2nd scarf options

Here are 10 draft ideas I had for the 2nd scarf.  They are in no particular order, some have pictures that correspond with the draft, some do not.  Imagine the pink as the rainbow brights variegated yarn!

Twills:

4-shaft and 8-shaft

 

The next two are from the new book, Simple Weaves that I reviewed before.

 

 

 Can't go wrong with pinwheels!

   And of course, the original draft is another wonderful option!

 

Let them eat cake birthday preview

The other day I really wanted a cake, but didn't have any boxed mixes on hand.  It occurred to me, back in the day, they didn't even use boxed mixes, so why don't I attempt making one from scratch?  It was another adventure!  This was the recipe I used, and it was very good!  And, it's a great practice for Brian's birthday cake next month!

Basic Yellow Cake Recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 large eggs, room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3/4 cup milk

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour 2 9-inch cake pans.

In bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt with a wire whisk.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Add vanilla and mix until completely combines. Slowly add flour alternately with milk. At end of addition batter should be smooth. Divide between 2 pans.

Bake Yellow Cake Recipe for 20 to 25 minutes. Cool 5 minutes in pan, then invert onto a rack and cool completely before frosting.

For a 9 x 13 pan - Baked at 350 degrees F. for 30 to 38 minutes. 

For the frosting, I mixed a little butter, powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla together and frosted my cake with it.  It wasn't quite a glaze, but it also wasn't like the heavy chemical frostings, either.  It was pretty darn good, especially with some blue sprinkles on top!  

Sorry, there were no pictures!  I just plain forgot, can you believe it?!  How unusual!

But here's a picture to ponder: A Crackle Weave Companion

When I was ordering birthday presents for Brian, I came across another new weaving book.  This is a very new crackle weave book.  It was released this summer, on July 16th.  I find the other crackle book so confusing, the one called Weave Classic Crackle and More by Susan Wilson.  It's good, but leans on the and More side a bit much.  It's so advanced and hard to follow.  I always have more questions when I'm done looking at it than when I started, so I think this might be a better start and then work from the other book later when I understand crackle more.  I want to start with the basics.  I need to start with some basics!  I have no crackle basics!!  According to amazon.com, this book "[uses] the drafts published by Mary Atwater, Marguerite Davison, and Mary Snyder, Brusic weaves them in many new ways that illustrate the flexibility of the weave structure."  I'm excited to do some digging when it comes!  Is it me, or does everyone get themselves a little something also when it's their spouse's birthday?!

New weaving book, a CD, and Pumpkins!!!

Did you know there was a new weaving book out there?  I saw this book called Simple Weaves on amazon.com the other day and got super excited!  Supposedly it came out this month, on August 1st.  I'm excited to say I ordered it, and it came, and I haven't had a huge chance to sit and look though it in too much detail, but I really like what I've seen so far.  I love the pictures and the projects!  I'll tell you more later when I see more!

It was fun to buy myself something, since the last time I bought anything weaving related was way back in May!  I'm really sticking to my stash-busting and bill paying plan that I made back here on this post!  I just couldn't resist this new book, and also I was able to justify it because it's not part of my stash, it's part of my library!








This new book is written by the same author that wrote the book Favorite Scandinavian Projects to Weave, which is also very awesome:

I also treated myself to this cd... so I can get the free shipping!

I love this pair!  They have such great music!!

Now onto the pumpkins... the gardens haven't done real well this year, mainly because Brian was so busy with work and I was left solely in charge.  As you can see, I spent way more time weaving than gardening!

We do have a few pumpkins for pie, and also a few unknown squashes, I think they are butternut squash grown from seeds from our compost pile.

Really, the garden is a nightmare and kind of sad looking!  Things are dying off, and I'm not sure if it's the time of year or the lack of care it receives!  I truly don't know what I'm doing and have a brown thumb!

Next year, Brian is in charge of the gardens and yard again!  I'll gladly weave from the porch!

As for right now, I'm going to go look at my weaving book some more and enjoy a few moments to myself!

New weaving books

I recently purchased the book called Color and Texture in weaving: 150 Contemporary Designs by Margo Selby.  I was intrigued by the title of this book, and I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but this is an awesome cover!  I had read some great reviews about it and was seriously pumped up about this book, but when I finally saw inside, I found myself somewhat disappointed. 

