P2P2: thinking...

I've been thinking a great deal about how to make a start on my P2P2 challenge during the week. There are two things at hand here for me: the colours of the images, as a set, and the general feel of texture, movement and flight that they suggest to me. For colour, I've pulled out various yarns in my stash that make me think of the images:

These are silk yarns of varying weights, all with texture. I may make a sample with them. But they're not right for the project I have in mind. The project I have in mind is probably going to require some dyeing to be done, but at least these are stimulating my visual mind.

The other thing I've been thinking about is the fabric itself. I've worked a bit with pleated fabrics in the past, and the concept of movement and flight suggests the floatiness and texture of a pleated fabric to me. Not straight pleats, but something more fluid. And I'm really struggling to get the idea of a comfy floaty skirt out of my head. So I started to play with a draft of a broken twill with a 3/1-1/3 pleat tie-up.

Broken advancing twill threading with a 3/1-1/3 twill tie-up and evenly advancing treadling

One thing I like about this draft is that the broken twill is suggestive of feathers to me, and would create a floaty fabric if the right yarns and sett were used. But this isn't enough, because the images I've been sent are also strong on round shapes, and there's nothing round about this draft. So I started to modify the treadling, to incorporate more of a network-drafted concept. To read more on network drafting, I recommend you read this article by Bonnie Innouye in Weavezine. Bonnie also has a fabulous and very informative book on the subject, Exploring Multishaft Design. Networked drafting takes a bit more thought on 8 shafts than it does for those with more shafts, but within the limitations it can be done.

Broken advancing twill threading with a 3/1-1/3 twill tie-up and networked treadling

That's getting more like it. Is this where I'm going to head? I have absolutely no idea. But for now, I'm going to start samplying dyes and samping this weave structure and see what I think. My next decision is whether to sample using the thick mulberry silk and fine silk noil in the top image, or whether to sample using some rayon and handspun silk cap that's been sitting in the queue waiting to turn into a scarf. They're not colours that fit with the challenge but would work for the structure.


Decision, decisions. I'd better make one soon, because I've had a naked loom for nearly a week.

A jumble of pleats, part 2

(Do forgive the draping over the ironing board, it was easy!)
The image above shows the four scarves currently off the loom. The left-hand one is the 'plain' pleated scarf, and the very right-hand one is the reversed-treadle pleated scarf. Of the two scarves in the middle, the left-hand one is the third scarf, and the right-hand one the fourth. These have both been made by reversing the treadling for the pleats.

The tie-up and treadling for pleats is a simple four-shaft straight draw, but with a twist. In the case of these scarves, the black can be considered block A and the beige block B. Block A are threaded 1-2-3-4 on shafts 1-4, and block B are threaded 5-6-7-8 on shafts 5-8. For these scarves each stripe was eight threads wide so I'd do one repeat of the threading, as in the draft below.

In this fabric, the treadling is straight and the structure is controlled entirely by the different threadings between the blocks, so the pleats occur between different sections of warp. Block A, on shafts 1-4, becomes a weft-dominant fabric and block B, on shafts 5-8, becomes a warp-dominant fabric. Obviously the reverse will be the case on the other side of the fabric. It's the natural inclination of the fabric to bulge into the weft-dominant parts that creates the pleats. presuming you have suitable yarns (ideally, the weft should be about half the grist of the warp), and you have a suitable (twillish) sett, it's not necessary to use overtwisted yarns in the weft to achieve this effect. These scarves prove that, as they've woven using rayon flake and the most passive reeled silk thread you're ever seen.

If you want to take that a step further, surely that would be to change the way the pleats work along the length of the fabric as well? So, with 8 treadles, the following draft allows that:

In this case, part of the fabric is treadled as before and part of the fabric is treadled on treadles 1-8, treadled as threaded. It becomes very easy to see which parts of the fabric are warp-dominant and which are weft-dominant, and how that changes along the block (is this starting to look like block theory yet Meg?). Black areas in this draft are weft-dominant, and white areas are war-dominant.

Of course, you don't have to echo the repeats. You can choose to make them as long and/or as short as you wish, which is what I did with the next two scarves. For the third scarf, I did an even 20 repeats of the treadles for each block. The end result was a striped effect, which gavea very pleasing twist where the interchange between the blocks occurred.

