Welcome to my "archive"

Having completed my first mission, it was now time to develop a more regular double cloth. When choosing the threading pattern the aim was to be able to move the red and pink blocks independently of each other. Piece one, therefore, aimed to have blocks of red (woven with a red weft) mixed with blocks of green (woven with a pale green weft) – underneath will be green blocks woven with pale green and pink blocks woven with red. 

The first stripe was woven for 5 cm, to match the scale of the first red block. The second stripe should make a pink square approx. 2 cm (woven with pink and pale green), then the third repeats the first. This time the two layers remain one behind each other so a red / pink and then green pick are passed from left to right and then each is passed from right to left.

Tuesday 20th April 2021

Carried on weaving plain weave blocks, left with c 1 cm of the last block of three to go.

Thursday 22nd April 2021

Finished weaving the plain weave blocks, creating snippet 239.

The reverse of snippet 239 is snippet 240. On this side of the double cloth the green warp predominates and the red / pink warp is not self-coloured, but the opposite, so pink weft with red warp and vice versa.

Now to move on to a twill in the green. As there are 4-shafts in each green block, a 2/2 twill requires 4 picks to complete. This needs to be done in both layers, thus a total weave pattern of 8 picks. The first of these was planned as green and pink on top, this time dark green was used with the pink yarns to create the two weft feeds.

To match the stripes in the previous weave pattern 5 cm of this pattern were woven before swapping to red on top with green twill stripes. This time using red with the dark green for the two weft yarns.  2 cm of this plan were woven before reverting to the first of this pair for a second 5 cm. This resulted in the piece of fabric, snippet 241.

The reverse of snippet 241 shows pink and red plain weave predominating over smaller portions of twill woven in dark green on the green stripe warp, making snippet 242.

The red / pink warp was deliberately placed in blocks of 8 shafts, so that they could be woven as honeycomb. So now it was time to draw up the lifting plan for these. The first stripe to be woven in red and pale green. To keep the thinking as simple as possible, honeycomb was planned for the red warp and plain weave for the green.

Monday 26th April 2021

This pattern was repeated 4 times (giving a lovely textured grid effect in the red warp, which looks even better now the sample is washed and steamed). Then the blocks were reversed and the yarns swapped for pink and dark green to weave the opposite blocks, also repeated four times.

The results is snippet 243 and its reverse, snippet 244.

I love the honeycomb whether self-coloured, as in snippet 243, or when woven with mixed yarns, red on pink or pink on red as in snippet 244, on the “underside” once off the loom. I particularly like the added dimension created in the pink warp and red weft due to the long warp carries creating a curved edge to the pattern.

Although I like the pale green with red and dark green with pink combinations, for the final weave pattern(s) I wanted to exploit the stripe in the green warp by repeating this in the weft yarns of a twill pattern to make a check. Thus, for the last two patterns (red honeycomb with green twill and pink honeycomb with green twill) the green weft yarns are picked as 6 pale green and 2 dark green in each pattern repeat.

This was working really well, so after 6 repeats I swapped the pattern blocks around and changed the red weft yarn for a pink one to weave blocks of pink honeycomb with wider blocks of the check twill.

Thursday 29th April 2021

Five repeats of this were woven followed by four of the red face, three of the pink, two of the red and finally a single repeat of the pink weft pattern to complete snippet 245 shown in the picture.

The reverse of snippet 245 makes snippet 246, the “back” of the double cloth with larger blocks of the green twill and smaller areas of red / pink honeycomb.

Tuesday 10th March 2020

For this part of the semester, I wanted to return to Anni Albers. This time last year she had been my artist and exhibition inspiration for my sketch book constructed from the art-based module. With split modules I hadn’t been able to use this to influence my weaving at the time and would like to do so now. I have already played with the wandering line images, particularly using baler twine to recreate these, but there is so much more that I want to try, including the use of double cloth to create interactive patterns. This idea was further supported by seeing the work that another student produced.

Step one – establish a colour palette. I have a poinsettia, which despite relying on me to water it has been growing really well and my primary colours come from this. Dark green, pale green and red. To complete the colours, I have added the spring colour of pink (seen where a cherry tree was flowering next to a yew whose dark green really made the pinks vibrant).

I had started working with these colours in my sketch book (in pastels as these were to hand and quick to use) and now had to find suitable yarns.

The first three pale green, dark green and red were quickly found and of similar weight, as shown by a 10 yarn wrap on the card in snippet 231. I also found a very pale pink with a darker pink fleck. On the cone this looked perfect, however, when wrapped around the card proved to be much finer and look white. So, the pink hunt was resumed and an alternative found. This is a different fibre to the other colours but similar in weight so will be used in conjunction with the red for one warp and the two greens will be used to make a 6/2 stripe on the second warp.

Although there is some variation as the main yarns in each warp are at 10 epc, this is the basis of the warp plan. A 30 cm warp will require 300 ends, the stripe repeat is 8 ends so 36 stripes give a predicted width of 29 cm. 

The second warp will not be striped, but rather blocked, however, I would like the proportions to be similar. The stripe warp is 75% pale green and 25% dark green, so the red / pink warp needs to reflect this. The loom is 16 shaft and to continue the idea of working in blocks but incorporating texture, I want to be able to weave a honeycomb in the red, so it will need to be on 8 shafts. To keep the blocking simple, each block (of either red or pink) will be in multiples of 8 ends.

I decided on 28 red blocks and 8 pink blocks giving a 78%, 22% ratio, close enough to the green to ensure balance. Time to start winding a 4m warp.

Tuesday 26th April 2020

Over a month since we were last in the studio and it has been very strange adjusting to a very different way of living, thanks to Covid-19 first lock down. I have been reading and influenced by some of the material on Anni Albers I have produced a couple of images in my sketchbook which, I think should make the basis for some jacquard weaves. The first image, snippet 232, shows the use of the colours and the reflective ideas used. I have also continued the square theme from the first part of the semester.

The second sample, snippet 233, still encompasses squares and reflections, it also draws quite heavily on the pre-columbian weaving that also inspired Anni Albers.

Thursday 11th March 2021

When I left the studio on Tuesday 17th March last year who knew it would be nearly a year until I could return. By now the second years that I was working with are heading for their finals and I am on a supporting (non-weaving) module, so priority for looms goes to the current third years. We also have a change of weave Tutor, but a discussion with Rowena and I was allocated an Arm loom (ARM AG CH3507 BIGLEN). It is a 24 shaft with around 100 heddles / shaft and operated using Weave Point software.

My original threading plan was for a 16-shaft loom, but the increased shafts mean that I can now thread the whole red warp for 8-shaft patterns and the whole green warp for 4-shaft. As I still wish to be able to weave the red and pink blocks separately they each need their own 8-shafts and the green warp matched with each will require a further 8 shafts in total.

Friday 12th March 2021

The number of repeats in each colour block remains as I had first planned over a year ago. To reduce time in studio at this stage both warps were wound at home.

Friday 19th March 2021

Squeezed in a trip to the studio between an art class and a booked library visit and started threading.

Thursday 25th March 2021

A full session in the studio and I was able to finish the threading and start denting.

Monday 29th March 2021

Finally finished warping up and managed to weave a few rows of plain to check all was OK.

Thursday 1st April 2021

I created a second plan to weave the green warp on top (file name Sue double cloth 2) and found that I had a few crossed threads. Managed to untangle these and set loom ready for weaving. Once weaving started in earnest a couple more crossed threads became evident, again these were sorted and feel much more confident about doing this now.

Having created two warps out of my chosen yarns, both the red and pink were now virtually all used up, so I had to hunt for some replacements. Managed to find a similar red, but the pink chosen to match the colour is a much finer yarn.

The aim when weaving “double cloth 1” is to weave so that the cloth opens along one edge making a piece twice as wide as the warp. I have two different colour warps, so the plan is to produce a quartered square when the fabric is opened up. The first phase is all woven in red, the red warp being kept on top and the join made at the right hand side. So, the shuttle passes from left to right through the red warp, then right to left through the green warp, before returning left to right through the green warp and finishing right to left through the red. Thus, the pattern repeat is over four picks.

Friday 9th April 2021

Further threading glitches came to light once I started weaving. One red warp end needed redenting and a broken warp thread was found. The plan is to make a square, thus the length of red weave needs to be the same as the warp width, which is 283 mm, on the loom. By the end of this session there was about 45 mm still to weave.

Wednesday 14th April 2021

The last few mm of red were woven. Snippet 234 shows the red warp and once off the loom the other side could be seen, looking as per snippet 235.

Once the red block was finished, the green one was started, the same weave pattern still applies, but as the green warp is striped the weft was changed to match this. The warp is 6 ends of pale green and 2 of dark green, so the weft needed to be 6 picks of pale green on each warp, a total of 3 pattern repeats, and then 2 picks of dark green, again on each warp, so 4 in total (1 pattern repeat).

Thursday 15th April 2021

Another stint at the loom and this piece was finished as snippet 236. Again, once off the loom snippet 237 of the green side of the warp was captured.

So, I now have four (joined) pieces, which once cut from the rest of the double cloth open up to look like the image above. Final piece size 56 cm wide by 51 cm long.

Tuesday 1st December 2020

This was the day I started playing. Variable twill first, that is 3/1, 2/2,1/3 all left to right and then move to right to left and reverse 1/3, 2/2. 3/1. Just four picks (one repeat) of each twill.

With a brown weft, the change in density of the weft carries made a pattern, but it wasn’t really a clear twill, so tried this same shaft pattern with yellow. Yellow yarn used – Trojan Machine Washable: 75% acrylic, 25% wool, 4-ply. New Gold colour 179.

With this the twill is more visible. So, think again with brown and reconsider the transition between twill blocks. (Making the middle stripe on this snippet).

Friday 4th December 2020

Still really not sure. So, version 3, woven in yellow and then brown. Starts with 1/3 left to right and then moves to 2/2 before 3/1 and then working back down the twill pattern.

I think that this one looks by far the best. Finished, snippet 223 is 238 mm wide * 182 mm long.

Now to try weaving a spiral. Lots of counting of ends and picks to try to make this square(ish). Spent some time drawing a suitable spiral on graph paper and measuring elements of plain brown weave in an attempt to get even warp and weft. Settled on one square equivalent to 2 warp ends and 1.5 weft picks.

Sunday 7th February 2021

After several hours of weaving over a number of weeks, I finally finished weaving this spiral as snippet 225. Final dimensions are 130 mm wide by 95 mm long. 

Slightly wider than it is long, snippet 225 proved to be more of an oval than a circle, the proportions should be improved by weaving at 2 picks per square (rather than the 1.5 used here). The edges of the spiral were also quite raised, so interlocking the yarns underneath may help to avoid this (further reading has suggested an alternative, but that is for another time!). It might also help to reduce the number of turns in the spiral but make each spiral element wider. Time to redraw the spiral plan, as per snippet 226.

