And more Deflected Double Weave

Well hello blog, its been a year I think.  

I have finally worked out why I don't blog much.  I can't get the photos from my phone to the blog in any easy way.  Case in point, these photos only showed one side revealling about one third of a scarf and I don't seem to be able to shift them to get them in order.

 Most of my warps are hand painted and steamed to set the colour.  In my mind each one is a work of art.   The Kakapo scarves are nearer the end of this post. 

 

Scarves reflecting the New Zealand native bird, the Tui, woven in Deflected Double Weave using my name as the base of the original design.

 

Scarf, again woven in DDW, reflecting the blooms of the Puriri tree which can vary in colour from pale pale pink to deep wine.

                                             

 

Kakapo scarves in lovely shades of olive greens.

 

 

 

A cowl in Puriri shades.

Apologies for the messy post.  It's rather exciting seeing work I did 12 months ago, inspiring even.

more blankets

For many many years I colaborated with Pauanesia shop in Auckland to weave blankets.  Heather gave me a brief and I was free to interpret it and most times we were on the same page.  Unfortunately Pauanesia closed last year and I was left floundering a bit trying to find my own voice.  

 

I rethreaded Maude, the Oxabach loom, to a twill pattern of my design on 16 shafts but could not get the selvedges to play ball.  It was fine treadling shafts 1 to 16 but coming back 15 to 1 if didn't work.  I put a call out for help and it was suggested I try satin but no luck.

 

The mohair I was using for the weft was very old but wove up beautifully and the colour was perfect for my bed so wonky selvedges and all I decided to keep it for myself.  When it came off the loom I pulled out the outside thread on each side and needle threaded it back into every mohair fold on the edge and, after fulling, it didn't look too bad.

 

 But I couldn't sell blankets like that so back to the design software and rethreaded Maude with a 12 shaft twill and 2 extra shafts for a tabby selvedge.  Of course I wove a complete blanket, 2.20metres long before noticing a threading mistake.  Six missing threads!

 

 

 

Some extra heddles to the rescue and we were finally weaving luxurious mohair blankets.

 

 

 

These represent the Kotare or Kingfisher with its bright blue and turquoise back and yellow breast.

 

 

More deflected double weave scarves

After a month's holiday in Australia on Bribie Island I was enthusiastic to put the next warp on the loom for three DDW scarves.   

The white, pale pink and mid pink are one warp and the wine is the second warp.  The pattern is four threads of one warp and four of the second right across the width of the scarf. 

I wove the first scarf, cut it off the loom, twisted the tassels and wet finished it.  That was when I found that the pale pink yarn was not behaving as wool should.  After a bleach test I discovered it was a manmade fibre.  What to do?  Throw away the whole warp?  I decided to take some of the white merino, wind another warp and dye it pale pink.  I pulled the remaining warp, 6.5 metres, through the heddles and reed to the front and carefully cut a thread off, tied on the new thread.  That looked successful so did the same with the midpink band so all shrinkage would be the same.  It rolled on to the back beam with no problems and two beautiful scarves are the result.  (I wear the dud scarf occasionally.)
 

 

 

I had noticed that the Marion Powell threading for shadow weave is similar to what I was using.  I wound a warp with 1 x 1 colour and tied it on to my previous warp.  My sample worked but, to me, was rather boring.

 

 

Since I had a 1 x 1 warp on the loom I wondered if Turned Taquete would be more interesting.  It worked but decided it wasn't mind catching enough to weave three scarves.

I cut the warp off and it will be used another time.

 

(Bleach test for wool - place a length (maybe 20 cm) of yarn in a little pure bleach.  If its wool it will dissolve away completely in about 30 mins.)

Melanie Olde Workshop

 In May I organised, on behalf of Creative Fibre for the upper half of the North Island, a workshop with Melanie Olde of Australia,  "Thinking Outside the Plane".

 

To quote Melanie "Weaving often deals with effects to manipulate the single flat plane of a cloth, but what if you expanded, pushed and pulled that plane?  Handweaving offers many opportunities to explore and design the 3-dimensional plane, taking cloth to another level through specialised multi-layering techniques."

 

The workshop covered how to increase and reduce the surface area of weaving, how to merge different sequences for exciting effects and create fabrics that pop out of the plane.

That was the official explanation; unofficially we just had fun.

 

 A piece of Melanie's work.

My first piece with all four layers working well.

 

 

Off the loom and manipulated - looks a bit like a rock pool anemone.

One layer of warp was either on a second back beam or, as in my case, weighted at the back.  This allowed us to do fun things like stack four layers of pencils in rows - 4 layer Orthogonal.  The white warp, in my threading, is the binding warp passing up and down through all layers while the other three warps are linear and pass straight between the layers.

A fabulous workshop and who knows where the information will be taken.