The weft, in this case, was an alternating three-shuttle arrangement of peach, beige and pale grey, which gave a very soft and complex colour. You can see the striped effect this has given the scarf in the top image.

But what happens if the blocks are an even size? Just how small do the blocks have to be before you stop getting the pleated effect? That's what I wanted to find out with the fourth scarf:

In this case, because weft is finer than the warp and so the ppi is smaller than the wpi, I treadled a steady six repeats of each block before changing on to the next. The weft in this case was a slightly thicker and rougher (compared to the 60/2 silk) handspun silk cap, dyed black - probably about a 30/1, 20/1. The amswer to the above questions was that you have to have blocks that are definitely longer than wide, in order to develope defined pleating in a fabric. But what you get instead...

Is the most delightful movement in the scarf. There's a definite bobbling between the blocks, as (on this side of the scarf) the mostly-beige blocks try to spring forward and the mostly-black blocks try to move back. In addition, the scarf does still try to crinkle into more-or-less vertical pleats as it's worn, giving a lovely drape and feel to it. And although it looks like a checked scarf, remember the weft is a single colour. The relative colours have all been achieved using weave structure, which really sets the mind to thinking about what could be done with exploring this structure with a number of colours of similar value. This may well be my favourite of the scarves so far.

There's still enough warp on the scarf for one more scarf in this series, once I've finished the blue-and-green clasped-weft scarf. The last one, to complete the series, will be woven with long stretches of one pleat, broken by short stretches of the alternate pleat, to see what that brings up.

A jumble of pleats, part 1

With four of the five pleated scarves woven and my taking a break before weaving the fifth, it seemed a good time to blog the results of the experiments I've done on this warp. You can see from the image above, I've achieved some very different effects from the brown-and-beige striped warp I've had on the loom lately!

Because the pleats are designed to bend with the changing colours of the stripes, one side will appear all black with the beige in the bend of the pleat, and the other side will appear predominatly beige as the pleat beings the beige to the front and draws the black into the pleat. You can see both sides of the scarf in the image below.
The first scarf woven was straight 3/1, 1/3 pleats as I'd woven on the other warps. The ends were woven with a soft beige-grey 60/2 silk weft, and the main body of the scarf with a black 70/2 silk weft. You can see the margin of the two wefts in the image above.

When you stretch the pleats out, the effect is quite lovely.

The second scard was woven much the same as the first, but with a pale grey 60/2 silk weft and a reversing of the treadles. Instead of a constant repeat of 1-2-3-4 treadles, I'd treadle 1-2-3-4 six times, then treadle 4-3-2-1 six times. The effect was a lovely reversing twill pattern on both sides, but no difference to the structure of the pleats themselves, aside from a slight tendency to waviness that may have more to do with where they folded over the clothesline while drying.

Conclusion (a fairly obvious one): reversing the twill, while giving lovely patterns to look at in the fabric structure within the pleats, doesn't intrinsically alter the 3/1, 1/3 structure of the pleats, so won't alter the overall collapse pattern of the fabric.

But the patterns are, nonetheless, lovely, and open the way for ideas of pleated fabrics that are composed of a more complex twill structure. Something to think about and explore another day.

The obvious next step was to retie the loom and look at reversing the pleats themselves. More on that in the next post.

Reversible pleated scarves

When not on holiday (or wishing my holidays hadn't come to an end), I've still been having fun with pleats. After the last round, I decided to see whether I could make areversible pleated scarf, in two colours.



By making each 3/1, 1/3 twill block an alternating shade of light and dark blue, I created a scarf that is dominated by the light blue warp and the weft on one side, and the dak blue warp and the weft on the other side. Of course there's nothing new under the sun - I wove this a while ago now, and was sure I'd come up with something unusual and interesting, only to have the latest issue of Handwoven arrive the next day with an article about two-tone pleated scarves!

This scarf was made using rayon for the warp and various bits of blue silks (some commercial, some variegated hand-dyed and spun silk cap). I wasn't sure the rayon would pleat up as well as wool because it's so slippery, but it rolled up a treat when washed.