Monday 5th April 2021

Slightly more picks made for a slightly longer weave time, despite there being less colour changes with this version. Again, several hours (and weeks) later this spiral was complete and much rounder in appearance.

The two spirals together make an interesting piece with a total size of 254 mm wide * 294 mm long.

Monday 5th April 2021

Next idea to try is an old favourite, woven in various forms on a number of warps, that is a diamond shape of discontinuous weft, in this case with a solid diamond suspended in the space. The sides will be brown, woven in a 2/2 twill, but as this is a brown and white warp, the twill element will be covered by the colour pattern. The centre diamond will be woven in plain weave in white, again this will have a small colour based pattern.

The twill used is a 2/2 from right to left in terms of shaft lift, creating right to left on one side of the warp and left to right on the other, due to the threading pattern. Five sets of twill were woven to start this piece and then the picks were split in the centre and one end less included on each side at each turn.

Sunday 11th April 2021

Starting the central diamond proved tricky, so once 24 picks were unwoven, the central 14 were used in plain weave with the white, the tail of this was then woven down by hand in a tapestry weave manner until a point was created. The plan was to leave 5 picks unwoven on each side, so every two picks a one end decrease on each outside edge and a two-end increase in the central block. (At some point this became three unwoven ends, but not quite sure how or when.)

Monday 10th May 2021

Continued weaving decreasing amounts of brown twill and increasing amounts of plain white.

Tuesday 11th May 2021

Reached the turning point. So white at its maximum width, from here each two picks need an increase in brown of one end and a two-end decrease in white. Seemed to struggle with making this change.

Friday 14th May 2021

Concentrate! Lots of undoing as I kept decreasing the brown instead of increasing it. It is probably in here that things really got mixed up. Also found that due to the different weights of the yarns being used and the density of the two different weaving plans, the numbers of white and brown picks were not evenly matched and got out of synch a couple of times.

Sunday 16th May 2021

Five blocks of twill finished snippet 228 off, with a final size of 244 mm wide * 294 mm long. I do like the final shape, as the diamond is quite elongated and looks elegant with the colour changes emphasised.

Wednesday 19th May 2021

Both previous attempts at a spiral had resulted in some ridges where the weft colours were linked. I wanted to revisit the design and try to make a flatter piece by using the yellow as an additional weft. Thus, plain weave brown running the full width of the warp, with extra yellow weft coming up into the weave when needed.

I started with 5 sets of plain weave and then introduced the yellow as per snippet 226, with each square representing two warp ends and two weft picks.

This was continued on Saturday 22nd May 2021 and Sunday 23rdMay 2021, finally being finished on Monday 24th May 2021. Although not quick to weave, this spiral was completed more rapidly than its two predecessors. The size of the final piece was 260 mm wide * 230 mm long.

As before the spiral is slightly elongated, however, the surface is much less bulky and the spiral appears to be softer. This snippet, 229, is shown in the picture above.

Monday 24th May 2021

With a small amount of this warp left, I continued in plain brown weave, but found a piece of yellow baler twice to produce a supplementary weft wandering line. Due to the change in colour order at the mid-point of the warp I felt I wanted to emphasise this, so passed the baler twine under a white lift on the left hand side and under a brown lift on the right.

Snippet 230 is not a very big piece coming in at 256 mm wide * 145 mm long, but I do like the effect created by using a different colour on each side of the warp.

Now to try the next colour pattern, this time blocks of the weft colours, creating a striped piece. With white first the plan was to do 4 picks of white, then 4 of brown, then 8 picks of each before measuring. What is effectively 3 sets of each colour measured c6.5 cm. Simply reversing this would make a piece on 13 cm, much too short, so a further 12 picks of each were woven, reaching a woven length of 12.5 cm. If reversed this would be just 25 cm, creating another square piece. This is not ideal. Also, I would like to reverse the stripes so that both first and last stripe are white. 

The solution, weave 16 picks of white as the central turning point. The white is weaving up slightly thicker than the brown (as expected), so this will make a heavier looking central stripe.

I say stripe, but the colour plan for block of colour shows that little squares should be seen; with the white weft creating brown squares and the brown weft giving white ones.

Thursday 17th September 2020

Snippet 212 was finished with a final size (after washing) of 252 mm wide * 278 mm long.

The plan for snippet 213 was in some ways more complicated. I wanted to try lots of different combinations, starting with an all brown weft and gradually “fading” to an all white one. 

Aiming for roughly 3 cm of each pattern:

all brown

b, b, b, w

b, b, w

b, b, w, w

b, w, w

b, w, w, w

all white

would create a finished piece of roughly 21cm. This would make a rectangle wider than its height. 12 picks of brown is roughly 3 cm of plain weaving, so each other pattern was continued for 12 picks.

Friday 18th September 2020

Snippet 213 was completed with a finished size (after washing) of 253 mm wide * 205 mm long.

Now I wanted to repeat these weft colour patterns, but this time in a 2/2 twill. As the warp is a reflection, weaving a left to right twill will produce a right to left one on the second part of the warp. The colours are also on the opposite shafts, thus the left hand side is brown on 1 and 3, whilst on the right hand side these are on 4 and 2.

Changing the colour order should make very little difference, however, the reversal of the twill will. See the picture for this archive snippet.

Saturday 19th September 2020 to Monday 28th September 2020

Started weaving the 2/2 twill. The first 6 sets came to less than 5 cm, thus it looks as though around 16 sets will be needed. It took 19 sets to reach c13.5 cm, so now it is time to reverse the twill, this instantly starts to create a diamond in what will be the centre of the piece. The 19 sets in this direction seem to measure 15cm, so snippet 214 won’t be square, but should be roughly 28 cm long. Final size (after washing) 241 mm wide * 255 mm long.

Monday 28th September 2020 to Sunday 4th October 2020

Now for stripes, in snippet 215. Again, starting with white for 4 picks, then brown, then 8 of each. This time rather than reflecting the stripes the aim is to keep going so that the stripes simply get wider and wider.

The plan suggests that small oblongs of colour should be prominent in this pattern. With the white stripe now coming up a lot wider, by the time 16 picks of each had been woven the full length was around 13.5 cm, so it looks as though 24 picks of each will be required. After 20 picks of each were woven, the length was c20 cm and confirming that an even longer repeat is required. The last two blocks of snippet 215 were woven, giving a final size (after washing) of 238 mm wide * 260 mm long.

Sunday 4th October 2020 & Tuesday 6thOctober 2020

To complete this set of 2/2 twills, another fade was woven. This time starting with circa 3 cm of white and ‘fading’ to 3 cm of brown. Again 12 picks of each were woven.

This created an amazing set of colour weaves, almost a dog-tooth in some places. Snippet 216 came up rather short at only c135 mm, nevertheless it is beautiful. Final size: 242 mm wide * 128 mm long.

Wednesday 7th October 2020 to Tuesday 13th October 2020

Moving on the aim was to repeat this pattern of weaving but this time using a 3/1 twill. Back to the two-tone picks of brown, white, brown, white and initially weaving twill from left to right. Once weaving this settled to a width of 25 cm, so the swap in direction of twill 12.5 cm.

Having spent some time thinking about what I was trying to achieve with this warp, I not only wanted to change direction, but I also want to swap the colour order. This needs to be roughly half-way through each direction block, thus c66 mm and again at c188 mm.

I had already woven 66 mm in 40 picks, so this was the perfect point at which to change to white, brown, white, brown for 40 picks. Then I stayed with this colour pattern but switched the twill direction so that it is now starting right to left, then for the final block I maintained this twill but swapped the colours back to the original brown, white, brown, white order. Final size of snippet 217 is 242 mm wide * 250 mm long.

Tuesday 13th October 2020 to Saturday 24th October 2020

So now to weave stripes of brown and white weft in blocks. Rather than progressing from top to bottom in size, this group was designed to pivot on a brown stripe. Thus, I started by weaving 16 picks of white (4 blocks of the twill repeat), then 12 of brown and 8 of white before starting on a central 12 picks of brown (it could have been just 4), but this would have left the piece a little short and rather white heavy.

With a Uni hand-in scheduled for yesterday afternoon; work for this had rather taken over. So, now on a mission this weekend to finish this piece, complete this twill and start the next one. I finished the snippet 218 at 245 mm wide * 258 mm long.

Sunday 25th October 2020

Snippet 219 was simple to weave. The fading weft pattern that I had used for the other two weave patterns to complete this twill set, making a piece 240 mm wide * 134 mm long.

Sunday 25th October 2020 to Saturday 6th November 2020

To finish the set, I now wanted to weave these same three weft patterns in a 1/3 twill. My head knows that this should be like the reverse of the 3/1 twills that I have just woven, however, as I would like to be able to see them next to each other I will weave them again.

With the width at 250 mm, a quarter of this is 62.5 mm. 9 blocks of brown, white weave came out at 63 mm, so the perfect point at which to pivot.

Another break in weaving (and an even longer break in writing up). My notes say that at this point I swapped sets and did white then brown for 9 repeats. Then a change of colour and direction so now brown then white and in practice miss the first row with 4 lifted, thus starting with 3 in white. Turn again after 17 brown picks (18 white). (Did you get all that? Hope it makes sense when I need to use it again!)

The last two sets for snippet 220 were woven with a final colour change to finish, ie. 9 repeats of white then brown. Final size 241 mm wide* 226 mm long.

Saturday 6thNovember 2020 & Monday 8th November 2020

Now to weave various twills in blocks of colour. Started by using a regular 1/3 from left to right with brown for 10 repeats. Carried on with 8 sets of white, 6 brown, 4 white and 2 brown to complete this colour twill. Size of snippet 221, 240 mm wide * 192 mm long.

Monday 8th November 2020 & Thursday 19th November 2020

Started the next colour pattern, staying with the same twill weave but fading the colour as before from brown to white. Finally got around to finishing snippet 222 at 238 mm wide * 138 mm long.

This was a momentous day. Time to create my first warp on my own warping mill for my own 4-shaft loom. Before anything else I needed to find out more about my own loom.

Time spent counting dent spaces and working with a steel tape suggests that there are approximately 280 dents in roughly 50cm of loom width giving c5.5 epc. Next a count of heddles showed that there are 60 on shaft 1 and then 80 on each of shafts 2, 3 and 4. 

