, I saw a natural color sequence in my draft and it was awkward  because I used a sett of 20 epi and my color sequence was 12 red and 11 navy, which made every bout I wound had to be calculated for color.

Let's get down to a sample draft.  Start with a denominator sequence based on the number 8.  Here is the threading.

I then advanced the threading one step seven times. (This creates a threading that comes back to the original threading after the seven advances. What you see below is only a portion of the threading sequence and is still in the 8 shaft form before selvedges were added.   I have done 12 different tie ups and a variety of treadling sequences for my 12 yard towel warp.  Once they are off the loom, tell me if you think they they were worth the fuss!

 

What I like about this design is how the pattern changes in each red warp section - sort of like looking through a fence.  Some of the drafts are better with a light colored weft which shows off the design in the wine colored warp.

 

And, no, I don't mind if you use this draft or expand on it for your own use.  I really think it would make a good draft for a weaving demonstration - change your tie up and you get an entirely new design peeking at you through the fence.