Tapestry in Unexpected Places : Origins

I've been meaning to write this post for a while now. Please forgive the poor quality of the photos. I took them with my iPad.

Last summer we were dealing with old dog Pyper's mysterious skin condition. Our regular vet got us a referral to the Veterinary Hospital at Virginia Tech. I had forgotten that my friends Lynn and Bernie had commissioned and donated this tapestry to the Vet School, so it was a special pleasure to become reacquainted with it while Pyper and I were hanging out in the waiting area.


"Origins" was designed and woven by Jean Pierre Larochette and Yael Lurie. I quote from the informational sign:

"A husband and wife team, Jean-Pierre Larochette and Yael Lurie created this multi-dimensional tapestry to showcase the coordinating dimensions of veterinary medicine and the natural world. It is woven in the classic French Aubusson style, from the back rather than the front. ... The piece has many layers of symbolism and meaning. Serpents are especially appropriate for the College of Veterinary Medicine as they symbolize the vital forces in life and are a long standing symbol of the medical profession. The serpents are entwined to form a double helix, the genetic code of life. Hands represent creativity, compassion and healing - all essential to veterinary medicine. A vast variety of plant and animal life can be noticed throughout the work, tucked away in different layers of the tapestry."

 You can see more of their work at the American Tapestry Alliance web site in an extensive on-line exhibition.

 

Fuzzy Warps 3 : weave it!

This is part of a series of three posts on weaving with a fuzzy warp. I'm putting this out there in the hopes that you might find some of it useful. I am in no way saying my way of approaching this is the Right Way. It's just my way. You should use it as a springboard to find out what works best for you! Every yarn, loom, and weaver is different. Your mileage will, most certainly, vary!

Mohair and alpaca warp, alpaca weft.

So, you've planned you project, you've got your fuzzy warp on the loom, you're all ready to weave! Here are a few tips that may help you weave off your project with ease.

1. Get a big shed. Now personally, I think big sheds are highly overrated for most weaving. Really you only need a shed big enough to easily scoot that shuttle right on through.

In the case of a fuzzy warp however, a bigger shed can be helpful. If you recall from my previous posts, I've been encouraging you to give your fuzzy warp yarns space - both in your sett, and in spreading them out as far as possible through the depth of your harnesses. A nice big shed will also separate those yarns going up and down. How big a shed, you ask? Well, a little bit bigger than the length of the fuzz on your yarns would be good. You might have to experiment a little to find the perfect shed for your yarns. What you want to do is separate the threads that are up and the threads that are down completely. If the the fuzz from adjacent harnesses stays together and rubs up and down with each shed change it's like teasing hair. Or felting.

If you remember to advance your warp often, you'll be able to take advantage of whatever size shed you have. Don't weave right up to the reed. As soon as stuff starts sticking, advance your warp! That will also move the fuzziest bits that have been rubbing up and down out of the harnesses, making things even easier.

2. Treadle with a little bounce. If your warp yarns still stick a little bit, sometimes you can "bounce" the treadles a little and they will work loose. I think this is preferable to having to stick your hands into the harnesses all the time to clear things up.

3. Use the weight of your loom to help you. The easiest fuzzy warp weaving I've done has been on my 8 harness jack loom. With over 40 inches of weaving width and metal heddles, those harnesses had some weight to them. If the bounce didn't work, I'd raise all the harnesses that were threaded and then DROP the ones that needed to be down. Really, just let them fall. I was, of course, confident that my warp yarn, my loom, and my husbands temper had the strength to handle the repeated crashing and banging.

The countermarch Glimakra that I wove my Fuzzy Afghan on was a different story entirely. Oh, I could bounce the shed a bit, but the harnesses, with their Texsolv heddles, are very light. I think my shed was large enough, but again, those flexy soft Texsolv heddles, as much as I love them, didn't hold the yarns as much as move around with them. Honestly, it was a bit of a mess. Which doesn't mean you shouldn't try weaving fuzzy yarns on your loom with Texsolv or string heddles! It means that I was treating my countermarch loom as if it were a jack loom. That is, I hadn't given it a thought!