Suitably armed with this information, time to think about my first warp, which starts with a yarn wrap of the proposed yarns. Since I had created a 5-colour warp in January at Uni, I had planned to do a 2-colour warp to really experiment with some colour weaving. Thus, the Two Tone warp that I’ve chosen to create based on the brown and white yarns that I have available. (Snippet 208)

The brown is Argyll Supa-Warm for Thermal machine knitting: 45% Courtelle (acrylic), 40% danaklon (polypropylene) and 15% wool measuring at 14mm for 10 ends on the card. The white is Atkinsonyarn, Pearl 98 white, from the Yorkshire mohair mill, this measures in at 9mm for 10 ends. This is, however, quite an uneven yarn with a slough in it, so is effectively even thinner.

For a colour warp to work properly the two colours should be of even weight. As these two yarns are quite different two strands of the white will be used with every one of the brown. The two being warped and woven as a single, thus the combined epc is in the order of 6 for this warp, ie. one / dent.

A maximum potential width of 280 ends, however, I want to use a plain 1 to 4 warping plan, so the warp is limited by the number of heddles on the first shaft, ie. 60. Thus my total warp will be 60 * 4 = 240. (This will be reduced by one as I plan to reverse the shaft pattern at a central point, so that the two halves of the warp will be woven in matching patterns.) On this basis final width should be around 44cm.

Wednesday 19thAugust 2020

By the end of yesterday, I had decided how to build the warp and wound the first 20 ends. Today is all about continuing this.

Thursday 20th August 2020

Having established how wide it is possible to make this warp I have thought about how I will use the finished textile. For a cushion cover either 51cm or 27cm are ideal, likewise for wall art the piece either needs ideally to fit an A4 frame mounted horizontally or an A3 frame vertically. As 51cm is not possible on this loom, with these yarns, that means that a target of around 27cm is preferred. With the yarn end weights calculated above, 171 warp ends should achieve this and fit the threading pattern.

Final number of ends established back to winding! (Snippet 209)

Sunday 6th September 2020

Things are moving along slowly. Today I tied the warp together ready to take off the mill and transfer to the loom, I also attached the raddle to the back of the loom. Now I just have to be brave and start warping.

Monday 7th September 2020

Have done just that. The warp is now off the warping mill and rolled on to the loom. Seems that I’ve somehow managed to get an even number of warp ends, so not quite sure if I’ve got too many or too few. I guess I’ll find out in due course, meanwhile things are on the up. (Not the best lighting, but the warp can be seen in snippet 210.)

Tuesday 8th September 2020

More progress; I have threaded the first 19*4 heddles all 1 to 4, with white in the odd numbers and brown in the even ones. Had intended to do a point turn here, but I want the white to be on the even shafts this side (and the brown on the odds), so will do a second 4 and then thread 4 to 1 for the rest of the warp.

Wednesday 9th September 2020

The good news is that I counted correctly when winding the warp and have 38 sets of 4 all threaded. Now to dent this, effectively one end per dent (although for the white this means two yarns as I am doubling up to get a similar weight to the brown). Looks like to tomorrow I will actually be able to start weaving!

Thursday 10th September 2020

Well not quite weaving, but every end is now also through the dent and the warp is tied onto the receiving roll too.

Monday 14th September 2020

After a total of 6 hours and10 minutes spent warping, I started weaving. A simple plain weave in the same colour pattern as the warp so brown, white, brown, white. As this is a two tone warp, I hope that the finished fabric will look something like half vertical and half horizontal stripes.

Wednesday 16th September 2020

The piece is now coming up c26 cm wide, so to make four squares the initial weave needs to be c13 cm long. This is roughly 12 sets of 4 picks. So, after 48 picks two of white are woven to swap the patterns over.

Final size of snippet 211 (after washing): 258 mm wide * 240 mm long.

Despite being short I love the overall effect of snippet 204 and this is something that I will return to in future warps.

I had now reached the moment of truth, I should have enough sample pieces for both Bradford and Nieper and want to try re-denting this warp for an exaggerated mock leno effect. Thus, it was time to cut.

Once off the loom I was reassured that I did have sufficient useable pieces and so turned my attention back to the warp. I want to continue working with the block effect that can be created on this warp. The ultimate aim is to produce mock leno squares within a plain weave framework. To achieve this I want to weave blocks in all of my yarns (two sets of each to create squares) and I want to exaggerate the spacing in alternate blocks to really allow the mock leno weave to be expressed.

I decided to leave all the 1-8 shafts dented as before, but with the 9-16 shafts I grouped the ends in fours leaving an empty dent between each group. This meant that I only had to re-dent half of the warp and was soon back to weaving.

I started with the mid-blue and found that 3 repeats of the plain weave produced the right length of weave to make squares in the sample. So, after 3 repeats I changed the blocks over. After producing two sets of blocks in the mid-blue my brain was shot. It was time to pack up and go home!

Tuesday 3rd March 2020

I had “redented” the warp last week and started on a piece making squares out of plain weave and mock leno. Having started with a mid-blue section and found that 3 repeats of the mock leno was approximately square, I swapped the blocks over after 24 picks to create the squared effect that I had been working with before.

Then it was time for the pale blue, again 3 repeats seemed to be enough to make a square. Three repeats were also used for the lilac and the purple, however, the dark blue being a heavier yarn required only 2 repeats and the orange being much finer needed 4.

Once off the loom the effect of the redenting became more obvious. Although, the mock leno created a warp distortion in all of its blocks, the holes were sharper and more obvious in the panels that had been dented into groups of four ends with gaps.

The mock leno also causes the horizontal edges of the plain weave to undulate, this is most obvious along the lines where the weft colours change, effectively creating a distorted weft. 

The weight of the weft yarn also has a considerable effect on the nature of the pattern, with the dark blue (only 2 repeats) having less visual impact than the orange (4 repeats). The number of yarns tried has made snippet 205 quite a long piece at 28cm, but has allowed decisions about the next piece to be made.

Having decided that the emphasis on the mock leno blocks was greatest in the orange, I chose this as my colour for snippet 206. The aim was to make 4 mock leno squares on a plain background roughly 5 times the size of each small square.

To achieve this I needed to work with five, rather than six blocks, so I cut the last full warp repeat on the right-hand side, then produced this piece using the same weave pattern as the last one, but rather than swapping the blocks of the first, third and fifth repeats these were simply woven as plain weave across the whole width of the warp. (As in the picture with this archive note.)

As often happens time is now running short and in this case so, too, is my warp. To finish it off I wanted to make a self-coloured check in plain weave, (my first piece had been in a twill) and combine this with using the warp to make the weft, thus, creating a diagonal piece. This time I tried cutting each warp thread as I needed it, leaving the first two on the right- hand side in place to provide tension. I still found that the last few picks condensed to make a rounded end to snippet 207, but managed to keep the tension better than when I had tried this on a previous warp.

Warp finished, it was time to go home, recover and plan the next project.

Thursday 6th February 2020

Two colours in my full colour palette have yet to be used, so I started snippet 193 with the dark blue. 8 picks of each pattern were woven starting with the first block in a left to right 1/7 twill, then 2/6, 3/5, 4/4, 5/3, 6/2 and finally 7/1. 

I then swapped to the mid-blue and wove the same pattern in reverse. So, from right to left in the first block and starting with the 7/1 pattern. On reaching the end of the 1/7 block, the weft yarn was again returned to the dark blue and another block woven like the first.

Next a block of pale- blue was done, in the same order as the mid-blue. Thus, all the dark blue twill goes in one direction, while the other two blues reflect it. One more dark blue block finished this piece on Tuesday 11th February 2020.

Now for another quick and easy weave, this one (snippet 194) was intended to form a complement to earlier pieces by being less complex and busy. I simply wove 115 mm in plain weave with the pale blue, then a block of a similar length with the lilac. This gives two colour-way options for the same design.

Snippet 195 was more plain weave, but this time with a twist. I started with 36 picks with the dark blue; I was aiming for around 70 mm. Then the next pick was plain across the first two warp blocks (64 ends), the middle two warp blocks were then grouped in to 4 end blocks using the dark blue with a tapestry weave soumak, before finishing the pass with more regular plain weave. 

The central piece of this sample was then woven in three separate groups, the two outside blocks continued in plain weave with the dark blue yarn. The middle block was tapestry woven with orange baler twine, every other turn on the dark blue being used to tie in the outside warp bundle from the baler twine block to hold the whole piece together and provide stability.

After approximately 70 mm of this stage of the weave a further 36 rows were completed with the dark blue in a plain weave. The result can be seen in the picture above.

Jackie saw snippet 195 and suggested that the baler twine could be used to produce an effective distorted weft. Definitely worth a try, so added this idea to my long list of things that I still want to do.

A little bit of time left, so on to the next snippet. This one is to use the blocks in the warp to enable squares of warp-faced and weft-faced satin/sateen to be produced. The pale blue and lilac yarns both have a slight shine and this will work well in the weft-faced elements.

The weft-faced block was effectively plain pale blue (or lilac), whilst the warp-faced block showed the warp stripes.

Each block (set by the warp) is approximately 24mm wide, to make a square of satin / sateen, this will require 8 repeats of this pattern. After one set of 8 pattern repeats, the pattern was changed over, so that the warp-faced was on the left of each pair of blocks and the weft-faced on the right.

Thursday 13th February 2020 saw snippet 196 progress with a three-block repeat in pale blue. Then the weft was changed to lilac and the blocks swapped once again, so that the pale blue sateen block was followed by a lilac satin block and vice versa.

Monday 17th February 2020 and snippet 196 was finished. The final piece had three rows of pale-blue blocks, then three of lilac and finished with a further three in pale blue.

Tuesday 18th February 2020

The aim for today was to explore distorted weft. I started by consulting Woven Textile Design (2014), Jan Shenton. This showed a distorted weft based on a 4-pick repeat. I think that my ground yarns are rather fine for this, so adapted the pattern to an 8-pick repeat.

I used this pattern with my dark blue yarn as the distorting weft (O) in rows 1 and 9 and started with pale blue as my field yarn. This full pattern was repeated twice before replacing the field yarn with lilac, then the mid blue and finally the orange. Jackie saw the work during this phase and suggested doing a simple repeat rather than a reflection as the orange would draw the eye to the middle of the piece if it was used as a pivot point. Thus snippet 197 came into being.

Overall, I was quite pleased with snippet 197 and it gave me some ideas for development:

1. I don’t like the raised single orange warp on shaft 4.

2. I would like to try something similar but exploiting the warp blocking that was included when I set up.

3. I want to try using baler twine as the prominent weft.

4. I haven’t used the purple yarn for a while and this will make a good colour contrast with the orange baler twine.

So, for my next snippet, 198, the field yarn was purple and it was woven in blocks, with the same pattern as the last sample used for one block and a single warp lift used for the second block. 