The first thing that caught me off guard were the names of the weaves.  I mean, you say something like, "I wove hop-sack today" or "I wove twill today" and 99% of weavers, even beginning weavers, know what the heck you are talking about!  Even some non-weavers know what you are talking about!  But the names of Ms. Selby's weaves are very ambiguous and puzzling.  If I were to say, for example, I wove "passion fruit" today, only those weavers who are familiar with the book would know that I wove a plain weave fabric with stripes.  I think some of the names just phoney and downright absurd.  For example, there are weaves called Theodora, Carmen, Ingrid, and Ophelia, just to name a few.  Or bloom, grass, meadow, bud, thorn, and spring.  What do these names have in common with the weaves?  Or the colors?  And who knows what I would be talking about if I were to mention it casually to another weaver?  It's almost as if the author is trying to make a secret society of color-and-texture-in-weaving weavers!  The weaves in this book really are weaves we are familiar with, but with a small twist.  She could have been a little more descriptive in her nomenclature.

Another thing that bothers me about this book is the way Ms. Selby prints the patterns to her weaves.  She gives an actual weave structure that you, the weaver, have to sit down and figure out how the heck you are going to tie up your loom treadles and in what order you have to depress them.  It would be much easier for a table loom weaver to follow, and by writing the patterns this way, Ms. Selby is clearly favoring the table weavers.  One could think that this is thoughtful of Ms. Selby, but most weaving books out there today are favoring the floor loom weavers because it is a much more feasible way to weave.  And it's also a traditional and standard way of writing out the patterns.  The  long-established and rooted authors like Mary Meigs Atwater, Bertha Gray Hayes, and Marguerite Davison are the ones who first started writing about weaving wrote out patterns in a traditional and standard fashion.  This is a system set up by others before us and it works.  It's no use changing something that works!

Here is a random sample of a page in the book:

As you can see, the right hand side just lists the weave structures that are needed for this weave.  You, as a floor loom weaver, have to sit down and look at each structure, line by line, and figure how which tie-ups to have and which pedal to put it on and which order to go.  What a troublesome way of going about a pattern!

Call me old-fashioned, but this book just isn't my style.  From the names to the way the patterns are written, and even the odd mixture of materials she uses (cotton chenille and boucle??  Seriously?)  I have to admit that there are about three weaves that actually look interesting to me, but it's going to take some work to figure them out, therefore the projects I had in mind will probably end up falling by the wayside.  And to top it off, I would probably end up using boring materials like cotton and wool.

Maybe this is the type of book for you, but I would suggest taking a look at a copy before you purchase it.


A second book I received at the same time as this one is the new Crackle book called Weave Classic Crackle & More by Susan Wilson.  I am so excited by the challenge that this book offers!  I feel like this is a great book to grow into.  I really want to sit down and use it like a personal tutor in a solo crackle weaving home-study course!

This book is a very challenging book to dive into!  It would definitely be wise to sit down in a cool dark place where there is no extra noise or distractions so you can read it chapter by chapter.  I haven't quite been righteous enough to do that yet, but I feel like the challenge of this book is right up my alley!

I have enjoyed reading the first 2 chapters and also thumbing through all the color photos throughout the book.  I will have to post again when I finally finish it.

I have been planning my first crackle project using the kool-aide dyed wool I spun last month.  I want to make a crackle scarf with it, but someone pointed out that it might be stiff as cardboard if I'm not careful!  So I might plan a table runner instead because it's not the softest wool I've ever felt and it might be too itchy anyway as a scarf.

So, just as the game of life goes, you win one and you lose one!  I guess it doesn't matter if it's weaving books or sales of jello at the grocery store!

Of Coverlets

I know I've told you this before in a previous post, but I love this weaving book called "Of Coverlets"!  I think it's one of the best historical books out there.  It's pretty rare and expensive, but I found a good deal on one.  I have been checking this book out at the library about six times a year for the last 3 years.  I am so happy that I finally have my own copy to look at whenever I want to!

This book contains a lot of Tennessee weaving history.  My favorite story (on page 389) is about a funny old couple named Isaac and Josie, who had been married for 50 years.  Isaac was a loom and wheel maker.  One day in 1970, he decided his wife, Josie was too old to weave anymore.  So he told her he found someone who would buy her loom and he could make her a new one.  So poor unsuspecting Josie sold her loom, and Isaac never made her a new one because he said he "could" not "would" make her a new one.  And worse yet, he said there will never be another loom in the house. EVER.  He was probably just really tired of the noise it was making, or maybe she was guilty of neglecting her house chores in order to get some weaving done like I do sometimes!  Poor Josie... I can't even imagine that one.