4. Change the way you beat. You can use the beater to help clear some small tangles. Try this: Open your shed, throw the shuttle, pull the beater into the fell of the cloth and hold it there, change your shed (you may have to bounce a little with the treadles), then push the beater back. Only move that beater on an open shed when the yarns are as far apart as possible. This should clear any tangles by stray fibers that are extra-long and keep the beater from rubbing together the threads from different harnesses.

I hope you've enjoyed this little series on weaving with fuzzy yarns. Clearly, I didn't follow all of these guidelines when I wove that Fuzzy Afghan, but it reminded me of things that I did know, and taught me some new things too. And after all, isn't learning new stuff half the fun?

By the way, that afghan is the warmest and coziest nap blanket ever!

Fuzzy Warps 2 : planning and warping

 This is part of a series of three posts on weaving with a fuzzy warp. I'm putting this out there in the hopes that you might find some of it useful. I am in no way saying my way of approaching this is the Right Way. It's just my way. You should use it as a springboard to find out what works best for you! Every yarn, loom, and weaver is different. Your mileage will, most certainly, vary!

A seriously fuzzy warp on the loom and ready to weave.

Welcome to the second post in my little "Fuzzy Warps" series. This time I'm going to write a little bit about planning your warp and getting that fuzzy puppy onto your loom.

1. Let it breathe. If you're committed to your fuzzy warp for whatever reason, it's time to start planning. If you look at a fuzzy yarn, think of it as two parts. The core, that part that creates the actual structure of the yarn, and the fuzzy bits that stick out from the core. When you figure out the ends per inch to sett your yarn, you do a wrapping around a ruler and then count how many wraps to an inch or a half inch and base your sett on that number. But if you wrap your fuzzy yarn so that the cores touch, you're not really leaving much space for the fluff to bloom. Open up that sett a little bit. Maybe do a small sample weaving on a little cardboard loom. See how it looks and feels. I'm guessing that you've chosen this yarn because you want to make a soft, light, floaty, fluffy fabric. So give that fluff a little breathing room.

2. Look at your weave structure and figure out how to spread those yarns out through the depth of your harnesses. You may have to re-write your draft to achieve this. Instead of threading your plain weave on 1-2-3-4 you will want to thread it on 1 & 4 only. That's an easy example. Plain weave basically goes over one thread and under the next, so the conversion to two harnesses is simple. If you've chosen a more complex weave structure you will have to do some thinking, and possibly drafting. This will make you a stronger person and a better weaver. Give it a try.

That said, let me go on for a bit about the wonders of plain weave. It's simple. It's easy. It's has endless possibilities for design using color, sett, texture, and beat. If you want a light, floaty, dreamy, mohair shawl please consider plain weave. If they interest you, you should absolutely explore the wonders of other weave structures. But for your first time working with a fuzzy warp chose a delicious yarn in a color you love and let plain weave handle the rest. For your first fuzzy warp you'll want to concentrate on the fuzziness of the thing, what works and doesn't work with your loom, sett, beat, things like that. A more complex weave structure gives you just one more thing to worry about. Save it for your next project.

3. Don't choke your warp (too much). I was taught to weave by someone who had obviously seen some warp disasters in her classroom. As a result, we were taught that before we took our warps off the warping board and over to the loom we had to truss them up tight so they wouldn't get away. Honestly, I still do this unless I'm working with a fuzzy warp. If you do this to a fuzzy warp you are going to have a matted tangle to deal with when what you really want to do is just pull off that choke tie and get on with the warping. So here are two bits of advice:

• use a slick yarn to make your choke ties - perle cotton is ideal
• tie your chokes just enough to hold things together and then trot that warp chain right on over to the loom and at the very least get it set in your raddle (we're warping back to front, see below)

4. Warp back to front. The less rubbing together that fuzz does, the better. You've got to take this principle all the way back to your warping method. You front to back warpers will need to learn a new trick. The advantages to back to front warping are as follows:

• you get all the warp on the loom before you start threading, so it can't tangle or get out of order.
• you avoid having to pull all that lovely fluff through the reed and the harnesses twice. Front to back warping threads the reed, the harnesses, then winds the yarn on the warp beam. Then you wind the yarn back through the harness and reed as you weave. Twice the rubbing, more chance for tangles.
  