The first repeat was woven and this measured 24mm, perfect for a single block. Thus, after each pattern repeat the blocks were swapped over such that all odd numbered repeats were woven 1-16, whilst the even ones were woven 9-16, 1-8. 

I had intended to make 9 repeats, however, the baler twine being used as the prominent weft was only long enough for 8. This resulted in a piece 218mm long.

From snippet 198 with the baler twine, I particularly liked the longer warp carries. Thus, for my next piece I decided to repeat this pattern (one of the two blocks used) across the whole width of the warp, using dark blue for the main weave and my new sparkly yarn in rows 1 and 9.

I did two repeats of this pattern and then a further two blocks lifting just shafts 2 (10) and 6 (14), so that the long warp is really exaggerated. I then did three repeats lifting 3 (11) and 7 (15), before two more repeats of the 2 and 6 lift and finally two repeats of the original plan.

This gave a total length of 236mm, enough for snippet 199. Next on my list of things to try was a honeycomb. I like the idea of using the blocks again, so produced two reflecting honeycomb lift patterns.

The idea was to rotate five yarns through the weft: dark blue, mid blue, light blue, purple and lilac using the orange in each row 4 and the sparkle yarn in each row 8. Each of the main weft yarns would be used until approximately 25mm of weaving had been achieved to make roughly square blocks before swapping over the weave patterns.

I completed a few repeats but found the impression too busy, the texture of the honeycomb being lost in all the colour changes. So I stopped this idea, but will return to it later to try blocks of the pale blue and lilac. These worked well in the satin / sateen blocks which rely on texture rather than colour. For now though, it was time to go home. (Once off the loom, this tiny piece became snippet 200. It showed that the use of single picks of orange yarn had given a very interesting “square” effect on the surface, so will develop this too.)

Thursday 20th February 2020

To complement snippet 195 I wanted another piece. Thus, snippet 201 was a pure baler twine weft and used the warp colours and threading pattern to create interest.

A very simple lifting pattern was used. Plain weave in half of the warp (initially 1-8), and then a simple four and four pattern in the other half (9-16). Just four picks of baler twine makes a piece between 20 and 25mm long, thus the shafts were reversed every four picks until the piece measured more than 20cm in length.

Monday 24th February 2020

The first piece in this collection exploited the colour weave potential of this warp and I decided to return to this for the next sample. Again, using a twill, but this time a variable twill throughout, allowing the warping to achieve a chevron effect in the weave. This was the same weave pattern as the second piece, using the yarns in the same pattern as the warp, thus 8 picks of pale blue, 3 of purple, 2 orange, 3 purple, 8 lilac, 3 purple, 2 orange and 3 purple repeated. 

One colour repeat is four separate weave lift blocks, whilst the weave pattern is 14 blocks in total, with the 14th repeat (the turning point) always a purple and orange block.

Tuesday 25th February 2020

As the yarns haven’t got any heavier since I started this warp, the weave is fine and thus slow. 4 full pattern repeats gave a finished length of 190mm, which is enough to show the impact and make snippet 202.

Although I had been focussing on Hockney for this collection, previous research had been on Anni Albers and there is still so much that I want to explore around her techniques, so for snippet 203 I worked a wandering line of baler twine over the top of the plain and four-shaft plain blocks that I had used with the baler twine in snippet 201.

A very simple weaving plan, which created a distortion as the four-four block is a much less stable weave than the plain weave. Again, I wanted to make blocks that were roughly square and 20 picks of plain weave in the mid-blue seemed to achieve this.

I love the result of this piece with interest in both the background and the foreground, but the flowing nature of the baler twine giving an overall feeling of peace and ease. I now have four pieces using baler twine.

I still wanted to explore the wandering line more and had been trying to work out how to make this continuous, rather than an obvious start and stop point, a line that wanders up both sides of the sample. The baler twine is rather heavy for this warp and so I decided to try this different approach with the sparkly yarn. This yarn is more subtle than the baler twine, so it seemed that the contrast would be greater with the pale blue field yarn. For the weave pattern, I opted to allow the warp to generate movement and decided on a simple 4/4 twill throughout; this would create vertical chevrons at two points across the width of the piece.

To make the wandering line, I cut a good length of yarn and found the centre point, which was included in the base line in the woven piece. I worked backwards and forwards with the two ends of this over the twill weave. I hadn’t realised quite how much interest yarn I would use and only created quite a short snippet 204 before it ran out.

With the weaving of snippet 188 well under way, Jackie suggested that it would be timely to return to the jacquard. I only had one sketchbook with me, but there is an image that I have created in a couple of forms, that seemed to suit the jacquard. Although the original intention had been to scan in an image, the one that I selected was painted in ink and the colouring was not as solid as it could be. Thus, it was suggested that I recreate my pattern directly in the jacquard software, snippet 189.

The second image, snippet 190, is a development from snippet 189; still using gel pen and ink, but this time using two colours with a stripe in the intervening space.

As this was converted to a weave plan the white and orange elements were both done on the white warp, using a warp faced weave, so that the white would mostly appear as warp floats. (Orange was used on feed 1). The chosen blue was then used on feed 2 and the white warp to produce a mid-blue and the purple (on feed 3) was used on the black warp to strengthen its tone. The two sides can be seen in the image for snippet 191.

After roughly 30 cm of fabric had been woven the purple was changed to a darker blue to show a different colour-way for the same basic pattern (snippet 192).

Based on my holiday research of both David Nieper and David Hockney I had developed a blue based colour palette. Two key aspects of David Hockney’s work were the primary influences for this. Blues coming from his swimming pool range; his later i-pad work, particularly of trees, brought in purple and orange.

At various stages David Hockney has also used smaller pieces to make a larger impression, this has been done through collaging photographs, painting one large image but on a number of smaller canvases and then joining them together and also as a sequence of similar subjects presented sequentially around a room.

With this theme in mind, I had hoped that I would be able to try using a split warp so that I could weave blocks of different shaft patterns at the same time. In this way, I should be able to create a single piece but with distinct blocks of pattern / texture.

Thoughts about fabrics for Nieper’s had led me to think about producing a tartan type based on different colour weights, so predominantly blue or purple with orange as a highlight colour.

Jackie started the session by asking us to think about colour weaving and also plan what we intended before we started. This is the first time that I have started with a weave idea and then set up the warp to achieve it. Very exciting, but also slightly scary trying to predict an outcome.

The first step in doing this is to determine which yarns to use, what warping pattern to follow and how many ends will be needed to make the required width (in this case about 20cm). Jackie had suggested using two colours for the warp but agreed that this could be increased, so I was able to think about my tartan effect. For each selected yarn 1cm worth of turns were made around a ruler in order to estimate the ends per centimetre (epc). Each turn was made leaving a small space (a similar width to the yarn) for a weft thread to pass through.

With 10 ends of each yarn wound around a card it is easy to see that the dark blue is the heaviest (thickest) and the orange the finest (see snippet 186). In order to create an even warp, I decided to use the light blue, the lilac and the purple and orange combined. Working in sets of 8 with blocks of the light blue and lilac and blocks of the purple split by two wraps (ends) of orange produced the pattern at the right hand end of this yarn card as in the picture.

So, this 32 end pattern is likely to form the basis of my warp. I wanted to weave this in a twill to create a fabric suitable for soft tailoring, or simple dress making for a lined jacket. In order to establish the nature of the pattern that would be created I drew out a suitable square in my notebook and coloured the centre based on whether the warp or weft yarn would be visible.

The colours used are not exactly the same as those of the yarns, however, the small amount of orange does stand out well against the other colours, achieving the effect that I was hoping for, as shown in the picture for snippet 187.

I discussed with Jackie using this warp group as one of my blocks (weaving on shafts 1-8) and then repeating this for a second block (on shafts 9-16). The intention being to do one block as a 2/2 twill and the second as a 5/3 (weft-faced) twill.

Having agreed that this would work I needed to calculate the number of blocks and so the number of warp ends to set up. With a warp repeat of 32 and an epc of 10, this means that each warp block should give 3.2cm of fabric, thus 6 blocks should give 19.2cm. As I wanted to reverse the middle two blocks there were two change points, one at the start of the third block and on at the start of the fifth block, in each case I would only need to do 7 ends of the pale blue, rather than 8 as in all the other blocks.

By the end of the day the warp was on the loom and the first set of ends had been threaded through the shafts.

Wednesday 29th January 2020

Returned to the studio to finish the warp. As I was working on 10epc and I wanted to place 2 ends through each dent, I chose one that stated 5 per cm on it. Having threaded everything through, my warp looked rather narrow.

A quick measure showed that the dents were actually 6 per cm, but they didn’t appear to be making the warp any narrower than it should be, in fact it looks as though my yarns come in at 12 epc. Lesson learned here is two-fold:

· Don’t leave too big a gap between yarns when measuring epc.

· Don’t use a ruler with strong 1 mm lines as the yarn tends to slip into these (hence why most of my yarns came out at 10 epc!)

I was quite disappointed to have made the warp narrower than intended, however, I do like the colour and I am definitely drawn to the finer yarns, so I’m going to stick with it.

Wove a few picks of plain weave with a waste yarn that was already on the shuttle to get the warp ready for weaving.

Friday 31st January 2020

Today was the day I actually started weaving. In order to create the planned tartan effect, the weft pattern of yarns has to be the same as the warp, so 8 light blue, 3 purple, 2 orange, 3 purple, 8 lilac, 3 purple, 2 orange and 3 purple making one block. This would also be the number of picks of one pattern before reversing the blocks, to create a squared effect in the weave (as per my Hockney inspiration).

Completed one weft block with the first shaft pattern (32 picks) and then another weft block with the second shaft pattern (32 picks). It is reassuring to see that the result is similar to the idea that I was trying to create. These two repeats measure 4 cm and in this pattern the warp has settled to 14 cm, so I will need to do eight repeats in total to make a sample slightly longer than it is wide. So not quite squares, but rectangles 1.9cm long by 2.3cm wide.

Meanwhile I have ideas for the next 4 pieces, so will need to discuss these with Jackie when I return to finish this one next week.

Tuesday 4th February 2020

Back to finish my first sample. Jackie explained that the piece will need to be long enough to “fill” one end of an A3 landscape board, thus needs to be at least 20 cm long. 4 pattern repeats created 74 mm of weaving, thus 3 sets of 4 will be needed to exceed the target length. Indeed, twelve repeats measured 225 mm, long enough for the final piece (snippet 188).

With the rotation requirements just about complete there was still plenty of time to develop another warp. This time on a 16-shaft. I had already decided that I wanted to repeat the “castellated” border effect created by using two different colours on alternating warps and that I would keep this warp in two colours.

