Divergent Threads

Log Cabin and Shadow Weave

For this week's weaving class, we got to play around with Log Cabin and Shadow Weave, and I was not looking forward to it.  Years ago, as a new weaver, I warped up some ungodly amount of cotton which was to be a set of log cabin towels for my mother.  Log cabin was easy, I was told.  It's just plain weave, after all.  What could be so hard?  I wove two of the towels, which took me weeks.  I kept inadvertently switching shuttles, skipping threads, my selvedges looked like they were following the path of the Mississippi, and I was not a happy weaver.  The rest of the warp was woven off with a single weft, and hidden away somewhere.  Never again, I vowed.

So when Judy said, it's log cabin, it's basically plain weave, it's easy, I groaned inwardly, but took careful notes, came home, warped up a tiny 2" wide warp for bookmarks, and started weaving while holding my breath, waiting for the headaches to start.

I'm still waiting. 

I'm not sure if it's all the weaving I've done in the meantime, using a different loom, not trying to make everything square up perfectly, a better understanding of why it works, or just the universe biding its time, but I really enjoyed the log cabin, and have a number of ideas for projects using it now.  I went a little wild playing with the wefts to see what might happen, but it was fun. 

Warp: 10/2 cotton in black and natural, sett at 24 epi.
Wefts: 10/2 mercerized cotton, 5/2 cotton, cotton boucle and tape, Zephyr wool/silk, and whatever else was in the loom bench at the time.

Shadow weave was described as log cabin grown up, with many of the same characteristics: alternating colors in the warp, a two shuttle weft.  Every shadow weave project I've ever seen has been with smooth yarns at a fine gauge, usually with closely related colors, so I decided to go to the other end of the spectrum.  I warped up two bumpy cottons, a white textured and a navy slub, at 12 epi in a Swedish Rosepath twill.  The three mug rugs in the center are the result (so far -- there's more warp on the loom, but those are all I finished in time for class).

Shadow weave is intriguing.  Many of my classmates, being much better weavers, did more traditional type shadow weave projects, much subtler than mine.  You don't always get what you might expect from the parent pattern.  Drawdowns can be a headache, which is why I skipped them and trusted that the rosepath would undoubtedly provide me with something I could learn from.  You do have to pay much more attention to your weaving than with log cabin, as every pattern throw needs its corresponding shadow, but it isn't too bad.  I wrote out throw by throw directions for the first two, then just worked directly from the twill pattern for the third.  I may even improvise for the next one.  After all, if worst comes to worst, they can always join that first pathetic log cabin project in the closet.

How to weave really slowly

If you want to weave really slowly, I heartily recommend using this as weft:

(No, not the cat.)

This is a failed warp that got cut off the loom a while ago.  While the 100% alpaca is pretty strong, and didn't snap when tested, the slipperiness of the fibers meant, no matter what I did, the warp kept sliding apart.  So I cut the remainder off the loom and chained it, putting it aside.  It was too nice to throw away, so now I'm using it as weft in another scarf version of the braided twill Sheep to Shawl pattern.

Because the lengths are just over 2 yards long, and the scarf is 6" wide, I stop every 12 or 14 passes to untangle another strand from the former warp, butterfly it, and start weaving again.  I think it'll work out fine in the end.  In the meantime, it's an exercise in patience.  Sort of like raising teenagers.

(Of course, it could be worse.  I could be weaving infinitesimal silk for yards and yards and yards like some people. Or I could have even more teenagers.)

I've got a log cabin and a shadow weave sample to finish up before class on Wednesday, so the plan is to get home from work tomorrow and do nothing but weave.  It won't happen, of course, but that's the plan.

The garden is calling to me, insistently, two of the three roses I thought were killed are coming back to life after all, and then there are these:

The East Boulder County Artists are having their annual studio tours this weekend, and I stopped by the Old Firehouse Art Center  for a preview.  There were some incredible hand bound books by a local artist, Jeff Becker, and I was inspired to head for home and pull out a tiny bookbinding kit I'd gotten as a gift a few years ago.  An hour later, I had the two small bound books at the right, and was heading out the door to look for paper, coverstock, an awl, and a few other goodies to play some more.  The envelope book happened next, and I've got images of a shelf full of books with handwoven cloth covers dancing through my brain.  Just what I needed -- more projects. 