The only reason I can think of to not warp from back to front would be if the architecture of your loom makes it super uncomfortable or awkward to do so. I'm really lucky to have two looms that are well suited to this method. With the Glimakra I can take off the breast beam and sit inside the loom to thread. So, if you've never tried the back to front method of warping, read up on it, find a friend who's done it before to give you some help the first time through and go for it.

That's all for now. In the next episode of Fuzzy Warps we'll talk a little bit about weaving your fuzzy fabric.

Fuzzy Warps 1 : think about it

This is part of a series of three posts on weaving with a fuzzy warp. I'm putting this out there in the hopes that you might find some of it useful. I am in no way saying my way of approaching this is the Right Way. It's just my way. You should use it as a springboard to find out what works best for you! Every yarn, loom, and weaver is different. Your mileage will, most certainly, vary!

I recently wrote a post about weaving the Fuzzy Afghan and mentioned in my weaving notes that I had to clear each shed manually as I wove because the mohair warp stuck together. I'd like to revisit that for a little while and hopefully give you some information that will make your next fuzzy warp a breeze.

The problem with very fuzzy warps, like the mohair in my afghan, is that the action of the warp threads going up and down in the harnesses causes those fuzzy bits to rub against each other and tangle. This results in you having to manually reach into the harnesses and clear out the tangles so you don't end up with skips and errors in your fabric, or worse, broken warp ends.

Here are a few things to think about before you wind on a fuzzy warp:

1. Does the fuzzy yarn really need to be in the warp, or could it just as easily be the weft yarn? If you're making a plain-weave fabric, your overall design doesn't require warp stripes, and you're using another non-fuzzy yarn in the project, consider using the fuzzy stuff as weft.

2. Can you mix in some non-fuzzy warps to separate the fuzzy ones even more? Would using a fuzzy yarn for every other, or every third warp end give you enough fluff for your desired effect?

3. Will your desired sett be wide enough (i.e. few enough warp ends per inch) to give all that fuzz some breathing room? If you want a more tightly woven fabric, go back to question 1.  Do you have to have the fuzzy yarn as warp?

4. Think about your weave structure and your loom. The key to weaving with fuzzy warp yarns is to give the fuzz plenty of room so it's not jammed together in your harnesses or your reed. The further apart you can spread your yarn through the depth of the harnesses the better. For my plain weave fabric on my 4 harness loom I thread on  harnesses 1 and 4. If I had 8 harnesses I might even thread on 1 and 8. For a 2/2 twill, I'd thread every other harness on my 8 shaft loom. Sett matters, of course, but the more space between the threads through the depth of the harnesses, the easier your weaving will be.

So, where does that leave you? I would never discourage anyone from trying something at the loom that they really wanted to do. In fact, the reason I started weaving with fuzzy warps is because someone once emphatically told me that it was impossible to use mohair yarn as warp. Bah! I maintain that if you understand the strengths and weaknesses of your raw materials, and you have a good understanding of your process, you should certainly try out your ideas. You might fail, you might succeed beyond your wildest dreams. You will certainly learn something.

In my next post, I'll write a little bit about planning your warp and how best to get that mess o' fluff on your loom.

Woven : The Fuzzy Afghan

Remember when you were a kid and you used to hide under blankets and try to peer through the cloth at the outside world? And remember getting distracted by the way the yarn in the blanket went over and under and the colors crossed in interesting ways?

You don't? Ok, so maybe it was just me then. Or maybe I had a magic blanket. Or, perhaps, I was just a really strange kid.

Still, I do like to look at things from a different perspective every once in a while. So when I was putting this afghan outside to dry on and absurdly warm day last week I was inspired to snap a few photos. This one's just about my favorite.

Yup. I had the afghan hanging on the fence (over a towel, of course) and just couldn't resist sitting on the ground, making a cozy - if slightly damp - tent and peering at the world through a fuzzy stained glass window of mohair and alpaca. My neighbors already think I'm a bit eccentric. I'm good with that.

It surely was nice to finally finish this project. The weaving was done a (ahem) while ago. I twisted the fringe this past winter. Then all it needed was a nice wash. I'm a firm believer in wet finishing fabric. It gives all those yarns a chance to relax and get cozy in a nice soapy bath. Makes all the difference in the world. (Naturally I forgot to snap "before" photos to illustrate this point.)

The black warp stripes and the weft are alpaca.
The rest is mohair.

