Leigh's Fiber Journal: M's and O's

Showing posts with label M's and O's. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Multiple Tabby Weaves

By Leigh

Any time I start a new weave structure or technique, I always look to see what books are available on it. When I started my M's & O's dishtowels, I did exactly that. What I found, was Multiple Tabby Weaves, a monograph based on Dr. William Bateman's weaving manuscript.

I really like finding monographs as well as most of the older weaving publications. A lot of the more recent weaving publications seem to be basically project books, which I'm not real keen on. I prefer books which discuss and explore a particular structure, leaving it up to the weaver to develop their own projects.

Multiple Tabby Weaves is edited by Virginia I. Harvey, and was published in 1981 by Shuttle-Craft Guild as monograph #35. While it isn't specifically about M's & O's, M's & O's is one of its examples of a multiple tabby weave.

According to Dr. Bateman, a multiple tabby weave is any draft which contains two or more tabby weave threadings.

I should probably note here, that Dr. Bateman uses "tabby" synonymously with "plain weave." However, last month there was an interesting discussion on WeaveTech about these terms, which seem to be evolving for modern weavers. Today, "plain weave" is more often interpreted to mean the simple over-one, under-one weave structure. "Tabby" on the other hand, refers to the single shots of plain weave which are thrown in between pattern wefts, such as in overshot. A lot of older publications however, use the two terms interchangeably, as is the case in Dr. Bateman's manuscript.

On four shafts, Dr. Bateman used three different threadings to create a plain (tabby) weave:

For block A, plain weave is created by lifting shaft 1 - 3 alternately with 2 - 4.
For block B, plain weave is created by alternating shafts 1 - 2 with 3 - 4.
For block C, shafts 1 - 4 and 2 - 3 alternate to create a plain weave or tabby.

In other words, each of these threading drafts results in every other warp end being lifted (or lowered.) By using combinations of these three blocks in a single draft, Dr. Bateman created a wide variety of "multiple tabby" fabrics.

M's & O's can be classified as a multiple tabby weave which uses extended blocks.

It repeats the first two and last two threads of the plain weave on either side of the four thread block. You can see it better in the illustration above than I can probably explain it.

As you've probably guessed by now, I'm going to experiment with some multiple tabby weaves next and in fact have the loom dressed and ready to go. I should have some samples to show next time.

M's & O's: The Basics
Multiple Tabby Weave Sampling
Multiple Tabby Weave With a Heavier Weft
Expanding Multiple Tabby Weave Blocks

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Honeycomb M's and O's

By Leigh

Please continue leaving your tips and techniques for sewing handwovens in the comment section of this post. Hopefully this weekend I can put them all in a separate post. I appreciate every one of them! In the meantime, here's a quick report on what I did with the little bit of red warp left on the loom.

While I was researching M's & O's, I downloaded an article from the Online Digital Archives found on this page (the sixth article down) entitled "Two Honeycomb Fabrics on M's And O's." I've had honeycomb in the back of my mind for awhile now, so after reading the article I decided to give this a try with the remainder of my red warp.

The article said that traditionally, the heavy outline weft is the same color as the warp. I didn't have anything like that in red, but I did find some of this in my stash:

It does have some dark red in it, so I decided to give it a try. After each M's & O's block, I threw a tabby shot of the novelty yarn. Here it is on the loom .....

... and here it is after washing and drying.......

I think it would look better with a more defining outline yarn, but I am intrigued enough to have come up with a few ideas for further exploration.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Five Red Warp Dishtowels

By Leigh

The last M's & O's dishtowel is off the loom, washed, and hemmed. Adding it to the other four, I now have a set of five M's & O's dishtowels.

Project particulars:

Structure - M's and O's
Draft - "M's & O's Three by Three Plaid," page 64 of
A Handweaver's Pattern Book by Marguarite Porter Davison
Warp - 8/2 unmercerized cotton in red
Weft - 8/2 unmercerized cotton in a variety of colors
Sett - 20 e.p.i.
Picks per inch - 20
Number of warp ends - 380
Size on loom - 19 by 24 inches
Size after washing and drying - 15 by 22.5

I've really enjoyed the color play involved with these. In fact, it's given me an idea for my next weaving project.

