It seems that the longer I weave and the more seriously I take my weaving, I become less I am interested in instructions for projects, and more interested in understanding a particular type of weave in terms of structure and theory in order to use it creatively myself.Even though the Online Guild's Summer and Winter workshop is coming to an end soon, I plan to continue working and learning on my own. I'm not sure I was actually ready to leave the lace weaves behind, but I needed to take advantage of what was being offered and Huck, Bronson, and Swedish Lace will be things to come back to in the future.
As a way of review, and to see how much I remember, here is what I have learned about Summer & Winter so far. This is all off the top of my head, so it will be a good test for myself to see exactly what I understand.
It is a supplementary weft weave with the extra weft threads woven on top of plain weave. The extra wefts are tied down with the warp ends on shafts 1 and 2 alternately. Hence it is called a 2-tie weave. Since the threading units are 4 ends each, this means that the weft floats are never longer (or shorter) than three warp ends.
Shafts 1 and 2 (usually) are reserved for the tie down ends. The remaining shafts are used for pattern ends. With a 4 shaft loom this means that there are 2 shafts available for patterns so that 2 blocks (or pattern units) can be utilized. The blocks can be repeated as many times as desired, so this is where design comes in.
Each block is four ends, and each includes the 1 shaft and the 2 shaft (the tie down shafts), which alternate with one of the pattern shafts. That means with 4 shafts, these are my 2 possibilities.....
Tabby is woven by alternating shafts 1 and 2, with the remaining shafts (in my case 3 and 4.)Design is possible through placement and repetition of the blocks, tie-up, treadling, and yarn and color choices.
S&W uses 2 wefts, a tabby weft which is usually the same or similar to the warp, and a pattern weft which usually seems to be a little heavier than the tabby, though not necessarily.
S&W is reversible. Compare the 2 samples below.
They are front and back of the same sample.S&W is traditionally woven with light and dark yarns, which evidently accounts for it's name. When I was a little girl, I remember my mother changing the draperies and bed spreads; dark in winter, light in summer. So I can imagine S&W rugs for example, being turned over with the change of season!
At the moment I am exploring different treadlings. And reading. I have managed to pull together quite a few resources on S&W. This simple weave seems to have a lot of possibilities, and I am anxious to discover them.
© 27 March 2007 at http://leighsfiberjournal.blogspot.com
Related Posts:
Summer & Winter: A Basic Definition
Summer & Winter: Threading
Summer & Winter: Tie-Up
Summer & Winter: Treadling
Weaving Summer & Winter
4 comments:
I did an independent study in Summer and Winter through HGA about 10 years ago. I'll have to look and see if my mentor for that program has a website. You've only begun to scratch the surface of S&W. You can weave graphics (pcitures) w/ S&W. And the neatest sample I have from that study is a "plaid" where I did a striped warp, but the stripes didn't line up with the S&W blocks. It's the neatest fabric...and I hope someday to duplicate it for a full project.
Nice Samples! Enjoy!
I can only drool as one who has "mastered" tabby and struggle with the essentials of twill.
Hi Leigh, thanks for visiting my blog. I'm not really a fiber/textile person, though I do like sheep. I visited A Blip on the Radar because she left me a very nice comment and I wanted to thank her. I also got involved with reading about the sheep and her questions on blogging and my answer got rather long. I used to do embroidery and cross-stitch, though.
I posted a comment yesterday which was supposedly posted....... Here goes again. It is so interesting to see you falling in love with a weave structure! Perhaps now you know why I weave all these crackle samples/scarves..........
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