This project was designed to use up a large skein of mohair yarn that I had space dyed in some rather odd colors. I decided to put it with some purple mohair that I'd had forever since purple is a neutral and goes with everything. :-) Ditto the black alpaca, which I had hoped would tone down the whole mess a little bit.

I was playing with designing with stripes at the time (more about that in another post) and decided to try a "random stripe" for my warp. Really, if you saw my notes you'd realize I was just making the whole thing up as I went along. The transcript follows. It's short. I'm not that precise about keeping records.

Fuzzy Afghan
8 warp ends per inch
Black alpaca
Plum and space dyed mohair

Originally warped at 40.5" - too wide, removed 4" from each end to be 36.5" in reed.
(I wove this on my Glimakra 4-H Countermarche. The reed was wide enough for 40.5", but the heddle bars weren't cooperating, so I had to remove some warp ends.)

87" warp length
Threaded on Harnesses 1 & 4
*must tie up all harnesses for countermarche to balance
*a b---- to weave. Must clear each shed. Would be better on jack loom.
(I'm planning a future post on using mohair/fuzzy yarns for warp, so more about that last comment later.)

Finished dimensions: 34" wide x 60" long. Not including 4" of twisted fringe at each end.

You can click on the photos if you want a larger view.

Fringe. Twisted.

Random stripes with space-dyed yarn.

 The finished afghan is fuzzy and soft and warm. I'm pleased with the results, and will now go take it for a test drive. Nap time!

What's wrong with this picture?

Yes, rain INSIDE the studio is generally considered to be WRONG.
Also, bad, expensive and vexing.

I snapped this shot in the studio on Sunday. It was raining outside. Also, inside.

This only seems to happen when we get a hard rain from the North/Northwest. Which is the direction that most of our interesting weather seems to come from.

Looks like I'll be dragging out the ladder and the caulking as soon as we get a dry spell. And then hunting for someone to replace the windows.  I need some sort of "real" insulated windows anyway. The rest of the building is insulated, but these single-pane jobs came with the kit for the studio. Attractive and rustic, yes. Warm and cozy? Not so much.

Forgetting to run the warp over the back beam is also WRONG.
And bad, and vexing.
Especially if you thought your were done dressing the loom.

And then,  just when I was feeling all smug because I had finished threading the new loom and thought I might actually get some weaving in, I discovered that I had forgotten to run the warp threads over the back beam. On my old Schacht loom, the back beam lifted off and I could just slide it under the warp, pop it back in place, and no one was the wiser. Not so with this one. And so, I started threading all over again.

On the plus side, the new loom is very easy to thread (at least the first time through) because you can take off the beater and breast beam and scoot your comfy chair right up inside it. The very nifty light under the shelf at the front of the loom is pretty handy too.

Hoping for a dry weekend, and good weaving this weekend!

Shhh. It's resting.

Here's what the bean tapestry looks like from the back. Yup. It's done. Right now it's "resting," tension off, relaxing it's little warp and weft yarns. Next week I'll trim the back, hem it, block it and then figure out how I want to mount it. (I know I should have probably thought of that first, but there you go.)

It took me over a year to finish this relatively small tapestry. I'm hoping that I'll have more time to devote to the next one. Please note that I said "the next one." This from a person who swore they'd never weave tapestry because it was too slow.

I think I've finally gotten to the point where the journey is more important than the destination. There was pleasure in every inch I wove. And unwove. And rewove. Whatever. The point is, weaving tapestry is completely absorbing, sometimes frustrating, and really lots of fun.

You can quote me on that.

Almost starting, almost finished

Almost starting: Spring! Yes, the trees are starting to bud in late January. At least on Main Street in my little town. It was in the fifties here today, so no wonder the poor trees are all excited.

If you click on the photo you can see a larger version.

Almost finished: The Green Bean Tapestry! I started weaving the top hem this weekend, so soon I'll be cutting it off the loom. Perhaps I'll pop open a bottle of champagne to celebrate!

Old Dog, New Tricks

As the few of you who read my blog (you know who you are!) know, I sold my old Schact loom this summer and purchased a friend's Louet loom. (Not a tapestry loom after all, but I'm still waffling about keeping or selling the Glimakra.) Along with this lovely new loom came every possible gadget that one might want or need, and two of some of them!