By using the dark blue on each outside edge and the pale yellow in the middle, this would create a natural trimming effect. I chose to make the first four ends (and thus also the last 4) dark blue, then the next alternating 4 dark blue and pale yellow. A simple warping plan of shafts 1-16 repeated across the full width (of 80 ends) was then set up. The pale yellow was rather slippery and creating the warp required two-person wrangling, so many thanks to Kirin for her help with this.

Warp in place with the concepts of fastening and recycling in the front of my mind I wanted to produce a piece with baler twine. I chose pink as it is linked to the fuscia in my existing colour palette and decided to use a honeycomb background; this will make a very textured sample.

I already have a shaft pattern for an 8-shaft version, so I started with this, repeating it in shafts 1-8 and 9-16, but it feels that there is little point having a 16-shaft loom if the extra shafts are not exploited so I alternated this 8-shaft pattern with a 16-shaft version.

With the 8th weft pick I also passed a length of bailer twine through the shed and returned it 8 picks later leaving a loop extending beyond the warp. This was repeated with each 8thpick with the baler twine being wrapped around the previous loop to help to stabilise the piece.

With a mixture of 8 and 16 row patterns the position of the baler twine in the shed moved such that sometimes it is nearer the top and sometimes more hidden. The original top / front of the warp is shown in snippet 176.

Once off the loom, the other side of snippet 176 is shown in snippet 177.

I like the way that the baler twine used in snippets 176 and 177 distorts the warp causing some of the spacing to have very irregular shapes. I also liked the depth created by the large honeycomb so produced another piece based on this pattern.

Three colours were used for the weft, dark blue, pale yellow and purple. Initially two 8-shaft repeats and one 16- were done in each colour, then the pattern was reflected by doing two of the 8-shaft in purple, then one 16- and two 8-shafts were woven in each of the pale yellow and dark blue. The top produces a weft face piece as shown in the picture for snippet 178.

The reverse of snippet 178 sees the warp becomes more prominent as shown in snippet 179.

Friday 13th December 2019

Before starting this rotation I had wanted to try mixing plain and basket weave in the same sample. I did this in my second sample on the 8-shaft. However, due to the size of the pattern there was a strong diagonal effect. Now seemed like a good opportunity to try this again on a 16-shaft.

This time I wanted to use all the colours from my palette; so, I started with the dark blue, then the purple and fuscia.

Monday 16th December 2019

Last week on the rotation and I still want to change the warp one more time, so came in to finish off snippet 180. Added light blue and pale yellow blocks, before reversing the pattern with light blue, fuscia, purple and dark blue.

Tuesday 17th December 2019

I like the graphic images that other students had been creating by using a thicker yarn to create a shape and using a finer weft in an odd then even pattern to hold the fabric together. I had an idea about creating circles again, but this would work better (I thought) with the edge of the piece warped on shafts 1-8 and the centre of shafts 9-16-9.

I tried various yarns and patterns, these were mostly taken out again as they were nothing like the pattern that I was trying to create. I finally settled on one and did two repeats of this in a thick blue, then some plain, followed by two repeats in purple. Still really not happy so gave up on this idea, which can be seen in snippet 181.

Snippet 182 shows that once off the loom, the purple wasn’t too bad, particularly when the reverse is considered.

To finish this warp I decided to take advantage of the reflection in the warp to create a simple two colour pattern using a dark blue weft and inserting a pale yellow “wire” thread every 8th pick to create simple loops on each side of the sample. Using 2-2 twill created a dramatic zig-zag pattern as in the image above.

Thursday 19th December 2019

The last rotation requirement is to further manipulate two of the jacquard samples. I really wasn’t sure what to do, I thought about using embroidery to add some tree images to the square and circle pattern, but in the end decided that it has been so long since I have been in the print studio that a reminder in how to make a screen would probably be of greater benefit to my skill set.

Alison kindly agreed to help with this, (it has only been a year since she did this, versus the three years since I did my first print rotation). I wanted to keep the circle theme going and also keep playing with scale, so I simply produced some circular images on a piece of paper (larger than my jacquard sample pieces).

Before starting the drawing I coated a screen, so that it would be dry by the time my image was complete. Transferred the image to the screen and ready to print. I wanted to try two different techniques, so used the screen to add glue to the tree jacquard, this was subsequently then used to apply foil. 

Once finished there were two apparent problems with the foiling:

· Some of the solid areas had not transferred completely – I think this is probably a result of not pulling enough glue through the screen to get the fabric sufficiently tacky.

· There are additional flecks across much of the image – Camilla explained that this is probably the result of using paper that was thicker than the light exposure is set for. This can be resolved by using thinner paper in future or by increasing the exposure time during transfer of the image to the screen.

Really glad I tried this as it did provide some useful learning, as well as a modified piece of jacquard shown as snippet 184.

During my first print rotation I had enjoyed the slightly unpredictable effect of using discharge over blue dyes. As my jacquard uses two different blue yarns (along with fuscia in the weft, black and white in the warp), I was really not sure quite what would happen.

I had predicted that the effect would be variable, what I hadn’t expected was that the discharge would allow the weaving pattern to be seen so clearly in the dark blue sections of the weave. Although this particular sample snippet 185) does not add to the collection as the image that was discharged is not the most relevant addition, it does show the potential in developing this technique for future fabrics.

I now had 5 possible pieces, so it was time to think about the jacquard.

For my first jacquard I want to return to the circles (holes) in squares pattern of my first knit sample. This time I would like to be able to play with scale slightly, by using two different size squares in each sample.

The full jacquard width means that with a 12” x 12” square sample, there will be 3 repeats across the width, to form the basis of three samples of each pattern.

12 is a beautiful number as it is divisible by so many factors (1, 2, 3, 4 and 6). I decided that in one 12” vertical repeat I could do 4 sets of 3” squares and 3 sets of 4” squares. I ended up creating 4 sets of 45 x 40 mm rectangles and 6 sets of 22 x 20 mm rectangles. With more time, I could have developed this pattern to make the squares intended, but the effect is close enough to the original plan that a single weave run is sufficient.

The plan was to create a checkerboard effect with each size of squares and place a circle in the middle of each. If only two colours were used, this would result in each side of the jacquard potentially looking the same, so I decided to do the squares in light blue and dark blue and the central circles in the fuscia. Giving two very different sample effects.

Both the light blue and the fuscia were woven on the white warps, whilst the dark blue was woven on the black. This gives the impression that the sample is essentially black and white, again if this was part of a collection, more time would be spent selecting suitable yarns to create the final colour palette required, but this is enough to demonstrate the idea.

This image (snippet 172) shows the “front” face. Closest to the original design colouration. The reverse became snippet 173, the third sample being used for subsequent embellishment will appear again as a later snippet.

The second jacquard was created in just two colours (the dark and light blues). I drew a large and a small palm tree directly onto the jacquard software and used these to create a diagonal effect repeat. This image was chosen tying my woven samples in with my print ones, to bring the whole semester’s work closer together.

The dark face is shown as snippet 174. As with snippets 172 and 173, the reverse face of snippet 174 face is shown as snippet 175 and the third piece used for further development.

Tuesday 26th November 2019

And so back to weave. I had watched the previous two years complete this rotation, including creating a warp and producing samples suitable for trimmings. With this in mind, I had been gathering ideas for things that I would like to try.

I have lots of ideas; the first being to create a warp that uses my five yarns that were used in knit (thus keeping the colour palette across all three rotations). I want my first warp to be symmetrical in colour, starting with the darkest (in this case dark blue) on the outside and fading to the palest (pale yellow) in the centre. I already knew from knit that my yarns are of variable thickness and fibre content. In fact, two of them, the pale blue and the fuscia are not really strong enough to create a warp. I found two alternative yarns, but these are even finer, so my warp has a very mixed epc.

Jackie had suggested that we limit our warps to two or three colours, so I went ahead with my 5-colour plan (sorry, Jackie), but did keep the warp relatively short and offered to use an 8-shaft leaving the 16s available for those with other ideas. (The plan is to create a 16-shaft warp with less colours later.)

So with 5 colours my warp started with 4 ends of dark blue, then 4 alternating dark blue and purple, followed by 4 of purple and 4 alternating purple and fuscia, before 4 of fuscia and 4 alternating fuscia and light blue, next came 4 light blue and 4 of light blue and pale yellow before 4 of yellow and then reversing this pattern.

Thus, I had 68 ends and an estimated epc of about 10 across all the yarns. It took until the middle of the afternoon to get this warp set up, then finally it was time to start weaving. The plan for my first piece was to weave in plain weave the same weft pattern that I had in the warp, thus starting with the dark blue, “fading” to the pale yellow and the returning gradually to the dark blue.

Wednesday 27th November 2019

Back into the studio to complete my first piece (snippet 165). I knew from counting the warp that the first colour repeat would be 68 wefts, a second one would, however, be slightly shorter at 64 picks as there is no need to repeat the block of dark blue. Two pattern repeats gave me a piece a little over 30 cm in length and thus a perfect place to stop.

This warp produces a really tidy edge which had a castellated effect similar to one that I had produced in knit. So, when I produce the next warp, I would like to use dark blue at the edge and make the main body of the piece pale yellow. Thus, the warp will be 4 ends of dark blue, then 4 alternating dark blue and yellow, before the main body being yellow, with the reverse repeat at the second side.

Now for my next piece. I had wanted to try weaving a mixture of plain and basket weave in the same row, my original idea had been to try this on the 16-shaft, but I decided to try this on the 8-shaft for now.

This time I used each of the warp colours in blocks, the same pattern (dark blue, purple, fuscia, light blue, pale yellow) but this time no “fading”.

When woven on an 8-shaft this pattern produced a visual diagonal; but did not show the variation in texture that I was hoping to achieve, so I will repeat this on a 16-shaft. It is also clear from the two samples that a more consistent warp tension is achieved by beating both before and after passing the pick. 

In comparing snippets 165 and 166, it can be seen that the warp colour dominates when the weft is used in the fade pattern, the weft colouration only becoming more obvious when large blocks of each colour are used.

For my next piece, I wanted to return to my diamond image. Using the warp colouration to determine the width of each central space, I decided to keep the weft all one colour (dark blue), the aim being to produce a series of diamonds initially increasing in size and then decreasing.

The weaving around each diamond being a 2/2 twill running in the same direction as the edge of the triangle. A little experimenting showed that the central pale yellow block was too small, so started with the full width of the pale yellow, including where it was mixed with the light blue. A couple of false starts also suggested that row 2 of the pattern was the best place to start, (so with shafts 2, 3, 6 and 7) lifted on both sides of the unwoven centre.

Monday 2nd December 2019

I knew that this piece would be slow, so returned in the hope that it would be finished for our taught studio session tomorrow. Ever the optimist despite 3 hours of steady weaving this piece was still only half completed.