May flowers

The April showers are steadfastly refusing to acknowledge that it's not April anymore, and we've been having one rainy day after another.  (Mind you, these are Colorado rainy days, so total accumulated rainfall is something like 0.4" for the month, but that's really wet for these parts.  I miss the sun.)  My garden had a rough winter -- for the first time in years, I lost roses to the weather.  Three, to be exact.  And once again the squirrels have eaten the bulbs, so there's a definite deficiency in the May flowers department.  So I knit some.

Small flower pattern courtesy of Saartje, from some coned fingering weight wools on size 2 (2.75 mm) needles.  The pattern was flawless, though I only decreased down to 6 stitches for the stem so they would fit over the pens.

Tulip pattern from Rineke, same yarn and needles.  I changed this one a little as I went, moving the increases so that the beginning of the round didn't move, and tried different decreases, but the end result is the same, I think. 

Yesterday was Flower Day at my son's school, so the whole woolen bouquet went off with him in the morning, to get handed out to his math teacher, reading teacher, homeroom teacher, and classroom aide.  Hope they don't mind too much.

(Oh, the pens?  Just these, as they've got a smooth barrel and a small price tag.  Pencils would work just as well, though you'd have to be cautious as you approach the pencil sharpener...)

They call it lace

I'm still not convinced.

I'm taking a weaving class at Shuttles, More on Four, where we play around with a different four harness weave structure each week.  This week's assignment was lace, specifically spot Bronson and huck.

Now, when I first started weaving, and heard you could weave lace, I got very excited.  I love knitted lace, in fact, I love most laces, and the thought of bringing the speed of weaving to lacemaking had me itching to start.  Then I wove some.

Sorry, weavers, it's just not lace.

Exhibit A:  The Spot Bronson samples on the left.  Bronson is one of the lace weaves, with its major advantage the ability to work three blocks on four harness loom.  It gives some lovely textured patterns, is easy to weave, but it's just not lace.  Its major disadvantage (to me) is that you do not have the ability to thread plainweave in a piece without giving up a pattern shaft, so you'll notice the texture goes selvedge to selvedge.  You can treadle plainweave stripes across, which I did at each end.

(For anyone interested, the warp and weft are 10/2 cotton, sett at 24 epi.  Bottom left is trompt as writ, rest are variations as the spirit moved me.)

Exhibit B:  The huck lace samples to your right.  Same sett and yarn, different threading.

Huck allows only two blocks on four shafts, but does allow you to place plainweave anywhere along the threading you like.  Here, it's just at the borders, but the point is I could have had more plainweave if I wanted.  Witness the background shawl, mostly plainweave with huck inserts strategically located. Huck comes closer to having that lacy feel, especially in some of the combinations, but it's really just interrupted (or deflected, depending on which books you read) plain weave.  Each block has a pattern shaft and a tie-down, and the lace occurs when the pattern thread floats, either warpwise (keeping the shaft while weaving the lock) or weftwise (keeping the shaft down).  Because of the floats, after each treadling block you need to change either the block or the direction of the lace, or interrupt it with plainweave, or else you end up with long floats and an unstable fabric.

Some people have trouble adjusting to weaving huck as it's threaded and woven in five thread repeats, but it worked out.  As long as I don't run out of fingers, I'm fine.

I had some problems with beat when I started these, most dramatically illustrated in the center right square.  Note to self: don't go straight from the rug loom to lace weaving without a stiff drink, some calming yoga, or at least realizing that the beat needs to relax.  But I felt like something clicked while designing and weaving the huck, and now feel ready to huckify whatever I want, with a pretty good idea of how it'll end up.  Which  for me is the point of taking the class, after all.

My apologies if this post left you lacking in laciness.  I suggest you meander over to Knitting Beyond the Hebrides, where they're hosting a Lace Symposium this week.  There are patterns, articles, opinions, and techniques galore. I do hope they keep the site up past this week -- there's way too much there to digest in just seven days.