One of the new-to-me tools is an AVL Warping Weel. It's supposed to be a wiz-bang gizmo to make warping your sectional warp beam (I've got one of those now too!) a breeze. You wind an inch of warp width at a time to the length you want. Then you attach that bundle, or bout, to the warp beam and wind on. The wheel has a tension device that you set so that each bout is wound on at the same tension. Sounds nifty, right?

I wish I could say that I love this new tool. I wish I could report that I got my three-yard-long, 20 end-per-inch, 20 inch wide warp on the loom in record time, easy-peasy. Sadly, I can't say either of those things. At least not at this point.

Through the reed, under the clip,
between the guides and wind another warp end...

On the plus side, I like that the wheel has a handy counting mechanism. It's really easy to change colors for a striped warp - though I did have to do some extensive planning to make my design fit in the one-inch warp increments that this style of warping requires. It's easy to turn the wheel, and after you get the hang of where the thread goes as you're winding, that part is simple too.

But it took a really long time! All day, in fact. And I still have four more bouts to wind. My back is sore, probably more from holding down the break to the warp beam with one foot, while bending to turn the beam to wind the warp on, while trying to reach across the loom to make sure that the warp was staying in it's little one-inch section.

So close to finishing, but I ran out of steam.

Honestly, for a three yard long, 200 end warp, I probably could have gotten the whole warp made, wound on and started threading in the same amount of time using my old method.

Still, I know there are people out there who loooove this gadget. I'm willing to give it another try (if this warp ever gets on and done!) or two to see if I love a Warping Wheel too. That, and the process of sectional warping, which seems like really a lot of bother to me at this point.

If all else fails I can switch from a sectional beam back to a regular beam. So if the old dog (that would be me) can't learn the new trick, I can always go back to the old way. :-)

With a little help from my friends

Well, it's been a while hasn't it?

Yesterday I taught an Introduction to Tapestry workshop for some wonderful and talented folks at Reynolds Homestead. This was the first time I taught this particular topic, and I'm still pretty new to tapestry myself, so saying that my stress level leading up to the class was a little high would be entirely accurate.

But it went really well! At least I think it did. So before I write about the class and post some photos I want to thank everyone who made this possible and helped me keep what's left of my sanity.

• First of course, my husband Eric, who endured less than stellar meals and housekeeping for the past month, and who was very supportive, as he always is.
• My friends Darcy and Karen, who let me use them as guinea pigs and gave very good suggestions for making the class go more smoothly.
• My pal Lawre, who always offers good perspective and encouragement, and who can find some humor in almost every situation.
• Otto Strauch who has at least one of every tool known to mankind and knew just what to do to make the little loom legs.

I'd also like to send a shout-out to Caroline, who's idea this was in the first place;  Mary Kay who got everything organized and kept us on track; and the nice ladies at Yarn Explosion in Roanoke who patiently let me rummage through their Paternayan and Brown Sheep tapestry yarns.

It really was a fun day, and I learned so much myself preparing for the class!  As soon as I've recovered, I'll post some pics.

We're in the purple... and a great knitting resource.

Yes! I'm finally weaving the eggplant. Also, lots of tan background.

You probably can't see it in this photo, but I'm blending three shades of tan in the background in various combinations. I'm also weaving random "shapes" with the colors so that, hopefully, the background won't read as one flat color, but will have more visual "texture".

Due to the wretched state of my sinuses, I only had one afternoon out in the studio this weekend. Most of that time I was doing some prep work for an introduction to tapestry class I'll be teaching at Reynolds Homestead at the end of March.

I've started on a sampler for the class, using leftover yarn from the bean tapestry. Now that I'm looking at it though, I think the colors are dull as dishwater. Perhaps I'll start again. I'm working on my Schacht Tapestry Loom for the first time. It wasn't dreadful to warp, and I've skipped the part about making heddles entirely. It's a 4 inch warp, so picking up my shed by hand isn't the least bit bothersome. I'm doing it on the bean tapestry so plenty of practice there.

In other news, I've been working on a little knitting project. Kirtland's Yarn Barn in Dillwyn, VA is participating in a project to knit helmet liners for our troops in Afghanistan. My friend Lawre already has hers done, and I'm plugging away on mine. There was a tricky bit (for me, anyway) after doing the neck ribbing where you cast on extra stitches for the hat part. No matter how I did it, it looked really bad. So off to Google I went and found this wonderful explanation of casting on additional stitches at TECHknitting. What a great resource this blog is! Especially for knitting-challenged people like me.