M's & O's Dishtowels
M's & O's: The Basics
M's & O's - Weaving Observations

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

I Don't Like Red Warp

Not a solid red anyways. It's not that I have anything against red. I like red. It's a good color. It's a useful color. But for these M's & O's dishtowels for the WNCF/HG's Winter Project, I've had a tough time finding weft colors in my stash that I have liked with it.

Initially I put on six yards of this red warp. That gave me plenty enough for a set of dishtowels, with plenty leftover to play with. But then I was stuck with finding weft to "go" with it. I limited myself to what I had available in my stash, and finally chose analogous colors. I had time to weave four dishtowels before Winter Project was due. Now, I'm pretty sure I can get at least one more dishtowel out of this warp, so I want a different color weft than the first four. Maybe I should just choose something weird to amuse myself. Like teal. Or pink.

Or, I could use several different colors for the weft. Several different yarns. However, one of the beauties of M's & O's, is that since it uses only one shuttle, it's very quick to weave. I'm into quick today.

So, after a little more rummaging around in my stash, I just chose the next color in the weft color sequence........

............... blue.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

M's And O's Dishtowels

By Leigh

Four M's and O's dishtowels done! Happily, I actually got the weaving finished in time to cut the entire length of fabric off the loom, and run it through the washer and dryer in time for Saturday's WNCF/HG meeting.

Both warp and weft are 8/2s unmercerized cottons, and I did intend to measure my fabric to see how much shrinkage I got after wet finishing. However, I was in such a hurry to get ready for Saturday's meeting, that I forgot to take before and after measurements. I did notice that since I used two different brands of unmercerized cotton (the red is one brand, the other colors another) the shrinkage was slightly different.

Yesterday I finally got them cut apart and hemmed, and I still have enough warp on the loom to either weave one more, or experiment a bit.

One thing that's fun about M's & O's, is what happens with wet finishing. Like huck lace, it is transformed. You can see this in the photo below.

On the left is before washing, on the right is after.

I really like the weight of this fabric for dishtowels. They are sturdy and not wimpy. The weaving size on the loom was approximately 19 by 24 inches. The finished size is 15 by 22.5 inches.

I chose the red warp as one of the parameters for my Winter Project. I wasn't too sure about what to do for the weft though. M's & O's requires the same size yarn for weft as warp, so after looking through my stash, I finally chose colors which were analogous to red.

Yellow weft

Orange Weft

Red weft

Purple weft

The colors aren't very true here. This is probably due partly to my lighting, and partly to the fact that my digital camera is dying.

One last tid-bit; the M's & O's name. In the comments for my last post, Christine pointed out the O's. With a ~~little~~ lot of imagination, I found the M's too.

Christine also gave me a link to several free, pdf articles from Shuttle-Craft Bulletin, each featuring M's & O's. These are from the Online Digital Archive, and are a fantastic resource. If you are interested in downloading copies, click right here.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

M's & O's - Weaving Observations

I have to admit that finding that threading error really knocked the wind out of my sails at first. However, in a flashing "what the heck" moment, I decided to not abandon ship. I was very grateful for the encouraging comments I received on that post. They made me realize it wasn't so disastrous after all.

What I am weaving is dishtowels. The draft that I chose for these is from an old standby, Marguarite Davison's A Handweaver's Pattern Book. It's the "Three by Three Plaid" found on the bottom of page 64.

One thing that this draft does, is to illustrate the block theory I was trying to explain in my first M's & O's post. Hopefully, I understand this as well as I think I do.

The units are the smallest number of ends which make the weave structure unique. In the case of M's & O's, there are two, each containing 8 warp ends each:

Unit A

Unit B

These units can also be blocks, if they are threaded only once before threading the other, or they can be repeated, as this draft requires:

Block A consists of two units of A.

Block B also consists of two units of B.

These can all be put together into patterns, or motifs. You can click on either one for a closer look.

These two motifs alternate to make the overall pattern of the fabric, as you were able to see in this photo.....

Photo showing the overall M's & O's pattern.

...... (and yes, the threading error is the third motif from the left, center block. I only threaded twelve ends instead of sixteen, giving it a narrower appearance!)

As I've been weaving, I have observed two other things.

The first is what Valerie mentioned in the comments of that post; plain weave cannot be woven with the M's & O's threading. If you examine this close-up below, you'll see what I mean....

Close-up to show where plain weave fits into the weave structure.

In the top half, you can see how the two blocks weave up. One block weaves plain weave (goes over one, under one), the other block creates the texture with weft floats, which skip four warp ends each.

