summer and winter

A Eureka Moment

/ handmadebyjo / 4 Comments

130328 Weaving (1)

 

Last night’s weaving was a revelation to me.  I’ve been doing a sampler in Summer and Winter and because I put on a 3 yard warp I decided I would weave a couple of runners with different treadling to help it all sink in. I have to admit I am such a novice weaver that until last night I had a slight grasp of what I was doing but truly didn’t really understand the structure.  Last Sunday Pam held a class on drafting and we also had to do our own draw downs on graph paper.  I am amazed at how hard I have to think to make the design part work.  I’m sure that after I do this a while it will be easier.  The class was excellent and I came away with a much better understanding of structure – how the warp and weft work together to make the desired pattern.

A couple of weeks ago I was weaving the beginning of this pattern, I had done about 2 repeats then left it for my next session.  When I got there last night it took about 15 minutes to just figure out where I’d left off.  I didn’t have a real draft of what to weave so I struggled to get going and REALLY struggled when the pattern had to change.  After weaving and unweaving I finally decided I would look (really look) at what I was weaving and what I wanted it to do and write my own draft – at least the treadle part.  I figured out each change by raising different sheds to see what they’d do and wrote it down with whatever repeats I thought would work.  Eureka!  I wove the next full repeat and it worked exactly the way I wanted it too.  This is EXCELLENT – heh, heh.

As I was weaving along I had to take a couple of photos – because I love the way it looks – I could just photograph it all day long.  I also wanted you to see that the back of the piece is the exact opposite as far as color and pattern.  Weaving is very cool.  I was also thankful that all I had was four treadles – with anymore I may never have figured it out.

130328 Weaving (2)

Weaving Wednesday 3

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130312 Green Summer and Winter

 

Still working on my Summer and Winter sampler/experiment.  I’m beginning to understand the structure and how to do a draw down so I know how to make a design I want.  Even though I have it graphed out it always comes as a bit of a surprise when I actually weave it.  I’ll probably weave a couple of feet of this design and then change to different treadling to see how I can switch it up yet keep the basic design intact.  It’s so beautiful and amazing to see it emerge as you weave.

Summer and Winter

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summer and winter sampler warp

 

I like to post a photograph each time I have a weaving class.  I do it for me so I have a record.  I did receive a lot of comments on this the other day and thought I’d give just a little more information.  This is going to me a sampler for a draft called Summer and Winter.  I’m doing a sampler so I can better understand the structure of this weave.  My teacher tells me we are going to beat this pattern to death so with three yards on the warp I should have a pretty good understanding of what’s going on by the time I take it off of the loom.  While I’m weaving it I will be thinking of what kind of project I want to make with this pattern when the sampler is finished.

I was going to post some photographs of this woven from other sources but I think I will just post week to week with its progress and what is happening with it.  I’m such a novice weaver that I have a lot of “aha” moments in all aspects of these projects.  I’ve also found that I dream about aspects that I don’t understand and solve problems in my sleep.  I find weaving to be mentally challenging.  The warp and the weft all come together to make a pattern but I sometimes have difficulty visualizing it. There’s a lot of math involved initially so if your math is off so is everything else.

I think my instructor sometimes gives me more credit for knowing what’s going on than I deserve.  Last week she was explaining how this was all going to work and I could NOT wrap my head around what was going on.  She drew it out on graph paper with me and talked about how many “units” went into it so we could figure out what kind of warp to wind.  I just agreed and did what she told me to do.  It wasn’t until I woke up the next morning that I knew what she was talking about.  It’s nice to know that my brain can actually figure this stuff out.  I see it as exercise.  People that take up musical instruments or learn a foreign language as they get older are supposedly more likely to fend off dementia.  I’d put this in that category as well, I have to really work my brain while I’m awake and sleeping to get this to work.

Most of the women in my class come to weave things, they follow the pattern until what they want to make is finished.  I’m not dismissing that capability because you have to know a lot to make that all come together.  I am one of those people that has to know why things work the way they do.  I believe once you know the why you can do anything within the medium.  Yup, I’ll keep telling myself that and continue to dream about the mechanics of weaving.