The beans progress. The bubble remains.

Lest you think I've been idle for the past two weeks, here is an update on the tapestry.

The beans progress. The bubble remains.

Oh, there's been the usual fits of unweaving and reweaving and unweaving again, but all in all I think it's coming along ok. The egglplant is in sight now, and I'm looking forward to weaving with purple yarn, just for a change of pace.

In other news, I have a new weaving student to look forward to beginning in February. New weavers are always so much fun. All that enthusiasm is contagious.

The thought of having company out in the TeaShanty prompted me to clean and rearrange the studio a bit. I thought it would be nice if she actually had space to sit at a loom. It took me two and a half days, and there's still a little bit of putting away to do. It occurs to me that I might have too much stuff.

Part of the stuff includes too much yarn (of course), tools, books, and twenty-eight years worth of weaving samples - mine and other peoples. You know, guild sample exchanges, samples from workshops, and that sort of thing. Some of them are lovely little snippets, others are less attractive. Unlike some people who are avid and enthusiastic samplers, and swear that they are the most useful things in the world, I rarely look at mine and almost never find them helpful. Every once in a while I think about just throwing them away. But that just seems wrong somehow.

I've got them all in binders now, labeled. And I've sorted out the worksheets and samples of things that I've done myself into a separate notebook. I guess I'll hang on to them for a while longer. Perhaps my new student will find something there of interest....

Happy New Year! a few links, and a baby in a basin.

So, here we are in 2010! How the heck did that happen?

It was a studio day today! Hooray for that. What a great way to start the year -  doing something that I absolutely love!

The tapestry is coming along nicely. Or at least I think it is. I have a few concerns about some ridges that have developed, but not enough concern to want to do a significant amount of unweaving. Hopefully it will settle down in the blocking. We'll see.

I hope everyone has a joyful New Year. Here are a few little things I've happened upon that I'd like to share:

First, a neat tapestry from Tommye Scanlin. She wove a tapestry diary of 2009, committing to weaving a little bit every day. Today she cut it off the loom.

Another great tapestry link: Joan Baxter - Tapestry Artist (Note: the site has music playing - you might want to check your sound before heading off in that direction.) When I grow up I want to weave like Ms. Baxter! I love, love, love her stuff! And she lives in Scotland - my favorite place on the planet.

And if you want to see what my studio looks like - with bagpipes - check out the Teribus website. That's my friend, EJ Jones, in the yellow shirt, playing a bagpipe that he made. He's also a brilliant knitter. (Hi EJ!) There's a movie to watch there too. Bagpipes = bliss :-)

Finally, there's this: Something for Everyone

Happy New Year everyone.

It's a TeaShanty Day!

It's always a happy day when I get to spend it out in the Shanty. I got out there fairly early this morning and got the wood stove going. That's the only heat I have out there right now, and when it's cold it takes an hour or two for the place to get toasty. But once it warms up, it's the coziest little shack in the world!

Today I tidied up a little bit, did some preliminary planning on a project, then spent the rest of the day working on my tapestry and listening to music and podcasts. Progress on the tapestry was slow today due to the quantity of unweaving I did. But it wasn't so bad, and at the end of the day I had a little more woven then at the beginning of the day.

The image is based on a photo I took of some really lovely veggies from the Farmer's Market in Blacksburg, VA.

 I edited it using Adobe Photoshop Elements.

I liked the pepper in the original image (so pretty, and tasty too!) but since this is my first "real" tapestry I wanted to stick to fairly simple shapes so I cropped the pepper out. Here's a picture of my progress to date. I've got most of the dish done, the first bean, and parts of the next two beans. That bit right in the middle gave me a fit today, but I think I'm ok with what's happening now.

And just for fun, here's a photo of my little tapestry workspace. I've got the copper pipe loom (design and instructions from Archie Brennan's web site ) hung on my all-purpose peg board. I use it for my warping board too, so I can adjust the height depending on the warp I'm winding. You can see the full-size enlargement of the image above, and the B&W cartoon behind the weaving.

Well, that's it for today. I hope you had a great weekend too!