My mom's blanket is DONE!

My mom's blanket is done!  And it turned out really nice.

However, I have been noticing that the colors don't come through on the camera or computer like they should.  These are the tones I keep getting:

But after messing around with the color balance, saturation, and tint, this is what it should look like:

 This turned out to be a very pretty and soft blanket!  She loves it, too!

A few treadling mistakes...

 As I was measuring out the yarn for this project on the warp board, I was thinking about the treadling and realized that something was wrong.  After looking at it again, I have realized the mistake.  I had the treadling as 1-a-2-b instead of 1-a-2-b-1-a-2-b!  So no wonder it looked so "normal" when I put it up on the screen!  But with the corrected treadling, it became very stretched out so I had to fix the picks per inch to twice the ends per inch.  This is what I came up with:

This one is just way too small to see all the treadling along the sides.  If you want the pattern all drafted out, let me know.  I have saved it as a WIF file, but can't find a way to post it here.

I'm also thinking of trying some with my favorite treadling, the 1-a-2-b-2-a-1-b treadling.  It looks like this up close:

I know profile drafts are a lot more work and it's easy to make mistakes along the way, but they are so much fun.  The combinations of patterns and colors seem endless!  It's so much more fun than following a pattern or book word for word!

Atypical Profile Draft

I've been thinking a lot lately about profile drafts and came across an atypical situation.  Take a look at this draft, the Gartner Manuscript on page 74:

It was kind of throwing me for a loop because of the tie-up section.  I have only seen and work with tie-ups that are lined up like this: 

But notice how different it makes the draft look!  What is one to do if they want to make it into a pattern?  Well, you definitely have to take the tie-up into consideration.  And it's easier than you think.  After plugging it into the draft program using summer and winter as an example, I have figured out how to use it!

Basically, all you have to do is just mesh the tie-ups together to include all the shaded areas.  The above pattern shows blocks A, B, and C in order across so the tie-up is just normal for summer and winter.  In the below tie-up, the blocks are A, C, and then B&C are combined, so your tie-up for summer and winter would be in that order, meshing (or combining) the last two together.  Compare these examples:


 

Notice the few slight changes in the second tie-up pattern.  In the bottom example, the third tie-up combines the tie-ups for both blocks B&C.

Here are the drafts all filled in with summer and winter.  Notice the changes between the two.  It makes quite the difference to have the tie-up done right, but still makes a neat looking draft to change it a little bit.

Original draft from Gartner Manuscript page 74

Tie-up is more normal than original draft

I have been so focused on summer and winter lately that I haven't plugged in any other threading yet, but I'm sure it would work the same with any chosen pattern structure.  I hope this tutorial helps get your brain thinking about other kinds of patterns that are out there!  I love the profile drafts, they open up so many different doors.  They also open up a lot of designing opportunities.  Have fun!!!!

Profile Drafting

I've been thinking a lot about profile drafts since I did this tutorial at weavingtoday.com.  I figured out how to do the profile draft using a simple draft with 2 blocks, but it only allowed for 4-shaft designs.  I wanted to go beyond the basics and utilize my 8-shaft loom, which means I needed bigger profile drafts.  That's when I discovered the Gartner Manuscript.  While away on vacation in Washington, I took this book with me to work on a profile draft in summer and winter.  It was definitely a challenge to figure out how to do the profile draft with more than 2 blocks.  That is why I wanted to describe it here, so it could save everyone else some time!  For this explanation, I chose Johan Ludwig's Speck's #20 from this book, which is on page 104.  It looks like this:

In order to go through this, I am going to assume that a basic knowledge is known about the profile draft.  If a review is necessary, see my beginning tutorial .  It has a cheat sheet and a power point to explain it all from the very basics.  

This profile draft will make a 6-shaft design in summer and winter.  In order to "translate" this profile draft, I have to consider the different blocks for threading:

Block A= shafts 1-3-2-3
Block B= shafts 1-4-2-4
Block C= shafts 1-5-2-5
Block D= shafts 1-6-2-6
Tabby= shafts 1-2 & 3-4-5-6

And these are the tie-ups for this profile draft:
pedal 1= shafts 1-2
pedal 2= shafts 3-4-5-6
pedal 3= shafts 1-3
pedal 4= shafts 2-3
pedal 5= shafts 1-4
pedal 6= shafts 2-4
pedal 7= shafts 1-5
pedal 8= shafts 2-5
pedal 9 = shafts 1-6
pedal 10 = shafts 2-6

The treadling will follow the profile draft alternating with shots of tabby on pedals 1&2:
Block A= pedals 3&4
Block B= pedals 5&6
Block C= pedals 7&8
Block D= pedals 9&10

So basically, you just follow the profile draft from this point on, plugging in the substitutions where they belong. The warp is one solid color and the weft goes back and forth between two colors.  The tabby is the same as the warp and the pattern thread is something contrasting, sometimes a bigger size.  Here is the corner up close so you can see the detail.  As you can see, it gets way bigger once everything gets plugged into it!

