Diamond, the horse, came to visit this morning. We made him several years ago out of an old hiking sock and he weathered well except for a huge hole that developed on his abdomen.
Catalina selected a scrap of dobby fabric she thought would harmonize well with his skin tones, and we patched him up.
He's feeling much better. Here's a closer look at his patch, a granite fabric you may have seen before.
Doodling today in ProWeave while waiting for the thunderstorms to pass. Thinking about circles, and a satin network. This isn't the usual networked satin, but it does fall on a 5-end network. I like the way the edges blur out -- again, it's not the usual sawtooth effect of network drafting, but something close. A feathering. Click to enlarge.
And speaking of circles, if you've been wondering how to draw teacups, please check out this wonderful explanation of circles and ellipses by the fabulous architect & sketcher Liz Steel. I guarantee you will never look at your teacup the same way again.
First there was the Little League game, season opener.
Then more clean-up in the office. I'm getting closer to the end, I think. We carried out seven more bags of shred. Here's a close-up:
I did make some more amazing discoveries, some of which I'll share with you in the days to come. This sample is one I vaguely remember weaving of silk warp & weft, but alas, the notes are lost. It appears to be brocaded inlay on an overshot warp. The sample has been washed, and has a luscious drapey hand. The shiny reeled silk pattern weft glows against the silk noil ground. Glad I found you, little swatch.
Found: notes composed in the Eighties, judging by the appearance of the computer printouts in the same folder (Weavers! Date your samples!!!). Looks like I was getting ready to write a book? monograph? an article? Don't remember. But I think there is a good germ of an idea here. It was all pre-network-drafting, pre-Photoshop. Extended Point Twills for Eight Shafts. How about that?
The fancy equation on the lower left really tickles me. Did I really think that would make 8-shaft weaving any better?
Maybe I'll pack this folder up and take it with me to the beach later this summer. Minus computer. With a pad of graph paper and a pencil. I hope the beach house has a nice shady porch. I'm allergic to the sun.
Cleanup neverending. Now going through study group notebooks, throwing away 2 out of 3 samples, just keeping the good ones. Let's face it, there are a lot of bad samples out there! An exception is the The Sixteens of 1989. Most are quite interesting and keepers. I don't want to violate copyright, but I'll show you one of mine, face and reverse (click to enlarge), and my comments on the back of the sample sheet. You might get a chuckle.
Warp: Face, 10/2 rayon, lt. blue; stitchers, 10/2 cotton, mocha. Weft: Face, 10/2 rayon, as above; backing, 10/2 cotton, as above; wadding, acrylic baby yarn, turquoise. Weft order: 2 rows face (rayon), 1 row wadding (baby yarn), 1 row backing (cotton). Repeat. Reed: 12 dent reed, with 2 ends face yarn and 1 end stitcher per dent; in other words, face warp is 24 epi and stitcher warp 12 epi. References: Sullivan, Pique Plain and Patterned
Comments: Face warp fairly relaxed tension; stitcher warp on separate beam under very heavy tension. This would make very good upholstery fabric, except that I will never weave pique again, as I found that working with three shuttles is not my cup of tea!
Well, never say never. I have not woven any more piqué (so far), but I've done several projects with three and four shuttles: lampas, double twills, and others. Still don't like it much. But there is no denying the tactile pleasure in a well tensioned and wadded piqué luciouswith its luscious hills and valleys.
This was next on the list—cleaning the watercolor palettes. Into the bathroom sink this one went. There it acquired a halo from the reflections on the porcelain. Thought you'd enjoy it.
Found while cleaning out my office: a networked jeans twill draft for 8 shafts, no dobby. Weaves nice circles with a conventional treadle loom. Repeats on 30 ends & picks. My notes say "These spots look even rounder when the cloth is actually woven. Use a sett halfway between plain weave and 2/2 twill." First a single repeat, then three repeats each way, and then the WIF file is you'd like to try it out for yourself. Send me a picture!
Download NetworkedJeansTwill8Shafts
This might be a message: weave stripes today.
But first I've got to attack the mess on my desk.
I was wanting a journal with beefier paper, something I could use for watercolor if needed, and small enough to tuck into a travel bag with a few pens. I got out the text blocks I had made with Stonehenge paper, a 90 lb weight, and made this little (just under 4" x 6") book with 40 pages (80 sides).
I love putting wrappers on the signatures to add spice to the spine, but find the stubs annoying on the pages when drawing a 2-page spread. So instead I ran a line of watercolor down the edge of each signatures before binding, and this is the result:
A cheerful spine and no interruptions on the pages.
![Errata for Crepe monograph](<a href="http://weaverly.typepad.com/page16CrepeMonograph.jpg">Download page16CrepeMonograph.jpg (320.5K)</a>){kind=link}