I did this to test the idea, before committing my precious handspun silk to the same treatment. I did, and am really pleased with the result, of which more later. In the meantime, the drape on the rayon is so lovely and I'm enjoying this exploration so much, this weekend I've warped up a long warp of black and beige rayon, to make a more scarves:

Lime green and tangerine

(With extra points to anyone who gets the song reference)


There's a post on colour that's been kicking around in my head, waiting for the right moment to get out. This probably isn't it. But colour has been a big part of my musings lately.

We all have favourite colours. We tend to stick to those colours and those combinations that are pleasing to our eyes and our differing tastes. Sometimes that can work us into a bit of a rut. The mossy lime green silk cap above is another example of the continuing series of greens that I've been playing with for the lat six months or so: and I've been weaving it into yet another green/brown/yellow handpainted warp. The tangerine is as well, because the scarf it will turn into will be red, yellow and orange: fun, but predictable.

But sometimes you're lucky enough that something prompts you out of it.

That happened to me a week or two ago. While spinning the tangerine silk cap (not looking anything like it's wonderful glorious brightness in the image above) at Rampton spinners recently, the wonderful scarf in Meg's avatar leapt into my mind. Suddenly I started to see the bright orange silk cap woven with a complex weave - possibly a block-drafted crackle - into a deep royal purple silk warp. The effect would be shimmering. I mentioned this to Meg, and she said that the only reason she had the gold cotton in the avatar was because she'd been sent it by error, and yet it had become one of her favourite cottons. She'd been taken out of her comfort zone and it had worked. I call that serendipity.

Since then, I've been looking at colour completely differently. My brain is brimming with ideas, at various stages of maturity. The orange and purple, which is still germinating in my head. Pale lemon yellow weft into soft grey splodged with rose pink and blue (a dog's breakfast of dyeing someone else did on a silk skein which I've later inherited - I'll take a photo one day). Stripey pleats, making a fabric with two different sides. Soft yellow pleats into dark navy blue, to up the contrast. And maybe trying to do something like watercolours, which change hue with changing perspective.

Sometimes all it takes is the smallest prompt.

Also, apologies for any typos. I think I've caught most of them, but I'm typing with a bandaged index finger due to a minor olive-oil-tin-and-sharp-knife gardening accident last weekend, and the extra bulk catches keys.

Moving on with pleats, part 2: sample, sample, sample

I'm slowly learning that it's always a good idea to sample. I this case, I wanted to decide what the best weft would be to use with the handpainted merino warp I planned to turn into a pleaty scarf, establish whether I'd managed to give myself loose pleats with the set I'd chosen, and see how much draw-in there would be. From just under 9 inches in the reed, the finished sample was an average of 5.5 inches wide - about 40% shrinkage.



From top to bottom:
- pale green 60/2 silk
- emerald green 120/2 silk
- soft grey-green 30/2 merino (the same cone as the previous too-soft warp)
- pale green handspun silk cap
- yellow overtwisted handspun silk cap
- olive green handspun silk cap
- a few picks of beige rayon flake thread used as a spacer because it's nice and slippery

There was little difference in the draw-in between the very fine silks and the handspun silk cap (which has more of a 30/2 grist).

The fine silks gave an incredibly soft hand to the fabric, but did give a weft-dominated fabric: not what you're after when you have gone to the effort of hand-painting a warp. The merino, being a closer grist to the warp than the other yarns, pleated less strongly than the silks. It's a nice effect and would give a nice result, but it's not what I'm after here - and the colour is all wrong. Cold contrasted with the warm colours of the warp. The pale green silk cap is too bright. The yellow overtwisted silk cap gave more draw-in and in intriguing result, but again was not what I wanted for this project - besides, I only have a small amount of that left over from one of the crammed-and-spaced silk scarves, and this sample has given me an idea for how to use it up.

The olive-green silk cap, which is what I was using for weft for the previous pleating efforts, is the winner. It's a little variegated, which I've decided to use to my advantage. I've used some of the darker silk to make a defined stripe, about six inches in from the end.


And the changing shades of the handpainted warp have the effect of increasing and decreasing the contrast between the pleats, and the variegations of the warp and weft drift in and out of similar colour tones:


This, too, has fired my mind and given me ideas for the next scarf, which will have more complex colour interactions again. It seems despite myself, my brain is giving me the increased layers of colour I was aspiring to last year.

