29 August 2020

I’ve been busy doing, not writing about doing. I need to catch up.

I’ve had this book on my shelf for several years. I remember that I got it at the Textile Center in St. Paul, MN. I’ve drooled over these photos and read over the techniques time and again. This month I decided to give it a shot. It’s a plain weave fabric background with an extra smooth strong thread woven in, in a pattern or randomly, which is later gathered tightly to allow for resist dyeing.

For my first sample, I warped with 12/2 cotton at 30epi, I think, then used a thick rayon variegated thread for the gathering element. For this sample I used a pickup stick randomly and also in informal patterning.

Off the loom, I tied overhand knots all along one side of the fabric, then gathered and tied tight knots on the other side.

I dyed this piece with Procion fiber reactive dye, cut the ties and voila!

It was interesting that some of the color from the rayon gathering thread transferred to the cloth during the dyeing process. Happy accident.

While I was weaving this piece, I was thinking about a woolen piece I had woven years ago using the same rayon thread as a pattern weft. In fact it was hanging on the wall right next to me

It was an early piece, and I’d never been very happy with it. The rayon squiggled all over the place, and it looked sloppy. So I thought what if I pulled all those rayon threads and stuck it in a dye pot? So I did.

This was wool so I dyed it with jacquard acid dye, chestnut. I like it so much more than the original piece.

The threads that I cut out of the yellow piece were so beautiful that I kept them. Who knows, maybe they will have another life.

I’ve woven one more piece for shibori in a monks belt pattern. It’s in wool and all ready to go in the dyepot, maybe today. the wool I used had some moth damage. I just knotted threads together if they broke. It’s a sample, anyway knots are kind of cool.

Next I decided to weave some yardage. I have a draft given to me by my friend Linda from a class at Sievers School of fiber arts. Some of the students went out to eat at a local restaurant and were taken with weave in the fabric of the host’s jacket. The jacket came back to the studio with them for analysis, and Linda later wrote up the draft. Now I wanted to weave fabric from that draft: the Washington Hotel Jacket fabric. So I wound seven yards of warp.

Then I played around with wefts, settling on a handspun singles kid mohair pattern weft.

And I wove this yardage. Machine washed and dried after sampling finishing techniques.

I really enjoyed weaving this yardage. I am winding another 720 ends to tie on to this warp so I can try another color way.

I have started tieing together my thrums. I enjoy doing it, kind of mindless activity for an anxious time. I have in mind to weave a rustic tablecloth eventually, inspired by Tom Knisley’s write up on the ancient Japanese method of zanshi in his Table Linens book.