Start and Re-Start

After weaving a plain weave header for my crackle scarf set at the calculated 5 e.p.i., I didn't like it. So, I thought back to the worsted weight acrylic afghans I wove years ago. I went back to check their blog posts and found that they were all woven at 8 e.p.i. I decided to go with that instead. I re-sleyed at 1-1-1-1-0 in my ten-dent reed which was a fairly quick task, since the scarf has only 66 warp ends. 

For the threading, I adapted the structural draft on page 19 of Susan Wilson's Weave Classic Crackle & More, which simply rotates the four crackle blocks . . .

Starting from the right, my draft repeats the A-B-C-D sequence twice, and each of my blocks is 11 ends, which works well for transitioning to the next block. I'm using three colors, which rotates the block colors a bit. Three colors also lends themselves to rotating the shuttle work. 

The classic crackle 3-color treadling sequence is:

• background weft color X
• pattern weft
• background weft color Y
• pattern weft

Note: Tabby isn't used in classic crackle, so the background wefts aren't treadled as tabby.

For each block I choose one color for the pattern and the other two become the background. In the next block I switch the pattern color, so each block is a distinctive square. The treadling mimics the threading pattern, which is known as "as drawn in." This is what it looks like so far:

The fabric is dense, so now I'm curious as to what it would have been like if I'd left it at 5 e.p.i. I'm not dissatisfied with it, however, and I do like this width better. Sett can become something to experiment with in the future. The awkward part is managing the three stick shuttles,which I opted to use with a heavier yarn because they can hold more than the bobbins of my boat shuttles. I'm sure it will get easier with practice.

Start and Re-Start © December 2023

by Leigh at Leigh's Fiber Journal

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