Tuesday 3rd December 2019

Felt like stopping this piece and just using it in my technical folder, but I did like what I had done, so persevered and after over 6 hours of weaving I was glad that I had completed the full pattern. This makes snippet 167, which can be seen in the photo above.

During the day we also had a talk from Trimmings by design to help with the semester brief and a lesson on how to use the jacquard software.

Thus, again there is still lots to do. I feel that I need to sit quietly and work up some ideas for the jacquard, so will return to this next week. Meanwhile I wanted to re-shed my current warp.

I had started with 2 ends through each dent, but now wanted to try to manipulate the spacing by grouping the fine ends as a four (the light blue and the fuscia) and threading the thicker ends as singles (the pale yellow and the purple). All other ends and combinations were again placed in pairs.

Now snippet 168. To keep with my inspiration theme of trees and fastenings I planned to use paperclips to create an edge on one side of my next piece. In order to maximise the impact of the variable shedding I kept the weave to a single colour (again dark blue) and the pattern plain. I created a repeating colour pattern with the paperclips and wove one in after every 6 picks.

Friday 6th December 2019

In previous warps I have had success with variable twills, so this seemed like a good thing to try. I started by using the weft yarns in the same pattern as the warp, creating a fade effect in both the colour and the twill. However, this looked very busy and the impact of both patterns was lost but shown as snippet 169.

Monday 9th December 2019

I had already produced one sample based on fading the colours in the weft, so decided to focus on the variable twill pattern by using just the pale yellow.

Returned to the variable twill starting with 1/7 twill, which moved through 2/6, 3/5, 4/4, 5/3, 6/2 to 7/1 before reversing the journey. This zig-zag effect was done twice. The piece was still slightly short, but as I won’t be using this as one of my selected samples for the Trimmings board I stopped here, making snippet 170.

Once off the loom, the reverse side of snippets 169 and 170 could be seen as snippet 171, still not quite the effect I was after.

Back in front of a computer with the mission to make a set of 6 possible files for a collection to be printed on to fabric. I didn’t expect to have final versions of all of them, but at least 6 that would go together. 

I really liked the last two samples, snippets 156 & 157, based on scanned images of my knit samples and these set the colour palette for the range of samples. Having chosen these two, the white trees on stripes that I had produced yesterday, no longer works. So, I created a new striped repeat based on the stripes in the squares sample and then placed white beech trees over the top of these (snippet 158).

I also liked the leaf pattern that I had created early on but, felt that neither the scale nor the background colour worked with the prints taken from my knit samples. So, I started with the blue and yellow leaf pattern, but increased the scale and changed the ground to a dark red (subsequently matched to the red in the knit sample stripes, which took it into the final 6). This is now snippet 159.

At this point I thought I had five potential final samples and three more that didn’t quite fit, but might be a starting point, so it felt like significant progress had been made and I could discuss these with Camilla next week.

Tuesday 12th November 2019

Mission, by the end of today have 6 files saved as 33cm * 33cm canvas TIFs for printing out. Showed Camilla my ideas and it became clear that some further work would be required.

The three samples identified above were effectively all good to go. (The background of the leaf print was tweaked to match the colour from the scanned knit samples.)

My original leaf pattern was to form the basis of the fourth sample. By increasing the size of the leaf image and then creating a striped background from the knit piece used in the grid sample two ideas were completely brought together. (Snippet 160).

This had given me an idea for how to tie my collaged tree images into the collection. I used the pale-yellow stripe from the knit sample to make a textured background and slightly increased the size of the inverted trees in the stripe pattern for sample 5. I also managed to interlock the leaves of the tallest trees, although this was not originally intended, it gave an additional shape to the repeat and had an additive effect on the background, so was kept in the final print. (See picture above.)

The last sample doesn’t involve any form of pattern. Using an image scanned from my sketch book, I used photoshop to adjust the colours slightly and then saved into the appropriate format in illustrator, this is snippet 162. 

At present it is only colour that makes this part of a unified collection. However, after the flock and foil induction in the afternoon, I think it may be possible to use the lines and circles of these “lollipop” trees to overprint one of my samples. Need to discuss this and other options with Camilla next week before the final steps can be taken.

Wednesday 13th November 2019

Back into the design hub to load the files prepared yesterday onto the Mimaki printer and then watched the samples appear. Kath will steam these, then they need washing (at 60°) to fix the images and then remove the chemical residues.

Thursday 14th November 2019

Design hub again. This time for embroidery induction. I have a file ready for converting to a stitch file for the embroidery machine, however, there would have been a long wait to do this. So, arranged to return to complete this induction next Friday, by which time it should have been possible to create a file that will be suitable for embellishing one of my samples. Thus, the induction opportunity can be used to test this prior to booking a session to complete the collection.

Tuesday 19th November 2019

Last week in front of a computer and two things to do. 

* Produce some images in a suitable format to be used as embroidery to tie my collection of samples together. 

* Insert some of my patterns into images to show how they could be used in an interiors collection. 

With considerable help from a couple of other students I managed to insert some of one of my prints into a room image to show how it could be used as a wallpaper, as per snippet 163.

Wednesday 13th November 2019

For the embroidery challenge I took two separate images. One is the tallest “palm” tree from the Hockney inspired collage in my sketchbook and now the stripe on a textured field print sample. I outlined this to make the leaves one continuous line and the trunk a single unit.

The second image comes from the “lollipop” trees taken directly from my sketchbook for a print sample. This is currently only tied to the rest of the collection by colour, so I though that if I could embroider some similar trees onto another sample this would tie them more closely. I took two of the trees and created lines for the trunks, the little circles and a suggestion of the shape of the top of the tree. In order to maintain the hand-drawn uneven feel these were each over drawn as separate lines in illustrator.

Thus, I had a series of line drawings to take to my embroidery induction on Friday. I hope to be able to embroider one of each image on my test piece, so that I can decide how to use these with my printed samples.

Friday 22nd November 2019

The more I look at my Mimaki printed samples, the more I like them as they are and don’t feel that embellishment would improve them for use in an interiors’ environment. However, this decision can only really made when I have some suitable embroidery test pieces to consider.

This morning Alison and I returned to the design hub to complete our embroidery induction. First step was to take the files created in Illustrator and convert them into embroidery stitch files and then to have them embroidered. My test piece contained both types of tree image, it was reduced to 90% on the embroidery machine to ensure that the piece fitted within the embroidery frame.

I am pleased with both images. I feel that the lollipop trees have really captured the hand drawn effect from my sketch book, whilst the palm tree is much crisper, like the collage that it was taken from, see snippet 164.

Although pleased with both images I still don’t want to embellish any of my existing Mimaki samples with these, however, I feel that adding them to my jacquard pieces my well work and help to bring the print and weave elements together in my collection.

Back for another day in front of a computer screen. Quickly asked Camilla how to manipulate one image in photoshop without affecting all of its copies. (The answer is to not use image!) So, went back to the collaged trees inspired by Hockney and played with repeats based on a pair of images, one upside down, to create snippet 151.

Was really pleased to find that I could now achieve what I was trying to achieve, rather than things happening by random accident.

We were also introduced to the idea of producing a colour gradient across a whole screen; used repeats of the collaged trees to demonstrate this. Snippet 152, while definitely not my colour palette, does show the potential of this technique and the “sunny” feeling inspired by this colour gradient works well with this image that also has a “tropical” feel.

After this we moved on to using an image in photoshop brush. For snippet 153 I took my copied version of a beech tree for this and tried producing trees in different colours, loosely based on my colour palette.

I also used this technique to over print white beech trees on a striped field for snippet 154. I really liked the effect, unfortunately the colours don’t really work with my other samples. Nevertheless, this image was then used for sublimation printing onto two different fabrics (now in my sketchbook).

Now another new technique; this time using photoshop to create an image that can be used in repeat as a tile, by blurring colours and patterns at the edges after “turning sides to middle” horizontally and vertically. For this activity I scanned two of my knit samples and used these as the basis for development.

The first of these was then moved into illustrator and used in a vertical repeat, snippet 155. Then again in a horizontal repeat for snippet 156, subsequently printed using the Mimaki.

For snippet 157 I did something slightly different with my other knit sample, having cropped it to a single square I then made a pattern using half the squares in a horizontal orientation and the other half rotated through 90°. (This too made it to the final set of six printed by Mimaki onto fabric.)

Knowing that a lot of this rotation would be computer based I was (am) slightly wary of the whole four weeks. Some of the work produced by the other half of the year and seen at the crit. last week was exciting and this has given me some hope, but even so it was with a feeling of trepidation that I sat down in front of the computer.

Logged in to the computer, found photoshop and illustrator, so was feeling a little more confident by the time Camilla arrived. No more hiding, it is time to start producing some repeats. Advised to keep this simple to start with, I found the leaf image that I had used with the Shima and scanned it (fortunately the leaf fitted on an A4 scanner).

Then with lots of guidance (and possibly some luck) managed to produce my first repeat with a coloured background! (Snippet 144.)

This was done using a hexagon repeat in Illustrator. I realise that I simply struck lucky with the shape of this image but felt that this worked quite well.

Feeling slightly over-confident I tried to do the same process with another simple shape. This time a circle in a tree. This time round got confused about how to recolour the background and had to ask for help. (Snippet 145.) On seeing my image Camilla suggested that maybe this was a little simple, so I used the lunch break to use the A3 scanner to capture some more of my sketchbook images.

Back to the leaf motif of this morning, but this time I combined it with another image in the same style. This time I inverted one of the leaves and simply made vertical stripes, which because of the shape of the image has almost made a grid pattern. The colour of this background is better matched to my knit and this repeat is a good development of my large Shima sample. (Snippet 146.)

By this stage my brain was in overload, so when asked to find an image to use for the laser cut I simply went to a tree of life image that I had painted, knowing that this provided a solid central image. (Snippet 147.)

To convert this image into one suitable for the laser cutter a line had to be placed around each edge. Once transferred to the laser cutter this had to be set at 0.01mm in order for the appropriate size line to be burnt through the fabric. I have now recreated the image in my sketch book; both the direct image and the negative are shown here. (Snippet 148.)

Wednesday 30th October 2019

Felt that I should return to the computers as soon as possible to try to repeat the type of activity we had covered yesterday. I had looked at my images and felt that a set of collaged trees would work quite well as stripes, either for interiors or fashion, but that I wanted a “plain stripe” of colour between columns of trees.

Managed to open my image in Photoshop, removed the background and place the image in the centre of a larger “frame”, so that when it was transferred to Illustrator to make a repeat there were gaps between the images. I created a repeat and saved it to a swatch, but then struggled to find it again when trying to fill a blank frame (worked it out eventually) and then using Camilla’s printed instructions I was able to fill the background with a pale yellow.