And here is the whole profile draft in summer and winter:

I think I'm going to make this into some dishtowels.  My supply has run very low because of the many special days (like birthdays and Mother's Day for example!) that have come and gone!  I haven't picked out my colors yet, but will start looking today!

Eight Shafts: A Place to Begin

I discovered a book at the library that I just love!  It's called Eight Shafts: A Place to Begin.  It's almost likeMarguerite Davidson's book A Handweaver's Pattern Book, except that one is for 4-shafts and this one is for 8-shafts.  It is FILLED with lots of patterns to explore!  I like how the book is divided.  Here is the table of contents:

1 A common language
2 Twills on Eight shafts
3  Straight Twill
4 Point twill
5 Extended point twill
6 Twills with breaks
7 Color effect
8 Miscellaneous Weaves
9 Understanding Crackle
10 Crackle
11 Lace
12 Colonial Weaves
Bibliography
Index


Here is a sample page:


 I find the pictures and threadings very easy to follow.  I like how each section is broken up by threadings.  For example, in the twill section it will show "Threading 1" and then several different patterns you can make with that one threading.  I also like the explanations throughout.  I feel like it's a good reference book for information as well as patterns.  And it's spiral bound, so it will stay open easily while I'm weaving!

It's definitely worth at least checking out from your local library if you can find it!  And it's a great addition to any personal weaving library collection!

My mom's blanket

With all my summer travels, I've been a bit stalled with this blanket, but it's coming along! We're all threaded and starting to weave!

Love it!

Love this color combo!  Now I need to think of a good pattern....

My very special photo shoot

 I had a very special opportunity to do a photo shoot with my local yarn store.

 I am so excited about this opportunity!  I feel like I'm in heaven being able to photograph YARN and YARN PROJECTS!!

Here's a sneak peek of what I've been working on:

These are just a few of my most favorite shots.  There were a lot of REALLY great shots, so it's actually hard to choose my favorites!! 

This yarn looks like it's marching off to war:

I tried using a few props in some of the photos and thought it looked cool.  This was an old pocket watch my dad gave me when I was little.  It still works!

The natural light caught this yarn really well:

I think of this as a self-portrait (made with my glass beads from last summer):

Can't wait to make the finishing touches and deliver the product!!

The Gartner Manuscript

I found an amazing book filled with profile drafts!  It is called The Gartner Manuscript and it's simply amazing!!!  It is good for both 4-shaft and 8-shaft weavers, however I think 8-shaft weavers might find it a little bit more useful than 4-shaft weavers.

Apparently a man-weaver named Franz Xavier Gartner came to America from Germany in 1832 and he brought his father's book of weaving patterns with him.  This book contains pictures of the original drafts as well as computer generated drafts.  It also includes some of their family history because Gartner recorded it in his weaving book.  I imagine it must have been a very important book to him and his family.  It was later rediscovered and translated in the 1970s by Gene Valk.  Also, I think it's neat that all the profits from the sales of this book go to a Historical Society in New York in the place where Gartner lived.  That's pretty cool to keep the traditions and history alive!

I like how the book is organized.  Here is a sample of what the pages look like.  They are really easy to read and follow.  I like how they included every little detail from the original book.  Even if a page was left blank, there's a picture of it and a description.  It contains all the little notes that Gartner made throughout.  It's really neat to study!


I'm so excited to dig into these profile drafts and start designing some weaving projects using them.  I want to do some summer and winter and some lace.  Overshot will also be a must for some of my projects!!

The UW project

I have secretly been weaving this project for my three brother-in-laws.  It originated as a high school graduation gift for the youngest, but all of my husband's brothers have been or are going to University of Washington.  So I decided to make a dishtowel with some school spirit.  I wanted to include the school colors and also something having a "W" in it because it's referred to as "U-Dub" a lot.  I also decided a 4-shaft twill would be fun to do again, something nice and straight forward!

I used 12/2 cotton, with 30 epi.  I only wanted a few towels so it is just a 4 yard warp.  The hardest part was figuring out how many threads of each color I needed to warp without having any leftovers or being short.  So, I decided I would shoot for about a 20" towel, which is about 30 repeats of this pattern.  I wanted to begin and end with a purple and white stripe rotation.  So in warping terms, it was 17 whites, 68 purples, and 214.5 yellows around the warp board.  It ends up being about 600 threads total.  Thanks to Scout for helping me keep track of my notes!







Honestly, I do admit I am not head-over-heels about this particular color combination, but I love the design!

I really like how I'm really practicing weaving now.  I can quickly get a design in my head and get it down on paper exactly how I want it and know exactly what to do to get there in just a matter of minutes.  It's becoming so familiar.  I love it!