Twisp of Fate

I finished a custom order for a 10-ft long hallway runner last week.  I was nervous about making it come out the right length!  But from my notes on other rugs, a 10% shrinkage from measurement under tension, to the final washed rug, has been pretty consistent.  So I wove it to 11-ft under tension, and sure enough after washing it was almost exactly 10 feet long!  Most satisfying.

I used 2 different materials: the first was a very heavy Pendleton fringed selvage in dark brown, cream, and a lighter brown with greenish overtones.  The other one was also a Pendleton fringed selvage, but much lighter weight (I think it may be a header from weaving shirting fabric or skirt fabric or something like that).  I used that one doubled.  The colors were dark blue, olive brown and cream.

She didn’t want it “too stripy” so my game plan was to gradually fade from one material into the other one and then back again.  Of course you can’t really see what you are doing, more than 12″ at a time anyway, as the rug is rolled onto the cloth beam.  So I just tried to let go and “paint with the fabric.”   I really like the difference in texture, not just the color differences, in this rug – because of the difference in thickness of the 2 materials.

Here’s a closer look at the middle section, where I threw in random shots of the lighter weight material from time to time, never running across the full width of the rug:

Have I mentioned how much I love my new studio space?  Love, love, love it.  It has stayed a comfortable temperature even on the hot days, must be due to the 12″ or so of insulation in the roof, and the fact that the windows are oriented so they don’t get the afternoon sun.  The lighting we put in is diffused full spectrum fluorescent and it feels very natural.

I am getting ready to weave some scarves on my little Macomber workshop loom (model CP, the portable one that folds up).  Last summer I bought new inserted-eye heddles for it, so I decided to take the time to remove the flat steel heddles and put the new ones on the 8 frames.  A little tedious, but one more postponed job  done!

Then I did a color wrap (something I learned in a class with Ruby Leslie last summer at the ANWG conference) to work out the warp color sequence for my scarves.  I wanted to fade each stripe into the next one by interleaving the colors for a while.  I am glad I did the wrap, because I did make some color changes along the way.  The warp looks pretty much like this, except the pale blue section in the middle isn’t as wide.

Here’s the warp on the back of the loom:

And my sampling with various weft materials:

The two that “work” for me are the lower one (rayon chenille, 1450 YPP) and the top one (10/2 tencel, used double).  I thought the variegated acrylic chenille was going to be fabulous, and it just looks like mud!  Guess I will have to use that in a warp somehow, not as a weft.  I have had it in my knitting stash since the year one, so its time has definitely come to be turned into something.

This is an 8-harness plaited twill structure and I will be able to get several pattern variations by changing the treadling.  I’ll write more about this in the next post, and give the reference to the Strickler book.