So, I had achieved exactly what I set out to do. This was very reassuring and I’m pleased with the final repeat, which you can see in the picture.

Now I was on a roll, so found another image with the intention of making copies of various sizes and rotations. Discovered that I couldn’t do this, so have some questions for next week, but in trying to remove the background from a simple image Photoshop did some wizardry and created an unintended effect that I really rather liked. Took this new image and made a simple wall repeat in Illustrator. (Snippet 150.)

Still have the original image scanned from my sketchbook and also a single modified image before making the repeat. With help next week I will be able to develop this image in line with my original intention. Also have a couple more ideas for things that I would like to try, but have no idea how to achieve, meanwhile, back to the sketchbook.

Excited to be back. The first year that we have started on a grey day, still it had stopped raining by the time I walked from the car park. Back into the knit studio and sat in front of a domestic machine, where I realised that in the two years since I had last sat here my mind had emptied.

Despite not remembering how to knit by machine I was still able to select some suitable yarns based on my summer palette of dark blue, pale blue, mauve, purple and pale yellow (which seems to have become cream). Then a fellow student reminded me how to cast on and I was off and knitting.

Started with 10 rows of knitting, made a row of lace holes, then another 10 rows of knitting before picking up the cast on row to make a picot hem. I can remember something after all!

Changed yarn from pale blue to dark blue and practised making some more holes, spaced every third stitch this time, changed colour again, now pink / mauve, for another set of holes, but this time used to make ladders so not all the stitched were re-engaged on the first part, but they were done successively from the outside in.

Now complete brain failure when it came to casting off. So again, with expert guidance from another student I was reminded how to do this. First tiny piece complete, but the dark blue now looks black so went in hunt of a slightly less black blue.

Having found a new blue a test swatch was knitted starting with dark blue and then inserting each of the colours in turn to ensure that a blue hue remained in every combination.

So, I have five yarns! Now to start using the sketchbook for inspiration. Stripes and holes seem to be the order of the day (for now at least). Another quick lesson from Charlie (technician) in how to use punch cards and fair isle knit and I was off on sample three. Only two colours, but a good starting point for ideas. I like the squares and I like the stripes with holes in them, so will develop these two ideas in the next samples. 

(These can be seen in the gallery as snippets 128 and 129.) However, I also think that the square motif needs a “harder” bottom edge the picot looks too soft to really support this – perhaps some squares?

Leaving the domestics for a little while it was now time to engage with digital knit using the Shima Seiki machines. I selected this image from my sketchbook (snippet 130). It was scanned into photoshop and cleaned up in 3-colour, before transfer to the knit software.

I ran out of time at this point, so returned on Thursday to see how it had knitted up, I was hoping for an offset repeat.

John had worked his magic with the leaf image on the Shima. Looks like the original sample was a bit large, so both the image and overall size were decreased for the second sample, then a couple of goes at introducing lace holes into the background. John was disappointed that the machine was still dropping some stitches, so more work to do on this, but largest sample and one of the lace hole ones are shown in snippet 131.

Now my turn on the domestic. First sample of the day was to create a checker-board effect of squares four stitches wide by four rows long, using the dark blue as the main colour and swapping the primary and secondary yarns in the fair isle distribution to alternate the coloured squares.

Mostly this went quite well, but there were a few lessons learned:

· Ensure cast on stitches are under tension, otherwise everything drops off with first pass!

· First row of fair isle doesn’t engage across full width, find out why – is this a machine or knitter issue?

· Cream yarn is “slippery” so needs extra tension provided by weights at edge of sample.

· The fuscia (pink) and pale blue both knitted well.

· The purple yarn is a little thicker and may benefit from an increased stitch size.

· The cream yarn is a little thinner and may benefit from a decrease in stitch size.

· Stitches are not as long as they are wide, probably need to do 6 rows of 4 stitches wide to create squares.

· Overall very pleased with the impression of the sample.

So now to try a zig zag effect with holes made left to right for four rows and right to left for four rows. Also look at the impact of placing the holes in the centre of 5 coloured stitches and then 3 coloured stitches on an overall pattern block of 8 stitches.

Again, there were some lessons learned:

· I like the left / right zig zag created by the direction in which the holes were made.

· This would look different if the 3-stitch column was centred on the 5-stitch column rather than both being “formatted” to the left.

· Purple was worked at T6.2 and cream at T5.1 and these both worked better (the other colours were all at T6).

Finally, it felt as though the squares would look better with holes in them. So, based on a four-stitch wide square, the middle two stitches in each non-background block were used to make a hole. The finished piece showed rather more ladders than holes, need to work on the technique. I know that I can only introduce one needle at a time, so will try again next time.

Overall good progress: I still have some things to work out, as I also notice that the first row of any fair isle pattern is the same as the last row of the previous set. Again, I suspect this might be a machine error, but can find out this out by trying another machine. I also need to work out where the pattern sits in relation to the centre of a sample and either find, or create, a punch card to make 5 / 3 then 3 / 5 stripes. 

I came into the studio with plans for my first sample. Before starting there were a couple of things to work out. The pattern card is 24 stitches wide and I think this equates to the “red block” of needles marked on the machine. To confirm where the squares would appear, I cast on 24 stitches on these needles, knitted a few plain rows, engaged the fair isle pattern then ran the carriage back and forward with the top lifted to engage the pattern. (I had been told that this would solve the delayed pattern pick up by some other students.) Knitted 6 rows in fair isle, which resulted in much squarer squares. A few more rows of plain then a row of two stitch holes, remembering to leave one needle back for row one and move forward for row two. Cast off and sample confirmed that this method leaves a lace effect rather than a lace hole.

Tried again, moved cast on stitches one stitch to the right so that fair isle would fit exactly. Made squares and then moved on to holes. Big learning point here – remember to move back to regular stitch when second yarn is removed from carriage! Fortunately, only a test sample, so recovered dropped stitches and made two stitch holes again. This time when the second needle was returned the lace stitch was hooked over the returning needle resulting in much cleaner holes.

Testing all done, it’s time to produce my first sample. The pattern is 8 stitches wide, so each square for the hem will be 8 stitches wide, the sample needs an odd number of these; 4 squares and 3 gaps give a sample width of 56 stitches, which should be about right.

Dark blue was the background colour and each other colour was then used for two sets of 6 stitches to produce a checkerboard effect. A two-stitch hole was made in each colour block by knitting two rows, then making the hole, bringing the needles back one by one and finishing with two rows. The pattern was repeated twice to create the full sample (snippet 134).

So far, so good. Snippet 134 sorted, time to start on the next one. Maintaining the same colour mix but changing a 5/3 and 3/5 pattern and single holes. A quick discussion with Kay and it was decided to use all the colours in both the “background” and the fair isle, but to change the two at different points in the pattern. This would reduce the stripe effect and emulate the projected edge effect of the bar in the leaf on the Shima sample.

I decided to place the single hole in the middle of each 5-stripe by moving the stitch left to right and in the middle of the 3-stripe by moving the stitch right to left. This alteration in direction of the hole making should produce a zig-zag effect in the finished piece. It also seemed that a picot hem would complement the holes and slight wave in the pattern, so this was made in the dark blue to ensure continuity from the first sample.

This piece was started and 5 lots of background colour and five lots of fair isle colour completed before running out of time. Back in tomorrow to finish this one.

Wednesday 9th October

The second piece was close to completion yesterday. Another couple of colour changes and this was now long enough to be cast off to form sample two.

With time remaining before our afternoon lecture it made sense to start on the next piece. Kay had suggested doing some work on “hold” to produce a wavy edge; a sample in the corridor provided inspiration and a wavy hem seemed like a good way of introducing the energy of trees into the knit sample.

I cast on 24 stitches (in the dark blue) and started to use needles on the left-hand side in hold to enable the right-hand side to grow more rapidly. Different colours were inserted and variable numbers of stitches held to introduce “godets” of a range of lengths and widths. After a couple of colour changes the non-held knitting jumped off; probably insufficient tension / weight on the knitted work. This piece was removed but demonstrated that the concept would work.

After the abortive attempt of snippet 136, a second attempt was made. This one continued until 18 cm wide, which should be enough to cover around 50 needles for the sample body, perhaps slightly narrower than A4, but the frill on the hem will be wider.

Working on a sample width of 50 stitches, I planned out a scheme for creating a diamond pattern in lace holes, however, to keep this balanced I needed an odd number of stitches, thus 49 stitches were to be used. This created a 24-row repeat, where row 25 = row 1.

Tuesday 15th October

Progress review with Kay where we agreed possible developments for the Shima using a mixture of scale and colourway changes to develop the image. One idea is to make an even smaller repeat as a border changing the colour placement on alternate images. Then a central larger image – ideally with the lace detail in the background again. I will need to arrange another session with John to achieve this.

For my domestic machine samples, Kay explained a technique for reducing the tendency of a picot hem to “kick up”. This is done by reducing stitch size every two rows of knit – increasing for the hole row – return to smallest size, then increase every two rows until pick up. Need to try this on a future sample, also want to try picot hems on flaps created by knitting extra on hold. Definitely needs a test piece!

Meanwhile back to sample 3. The frill for the hem was completed last week. Picked this up over 49 stitches, knitted a couple of rows of dark blue and realised that counting needles for placing the holes was going to be a nightmare, so took the work off and picked up again starting with the left-hand stitch on “0”. Knitted a couple of rows and realised that I created some ladders. I must have picked up two needles in the same stitch on the frill. So off again – re-hooked – carefully and finally started the sample.

The intention is to move away from a dark blue background, so in this sample more pale blue was used with the dark blue. Setting up a 6-row dark blue, 6-row pale blue, 6-row dark blue repeat. Each block was separated by two rows of one of the other three colours. This repeat was a suitable length to allow each additional colour to be used in a 3-drop repeat of the lace holes.

In making the lace holes; when the line of holes was moving left to right across the sample (on the reverse side, as seen when being knitted) the hole was created by moving the stitch from left to right. Conversely, when the lace holes were travelling right to left, the stitch transfer was moved in the same direction (right-hand needle to left). When the sample was complete this revealed an additional textural element with a stitch line running underneath the lace holes. (This can just be seen in the picture above.)

Third sample successfully completed, now time for number four. This time the background is to be pale blue and all the other colours to be used as inserts. Similar to the frill on sample 3, using needles in the hold position to enable shorter rows to be knitted in another colour.

The inserts used all four of the colours, different numbers of needles and a variety of numbers of rows. The intention being to make a random but balanced sample with long narrow inserts and shorter but wider ones. In order to avoid holes appearing at every turn, an extra needle was placed on hold on the second of each pair of rows. (Snippet 139.)