Moving on with pleats, part 1: tying on a new warp

For the first time ever, I've cut a warp off the loom without making something of it. The olive pleats in this post were looking absolutely lovely - but the beautifully soft 30/2 merino I was using for the warp was far too soft to support any tension as a warp. It was stretching with every pick, and I was averaging a broken warp thread with every pick taken. It made for even slower weaving than the weak 60/2 silk warp and wasn't going to ever turn into a fabric that could be used. So with six inches or so woven, I called the result a sample and cut it off. I finished it, but appear not to have a photo of it. Set at 30 epi, the result is rolling pleats, but a slightly stiffer fabric than one would want to wear.

Not to waste the time I'd spent threading, I chose to tie on a warp I painted some time ago, intending to use for a pleated scarf. The warp is hand-painted NZ artisan lace-weight merino, a bit thicker than the merino I'd been using. I'd used this yarn before, for the multi-coloured scarf so knew it would stand up to life on the loom. It's a bit thicker than the merino in the previous warp, so I resleyed at 24 epi.

The new warp had about 30 more ends than the previous one, so I wound up a short dummy warp in red cotton for each side, to add the extra ends:


Having wound the warp prior to painting on my warping mill, I had a cross tied into each end. I put the threading cross through lease sticks, and tied these to the breast beam of the loom.

You can see my beloved trusty steed in the background. She lives in the studio with me and gives me immense pleasure on the 9-mile commute to and from work.

Tying each thread to the previous warp, I beamed the warp on. You can see in the image above how stretchy the previous olive green warp was: when I tied on, all the warp threads had been cut to the same length. By the time the knots had been eased through the reed and heddles, the wool warp was overall more stretched than the cotton, and some sections of it had stretched more than others. This has had the advantage of giving an attractive chevroning along the warp but may cause problems with tension once I get to the end of the warp. That won't be a problem for the scarf this will turn into, because there's enough length in the warp for the tail end to be samples. I can experiment.

I use the 'water jug' method of tensioning when beaming a warp this way: I tie the warp into a loose overhand knot, and hang over it a half-litre jug of water to weight it. I only beam a few inches at a time, stopping to shake and twang the warp threads into place for the next bit to pass through the reed - never combing my fingers through the warp. That just causes knots.


One the warp was beamed, I lashed the warp on. I always lash my warps on, I find it so much easier to get the warp to tension. I wind the lashing cord on a plastic bobbin, lash the warp on at a relatively easy, loose-to-medium tension, and then run my hands over the lashing cord to even the tension out. I continue to do this, increasing the tension one or two clicks of the ratchet at a time, running my hands over the lashing cord several times with each increase of tension. I find this gives me an even tension across the warp every time with no problems. If I'm not impatient, I'll often try to finish a day with a tensioned warp so I can let it rest overnight and settle before starting weaving in the morning. It means I spend many Friday nights tying up treadles!


More on the weaving tomorrow...

A bit crinkly

I've started making samples to play with pleats. Pleats are easiest made with alternating stripes of 1/3 and 3/1 twill, and a fairly close set. Many people recommend also using an overtwisted yarn in the weft, but that's not necessary. For this set of samples I wanted to see whether I could create soft pleats rather than a strongly pleated fabric. I warped up a 2/30 merino yarn, with occasionall ends of the olive-coloured silk cap and merino handspun used in the "moss on oak" scarf. I dyed the merino an oaky green to complement the handspun. I sleyed it quite tightly for 2/30, at 30 epi - but not set as tightly as I would for tighter pleats.



To be honest, I don't think this draft does the odd shot of handspun favours but I'm going to play some more and see how it goes. I'm thinking that a more balanced weave suits contrasting threads better. I'm very pleased with the level of soft pleating however, and want to play more with this. You can also see clearly in the photo above the difference different weft materials have on the pleating effect - the beige at the bottom is commercial rayon yarn, a slightly thicker grist than the warp. The green weft at the top is dyed hand-spun silk cap, a slightly finer grist than the weft, but not the half-thickness of the weft often recommended for strong pleats.



There's been a lot of shrinkage in the wet finishing. The scarf went from 7.5 inches wide in the reed to 5.5 inches wet-finished.

So much for having a nice easy weave with this project, again! I'm finding that the 2/30 at this set is very sticky, and I'm having to clear the shed with my hand before each and every pick.