Friday, January 17, 2025

Nature's Color Palettes: An Idea

The other day I went out to the barn for early morning chores. When I opened the barn doors, I looked through our bare woods and across the neighbor's field to see the sun coming up. I thought the colors were so lovely: pale pinks, peaches, purples, blues, greens, grays. I wished I'd brought my camera. 

One of a weaver's many decisions in project planning is color. Sometimes I know what I want, but often I'm pulling out dozens of yarns to see what color combination inspires me. Sometimes it takes me days and days to decide. What if I had a selection of palettes available from which to choose? Nature always inspires me, so what if I took photos around the homestead and used Gimp (my photo editor) to pull out a variety of colors to make color palettes? 

Here are my first ones, using Gimp's color picker and bucket fill tools to create the palette.

January Daybreak

January Daybreak color palette

January Sunrise

January Sunrise color palette

Winter Evergreens

Winter Evergreens color palette

Pine Cones

Pine Cones color palette

Of course, more colors could be added for each palette. But I think for weaving, quilting, or knitting, these will work well for choosing color combinations. For the yarns, I have several options. One is that it will help me choose color combinations from my stash. Another would be dyeing my own yarns. I don't feel I need to be exact in my color matching; close enough would be good enough for me. 

Being a color person, this exercise is quite fascinating to me and I've been making more to form a collection. I can see them forming seasonal categories. Not sure yet if I'll print them out, although a booklet would be helpful. But to start, I have them here on my blog.
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Monday, January 13, 2025

Pine Tree & Snowball Bookmarks: Problem Corrected

 Well, I got my setback sorted out. Turns out I needed to add 13 more warp ends to complete the threading pattern. Rather than unwind the warp and start over, just rethreaded the heddles from where the mistake was, and then weighted the additional warp bout in back. 


I don't know if it was lazy of me to do it that way, but it was certainly easier!

Then I tested out the sheds to make sure the pattern was symmetrical and now I've got it. 


Liftplan from the bottom:
1. Shafts 3-4
2. Shafts 1-3
3. Shafts 1-2
4. Shafts 2-3

Last time, I mentioned that there are no treadling instructions for the bookmark, so this gave me an idea of which sheds I need for the pine trees and snowballs. It appears that I'll only need sheds 3 (shafts 1-2) and 4 (shafts 2-3) for these, and shed 1 (shafts 3-4) for the squares between the motifs on the selvedges. 

I'm referring to sheds rather than treadles because this is a direct-tie table loom that requires a liftplan instead of a treadle tie-up. It I did have treadles to tie up, the numbers (1, 2, 3, 4) would refer to the treadles.

Now I can get started on weaving some bookmarks.

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Friday, January 10, 2025

Pine Tree & Snowball Bookmarks: Setback

There was no treading draft for this pattern, so I began my weaving with a bit of experimentation to see what all the sheds did.


The bottom row is sheds 1, 2, 3, 4 consecutively for several rows, then moving up are rows for each shed, repeated with tabby in between the pattern picks. The pattern is supposed to be symmetrical from selvedge to selvedge, but as you can see, two of the sheds (B and C), are not. That, plus a threading error smack dab in the middle. 

I loosened the tension and tried to check the threading in the heddles, but it's too crammed to make an easy job of that. So I cut the warp right above the sample, removed the beater, and am making a more careful check. 

I figured it could be one of two things:
  • threading draft error
  • miscounting on my part

What I discovered, is that I had the wrong number of warp ends. I knew from Lucy Brusic (A Crackle Weave Companion) that Snyder's book contains some errors. But I could see that the threading draft was correct, so my next step was to count the warp ends in the draft. 


The instructions (The Crackle Weave, 1961 edition, page 24) called for 88 ends. Yet the draft counts out to 112, including selvedges and incidentals. In checking Syder's 1989 revised edition, I saw that the bookmark width and number of ends was omitted. So someone must have caught the error and omitted it, but it would have been helpful to indicate the correct number of ends required. 

