Thursday, September 04, 2008

Weaving: What's Next?

By Leigh

When I first started this blog, I had a couple of goals in mind: to keep a record of my fiber and textile activities, and to begin a serious exploration of weaving. This coincided with having my youngest child leave home to join his sister at university, giving me more free time than I had enjoyed before.

My record keeping has been fairly consistent though my projects are somewhat sporadic: weaving, spinning, knitting, dyeing, plus a few other fiber activities, as well as occasional miscellaneous content. The biggest problem I've had has been finding posts again, once they've become buried under the ever-increasing pile of more recent entries. Blogger's addition of labels has been helpful here, but if you've clicked on any of the links in the above list, you have discovered that I use Delicious.com to try to organize my posts. This is also what I used to create a blog index in my sidebar.

In regards to weaving, I had previously worked my way through some plain weave, twills, and overshot, and had taken a class on double weave. In starting this blog, my plan was to work my way through Deb Chandler's Learning to Weave, and experiment with structures and effects I hadn't yet tried. I had a lot of fun exploring Log Cabin, but after that I diverged from Chandler. Why? Because Log Cabin seemed to lead naturally to Shadow Weave.

Next I participated in several Online Guild weaving workshops, including lace weaves, Huck, and Summer & Winter.

When I got my Glimakra 8-shaft countermarche loom, I started my 8-shaft adventure by returning to something I understood, twill. With that I did a series of afghans, enjoying with wider width of my new loom. I finished these in time to take another Online Guild workshop, Advancing Twills.

I started experimenting with M's & O's thanks to the WNCF/HG's Winter Project. This led to a self study on Multiple Tabby Weaves. Most recently, I've revisited waffle weave for a towel exchange within the same group. All that's left with that is to cut and hem the towels.

So what's next? I could continue exploring weave structures I haven't tried yet, but at this point in time I feel a need to dig deeper. Being a member of Complex Weavers offers that, through one of it's many study groups. Since Summer & Winter interested me the most so far, I have recently signed up for the Tied Weaves Study Group. Summer & Winter is a 2-tie unit weave, so this study group will allow me the opportunity to continue exploring not only S&W, but related weaves as well.

So that's the plan. The study group officially starts in October. Not sure what I'll do on the loom in the meantime, but I doubt it will sit idle until then.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good luck in your exploration of tied weaves. If I remember correctly, Su Butler knows quite a bit about that area. www.subudesigns.com

Leigh said...

Thank you Patrick. And actually, you've reminded me that I forgot to mention that Su is the one leading the study group!

Peg in South Carolina said...

It's good to do an overview on occasion. Thanks for sharing yours. I wonder if Theo Moorman technique might possibly be classified as a tied weave, since it depends on ties for its structure.

Leigh said...

Peg, that's a good question. One of the things I'm wondering is how many different types of tied weaves there are. I have Madelyn van der Hoogt's Complete Book of Drafting, which lists 2, 3, and 4 tie weaves, but doesn't mention Theo Moorman. That's one of the things I'll have to look into.

Wool Enough said...

Thanks for the referral to delicious.com; looks like a good tool. I have always admired your blog index and would love to emulate it, but I don't quite get how you can use "delicious" to create the index and display it on the blog. Couldn't find any tips on the "delicious" site either. Is there a handy how-to link? Or should I just put on my thinking cap and figure it out?

bspinner said...

Thanks for sharing your insights and goals. I have the same questions as "Wool Enough" about Delicious.com and agree with how nice your subjects are listed.
Have fun with your new study group.

Laritza said...

You really did get into it!
I left something on my blog for you. Please go pick it up and pass it on.

Anonymous said...

Hi Leigh,

It will be fun to see what you dive into next. Have you considered working on the HGA's Certificate of Excellence? You're a natural for that.

Thew a plainweave scarf on the loom yesterday because even though I'm up to my ears in other things, I could not stand one more day with all naked looms!

Can't wait to see how long you can go without anything on yours *grin* -- not long, I think.

Cheers,
Jane

Peg in South Carolina said...

The HGA certificate of excellence might be very tempting, but I think the way you are following your instincts is the way to go. If you are interested in doing serious teaching, however, the HGA certificate might be something to consider sometime. Yes, I have checked into it myself, several years ago, and was tempted, but am glad I did not do it.

Leigh said...

Wool Enough and Bspinner, I will do a post on how to do just that. It won't be until next week however.

Laritza, thank you! I am honored!

Jane and Peg, this is an idea I have avoided thinking about. On the one hand, it would give me goals and structure with my weaving exploration, but on the other hand it seems like a lot of work. Not sure I'm up to that!

Sharon said...

I just hope what's next includes sharing it with us. Your blog has been such a boon for me. Just today I finally finished tying on my Ms and Os warp and with only three threading errors. I've come to a new appreciation for my "new" LeClerc, after crawling around on the floor to change the Gilmore tie-up. This is the first time to weave at 24 epi for me. I don't know how you keep up your weaving pace!!!!!