Here's poor Josie and mean old Isaac:

"Of Coverlets" is full of all kinds of good stories and patterns of the old coverlets.  I can't wait to really dig in and plan some replica projects to weave!  I love how they have taken the time to figure out all the patterns.  For example, this is how it looks in the book on page 373:

Take a look at the pattern provided at the top of this section.  Each of the numbers in it are the shafts.  So, when it says "41x6" it is saying shafts 4 & 1 repeated 6 times.  The second numbers are "43x4" so shafts 4 & 3 repeated 4 times.  Here's a close up:

 After sorting through the whole pattern, this is what it looks like:

And this book is full of this!!!  I am really excited by the potential this book has to offer.  I'm so glad I finally have my own copy!  This really opens up a huge new world!

Warp and Weft book review

I was excited but hesitant to try a new weaving book offered on amazon.com back in the spring.  It came out this summer but I just got my copy last week.  It is smallish in size, but 187 pages full of information.  It's also very robust because it's hardback.  And the price is really good on amazon.com, especially with the free shipping deal when you order enough eligible stuff.  Anyway, after it came, I found out that this "new" book is really an older book translated from the Swedish version published in 1999.  How exciting to have something from a country rich in weaving!

The organization makes a lot of sense.  The table of contents is very detailed and helpful.  Here it is:

The pictures are also really big and beautiful.  They show a lot of detail and they are very clear and helpful.  The instructions are nicely written and also very clear and detailed.  At first I was afraid that this was going to be a book for new weavers and I would find it boring, but I love some of the in the introduction on how to analyze a draft when no tie-ups, threadings, or treadlings are given.  I am excited to give this a try with some wool we purchased from a thrift store a few years ago.  Furthermore, it is not just a beginner's book because there are a lot of weaving structures I have never heard of or that I don't know much about.  For example, I have never heard of the following: 5/1 twill, rickrack weave, Drouguet, Whip cord, reformed weave, satine, Halvdrall, Lisere, Brighton honeycomb, Pique, corkscrew weave, weft-backed weave.  I also am excited to find more information on lampas, double-weave, crepe weave, color effects, cords, and shadow weave.  And lately, my mom and I have been into working with scraps of fabric for rug making and on page 78 there is a neat rug done in crackle weave using scraps of fabric.

I'm so glad I got this book and I'm looking forward to really digging into the information and using it!!

Shadow Weave

 I'm really excited about this book:

I've never actually done shadow weave, but I want to.  I think it looks really neat.  This is what the pages look like:

They look a little confusing until you sit down and really study them.  The explanation on  how to use them is at the beginning and it's very detailed.

 

Hopefully it will be fun and easy to use when the time comes!  Has anyone else out there tried this book before?

The Complete Book of Drafting for Handweavers

 




The Complete Book of Drafting for Handweavers is an excellent resource for both 4-shaft and 8-shaft weavers!  I discovered this book last summer at the White Rock Weaving Center in Dallas, TX.


 
I love the vocabulary lists (seen on the left in the sample page below).  I also love the pictures.  They are very easy to understand.  The book is filled with all kinds of valuable information.  It also has practice lessons for you to do.  Here is the table of contents:

Part I: The basic weaves
The family tree weaves
reading drafts
Writing drafts
Understanding the basic weaves
Drafting twills and color-and-weave

Part II: Blocks
Key to block weaves
Reading profile drafts
Writing profile drafts
Understanding overshot
Drafting overshot
From blocks to units

Part III: Unit weaves
Understanding lace weaves
Drafting lace
Understanding Damask
Drafting damask
Understanding tied weaves
Drafting tied weaves
Understanding patterned double weave
Understanding Stitched double cloth
Understanding lampas
Drafting double weave

Part IV: Extras
Understanding turned drafts
Understanding blended drafts
Understanding network drafting
Understanding fabric analysis

answers
For further study
Graph paper and design sheets
index

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!

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!!

Bertha Gray Hayes

One of my weaving heroes is Bertha Gray Hayes.  I am just amazed by her miniature overshot patterns.  There is a book with all of her patterns in it, and it's a wonderful book.  If you get a chance to look at it, you will see.  I love the names she gives to her overshot patterns. 

This is her pattern called Lambeth Walk.  It is really crazy in black and white! 

Here's a closer look!  I have this hanging in my classroom at school for the kids to enjoy.  We discuss it during our optical illusions unit.

And this one is Trellis.  I tried 3 different pattern colors for this one, but I like the bright colors the best.  It really modernizes it.  The back is really neat looking, also. 

Back design in one of the other colors.

 

The colors in this one just don't have enough contrast.

  

If you want to see more of Bertha's patterns, they located in the August and September 1956 Shuttle-Craft bulletin.