Wednesday 16th October

Back in to steam sample 3, finish sample 4 and start knitting columns for sample 5.

Sample 5 is based on a suggestion from Kay, after seeing the Shima samples. The tab extending outside the leaf motif inspired a series of strips of knitting of differing lengths and widths joined to together with uneven start and finish points.

One strip of each colour was knitted and two of these joined by hooking up one strip with right side facing and the second with wrong side facing then knitting one row and casting off. In this way the pale blue and yellow stripes were joined and it was possible to plan the rest of the sample.

Tuesday 22nd October

Last week of this knit rotation and lots still to do. A plan of the vertical stripes suggested my next actions; including producing another long wide pale yellow stripe to add to the other edge to provide stability to the piece, and another piece of pale blue knitting to join the final stripes, this one was done horizontally to add a different element to the piece. The resulting sample is quite abstract as shown in this photo. (Snippet 140.)

I now had five samples completed and plans for the two more from the domestic machine, so arranged with John to complete another sample on a Shima.

The original idea for this was to produce two rows of the leaf motif, each row having three of the six possible colour combinations with three colours. The two rows were to be separated by a larger leaf, however, in creating this an asymmetric pattern (closer to A3 in size) was achieved. This unintended pattern looked interesting on the screen, so it was agreed that we would knit this and only produce the original design if this pattern didn’t work in a knitted format.

Once knitted the sample was washed and steamed and although larger than the other samples in the collection has been kept as a development of both the colour and design elements. (Snippet 141).

And so, to sample six. The intention this time was to continue working with the pale blue background, starting with a picot hem, to which an additional colour was added to the tip. In knitting the hem the tension number was reduced every second row until the lace hole row (which was knitted larger), then increased again every second row until reaching the original size, at which point the cast on stitches were hooked up. Then throughout the sample additional lengths were to be knitted by keeping most of the needles on hold.

The length of these extra “flaps” was varied, as were the colours and the patterns used. In some cases, quite long pieces were knitted and simply picked up to create a loop. In others more stitches were retained to make wider tabs. Some of these were knitted with their own picot edge, others had lace holes included to tie the sample to the ones completed earlier in the collection. 

Due to the nature of the yarns, the pale blue, dark blue and fuscia were all knitted at T6, while the yellow was always at T5 and the purple at T7.

Wednesday 23rd October 

This morning started with a “crit” for the first rotation, in my case knit. I still had two samples to complete for knit, but discussions didn’t really suggest any changes to these. I have, however, got some starting point ideas for print.

Back into the studio and it didn’t take long to complete sample 6 (snippet 142).

For my final sample Kay had suggested combining elements of snippet 139 and longer pieces as per the loops on this piece. Pale blue was kept as the background, the yellow was used to knit four long narrow pieces to be added to the surface of the sample, and the other three colours were used to create inserts by keeping a few needles on hold. The big difference this time being that the “wrong” side of the knitting would be the right side of the sample.

The yellow pieces were hooked up and stitched in across the sample to produce a range of effects. Three pieces were all knitted in at the bottom in the same pale blue piece. Two of these were twisted around each other and knitted in much higher, which the other piece was hooked in at two different points, again in pale blue blocks. The final piece was hooked up to make a loop flap towards the top of the sample, which was deliberately knitted shorter than the other samples to leave room for a fringe hem.

Friday 25th October

Last visit to the knit studio, this time to finish sample 7 (snippet 143) with a “fringe” of strips of the yellow yarn knitted across 4 stitches and 17 rows in each case. The plan was that in the finished piece, each of these would curl in on themselves to produce a tassel effect.

By the end of this rotation I have three Shima samples and seven domestic machine knit samples all based upon the initial trees and fastenings theme. Due to the nature of the fabric I feel that knit is more suited to fashion than interior. Knitted fabrics of this format are too prone to snag to be of use in furniture covering and the structure is too stretchy for items such as curtains, however, the warmth does make them ideal for blankets and room dressing. 

Using baler twine and inspired by the work of Annie Albers. This piece in the picture (snippet 117) is based on a pattern already used. 

It was identified in sample 112, that the top of this pattern creates a diamond motif in the weft yarn, thus brown was chosen for the field colour and orange was introduced through the use of baler twine, which was woven at random backwards and forwards on top of the brown weft.

The piece was started and finished with a complete repeat of the pattern with no additional baler twine.

Snippets 118 and 119 are again based on a predefined 8-shaft pattern.

The nature of the pattern for snippet 118 is symmetrical such that the front and reverse of the fabric are effectively the same. As the warp hasn’t changed yet, the same colour pallet was retained and this piece, too, is based on stripes. The first set of stripes is a single repeat in the order: red, grey, orange, pale green and brown. This order was used again with a double repeat of the pattern.

Of these colours with this weaving pattern the orange was chosen to do a central three repeat stripe and then the colour rotation altered slightly for a double followed by a single repeat. Thus, the return stripes were: brown, pale green, red, grey and orange.

For snippet 119, there were a number of false starts with the pattern as the plan printed on the sheet did not produce a suitable pattern – it kept “jumping”. Finally, it was settled into a twill of 4-1-1-2, producing a very striking effect, particularly when woven in long blocks of the same colour.

This sample was started in July with three times repeat of this pattern in brown, red, orange and grey. After a short break I returned to the studio to discover that my brown yarn had vanished, a replacement was found, but the colour is not quite as strong or warm and has less differentiation from the red.

It was also apparent that continuing a three-repeat followed by two and a single would give a very long piece. The pale green was repeated only twice along with brown, red and orange, before moving to 1½ repeats for grey through to the final grey and pale green which were halves.

This pattern has a strong left to right warp bias on the top side of the weave. The reverse shows a strong right to left weft bias. The weft is more predominant in the reverse, which makes the warp grey stripe look even stronger in the twill (snippet 120).

In many ways the pattern in snippet 121 is similar to a honeycomb and so produces a very textured weave. This effect was exploited by initially using grey as the primary weft colour and introducing a secondary colour on rows 1 and 8. This was repeated twice, giving a double row of the secondary colour in the middle of each repeat.

Each colour was used in turn: brown, pale green, red, orange and then the same order but this time using the colour for rows 1, 2, 7 and 8. Again this was done twice, so that four rows of the same colour appear at the centre of each block.

Finally, the grey was used for rows 1 and 8 and the secondary colour for the other six rows.

The two faces of this fabric are quite different. The reverse is much more grey, particularly at the start (bottom) of the piece where it is the primary weft colour.

There is nothing new in weaving a double cloth, but snippet 123 was my first attempt at working out the appropriate weaving pattern.

My plan was to weave the top piece on the odd shafts and the bottom piece on the even shafts. Thus, for the bottom I needed to keep all the odd shafts raised and make the pattern on the even rows.

To see easily that this is working I decided to weave the top in grey and the bottom in red and to ensure that both layers grow at the same rate I would need to weave one grey pick and then one red pick, so these two shaft patterns need to be combined.

After 6 cm (24 repeats) the colours were swapped over so that the bottom was now grey and the top red. Another 6 cm were woven before repeating the process to create a 2-2 twill top and bottom.

To make a similar length piece of cloth 17 repeats of this were woven, before swapping the colours over for another similar length.

Snippet 124 saw a return to unwoven warp, this time with the intention of making small square / rectangular gaps.

Started weaving with the red in plain weave, creating 8 picks with gaps and 8 without, leaving 4 gaps across the 10 red stripes. The first set of 8 picks of tabby, 8 with holes and 8 more plain weave gave a piece of 5cm.

This showed that: a) the holes are not square and b) the holes don’t show up very well when in the self-coloured element of the warp. So, continue with the red weft, but now put gaps in the middle of the central grey stripe and also in larger groups of 24 warps centering on two red stripes. This gives three lots of gaps toward the centre of the warp.

After 8 more picks of plain weave this piece now measured 8cm.

These larger gaps work better in the red, so tried the same pattern in grey, ie. 8 picks of plain weave, 8 rows with 4 holes in the red warp stripes, 8 picks of plain, 8 with the three central gaps and 8 more plain. This pattern in grey takes 7cm.

To make the final sample at least 30cm in length an extra set of 8 rows by 4 red warp holes was made before reflecting the original pattern so far. 8 * plain, 3 central holes, 8 * plain, 4 red holes and 8 * plain in grey and then in red.

Getting close to the start of term and I needed to get this warp finished.

Another chance to play with baler twine in snippet 125. This time I chose a pink twine and matched this with the pale green yarn used in a simple nearly plain weave, which leaves no long warp or weft carries.

The piece was started with one repeat of this pattern, which was continued throughout, while a piece of pink baler twice was allowed to wander over the top being caught into the weave at turning points.

Finally, snippet 126 was woven using an idea suggested by Jackie. The aim was to create a roughly triangular piece by taking each warp thread in turn and using it to weave across as a weft pick, leaving the unwoven end to create a “fringe”.

I decided to take the warp from the right-hand side to the left, using a 2-2 twill also working from right to left.

This started really well, but it gradually became difficult to maintain the tension so that the picks got tighter and tighter and the final corner effectively collapsed on itself. This could be avoided by producing a waste edge of perhaps 20 warps and removing these after completion of the piece.

A few months after finishing the warp it was time to do something with it. So the pieces described in snippets 109, 111 and 122 were used to create one side of a cushion cover for a 50 * 50 cm cushion.

The other side was made using the suffragette warp that was described snippets. 99, 100, 101 and106 and the cover shown in snippet 107.

Snippet 127 shows the autumn colours to their best effect and with a mixture of weave pattern makes for an interesting and textured piece.

Based on 2/2 twills to both left and right depending upon the slope of the diamond. Three separate diamond holes were created centred in grey warp stripes and leaving a full red warp stripe between each “hole”.

The number of wefts feeding into each diamond meant that 44 picks were woven on each side, making a diamond 88 picks “tall”. As shown in the picture (snippet 114).

The next piece (snippet 115) was an exercise in stripes with another 8-shaft pattern. The 8-row pattern was repeated twice in each colour in the order: red, pale green, orange, grey and brown. This was enough to show that the top face produces warp-based diamonds, whilst the reverse is weft-coloured. (The opposite of snippet 112)

The nature of the pattern means that it shows up well in the stronger colours and orange was chosen as the main colour for this piece. The orange was used first for 3 rows and then red from rows 4-7, before repeating this pattern. In this way each 8 rows was repeated twice with red, pale green, grey and brown, then orange was used for one full set in the middle before reflecting the whole pattern back, finishing with two repeats of the red.

The reverse of snippet 115 gives a weft faced pattern so the diamonds of the 8-shaft weave pattern used are now seen in the colour travelling across the piece and is particularly clear in the orange stripes.