So, mystery solved, but I'll have to add 24 more ends to the warp and rethread to correct that error in the middle of the warp. Fortunately it's a short warp and so should be doable. 

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Monday, January 06, 2025

Pine Tree & Snowball Bookmarks: Planning

In my project planning post, I mentioned that I want to weave a pine tree and snowball table runner. For it, I'm thinking of adapting a coverlet pattern from Mary Meigs Atwater's Recipe Book.

Mary Meigs Atwater, The Recipe Book,
Series I, "Coverlets," Recipe No. 12.

It's a complicated pattern, however, and I've learned that the threading drafts in that book don't always jive with the image. Happily, Mary Snyder adapted the Atwater draft for bookmarks.

Mary Snyder, The Crackle Weave page 24, 1961 edition

Starting with this will give me a chance to better understand the threading and treadling, before tackling the larger project. Plus, I'm thinking that having a selection of bookmarks on hand will be nice for little gifts as needed.

Snyder has some good suggestions for yarn colors too, although the bookmarks call for a much finer yarn than I will use for a table runner. The bookmark call for 20/2 cotton warp at 44 e.p.i. With my 12-dent reed, I will sley it 3-4-4. Tabby weft is the same yarn as the warp. The pattern weft is heavier, so I'm going to start with 10/2s . My color choices are medium blue for the warp and tabby, white weft for the snowballs, and green for the pine trees.

Not the best representation of the green. Hopefully, it will look
more accurate when I photograph the bookmarks in progress.

I haven't decided about the little squares that separate the motifs. Maybe a red to give them a Christmasy look? Or black or blue? I'll have to experiment.

Currently, the loom is being threaded, so weaving will begin soon.


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Wednesday, January 01, 2025

Weaving My Family Tree

In my last post (Project Planning), I mentioned the projects I have in mind for my table loom and my Glimakra. But while I start on yarn selection and warp calculations, my mind is still pondering an idea that has been percolating for some time now - weaving my family tree. 

This project would combine two of my favorite hobbies: weaving and genealogy. It's fascinating to research one's roots. For some people, genealogy is all about names and nationalities. But I find the cultures of my ancestral peoples even more fascinating. Maybe that's because another of my interests is traditional crafts and skills. As a fiber artist, a particular interest in culture is clothing, textiles, and how these things were made. What if I were to trace my ancestral origins through their textiles? Might that not be an interesting project? 

This past Christmas season, I made a series of posts on my homestead blog entitled "Christmas Songs of my Ancestors." It traced back through the general regions and ethnicity of the various people groups in my family tree, focusing on their languages and music. Thanks to that series, I now have somewhat of an outline that can would help me weave my family tree.
  • American: this would extend from modern times back to the early 1600s, when the first of my ancestors migrated to the New World.
  • Native American: 1600s
  • Irish: 1800s
  • Prussia: 1400s to 1700s (I just learned about this one)
  • English: 1200s to 1500s
  • Norman French: 1000s to 1100s
  • Viking: 700s to 900s
  • Saxon: 400s to 1000s
  • Celtic: prior to the Roman and Saxon invasions, all the way back to who knows when
 
There are a number of things I'd have to research for each one:
  • fibers
  • weave structures
  • colors
  • dyes
  • equipment
 
And I'd have to make decisions such as: 
  • How historically accurate do I want to be?
  • Do I want to use authentic fibers and yarns?
  • Do I want to spin the yarns myself?
  • Do I want to use historically accurate equipment?
  • Do I want to do the dyeing myself, with plants they would have used?
  • Do I want to weave actual period objects, such as blankets and clothing?
  • Or do I just want to weave samples?
 
Obviously, this will take some time to research and make decisions. And it will take some time to plan, source and obtain materials, and weave. But I'm not in a hurry. I just like the idea of combining two interests like this. And I do love a good research project.

This post, then, is my starting point for this project and will serve as a reference for my research.


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