In the bottom half, you see what the "plain weave" tie-up produces. It is not a true plain weave because when you follow the weft across, you will see that every third warp thread is doubled.

The other thing I observed is that both sides of the M's & O's fabric are exactly the same. The back looks just like the front, unlike some of the twills I have woven, which are warp dominant on one side and weft dominant on the other. Click here for a photo example.

So I'm learning quite a bit. The only thing I don't know yet, is how M's & O's got it's name!

Related Posts:
M's & O's: The Basics
M's & O's Dishtowels

Friday, February 08, 2008

Arrrrrgh! Threading Error!

I'd only woven a couple of inches on my first M's & O's dish towel when I noticed a threading error! Can you spot it? Dilemma! I'm too close to a deadline and too far along to unweave. Oh well. More on this project later!

Saturday, February 02, 2008

M's and O's: The Basics

By Leigh

In preparation for warping my loom, here's what I've learned about M's & O's so far:

1. It is a block weave.

I have to admit that in my early days of weaving, the concept of blocks was not an easy one for me to grasp. It wasn't until I read the first chapter of Eight Shafts: A Place to Begin by Shelp and Wostenberg, that the concept began to make sense. The authors discussed blocks in terms of pattern development. The "unit" is the base, being the smallest number of warp ends needed to make a weave structure. "Blocks" are one or more repeats of the same unit. Repeated blocks can further be developed into "motifs."

In the case of M's & O's, only two, 8-thread blocks are required. Therefore, can be woven on four shafts.

Block A - threaded from the right -
1 - 2 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 3 - 4

Block B - threaded from the right -
1 - 3 - 1 - 3 - 2 - 4 - 2 - 4

When woven, these produce alternate areas of plain and weft-rep (ribbed) weave. These ribbed areas are actually 4-end floats.

The blocks can be repeated in an equal number to create checks, or they can be unequal to create plaids.

More blocks can be added for more shafts.

2. It is a linen weave.

So called because historically, it was a traditional weave for Scandinavian and Colonial American household linens.

In The Shuttle-Craft Book of American Handweaving, Mary Meigs Atwater states that it was commonly used for plain toweling; single repeats producing a fine, all-over figure. Larger patterns were used for more elaborate towels, as well as table linens.

3. It is a grouped thread weave.

Harriet Tidball, in The Weaver's Book, puts M's & O's in the "grouped thread class," so called because both warp and weft threads curve together into textured areas. This class also includes huck and spot Bronson, two other linen weaves. All these alternate areas of tabby with texture spots.

4. It is a balanced weave:

Yarns for warp and weft are the same in size.
It has the same number of weft shots per inch as warp ends.
The tie-up is balanced. Block A is woven alternating shafts 1-2 and 3-4. Block B alternates shafts 1-3 and 2-4. In other words, it is woven "on opposites".
The shafts are balanced, i.e. every shed has an equal number of shafts up and down.

5. It is a one shuttle weave.

Which is fine by me! All the faster to weave, especially as I have a deadline for this project. Traditionally, the weft is one color, the same as the warp. A one color weft is also fine by me, though I may not be wholly traditional with matching it to the warp.

In the meantime, my warp is measured, loaded into the raddle, and ready to be beamed. I'm hoping to make good progress on this project over the weekend.

Monday, January 28, 2008

WNCF/HG Winter Project

By Leigh

One of the guilds I belong to, the Western North Carolina Fiber/Handweavers Guild, takes an annual break for the months of December and January. During these months off, the members work on a "Winter Project" which is featured at February's show and tell. This year, the project is "Game of Chance."

At November's meeting we broke out into small groups according to our interests: weaving, knitting, spinning, or dyeing. Each person in the group was given five cards, each listing some element of the discipline they chose. From these five, each of us was to choose three to use as the inspiration for our Winter Project.

I chose to do a weaving project, and these were my cards:

long floats
m's and o's
red warp
pale colors only
include some ribbon

Since m's and o's is a weave structure I've not woven before, I decided that this was going to be one of the cards I would keep. When I started to research m's and o's, I discovered that this structure features floats, so there was my second card (and who's to say how long "long" is.) I think for the third, I'll choose red warp, as I know I have some red cottons somewhere.

I admit that I'm a little late in getting this started, as I have a little less than 2 weeks before this is due. However, I plan to be diligent with my weaving time, and see what I can do.

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