FLASHBACK: Penland Weaving Concentration: Kudzu, indigo and all things Scottish!

Beth organized some wonderful visiting artists during our concentration at Penland last spring.

Junco Sato Pollack revealed to us the wonders of kudzu fiber. Her elegant manner is reflected in the restrained and beautiful table mats she weaves out of silk and kudzu. Junco will be teaching at Penland this summer. 

Lynn Pollard brought stories, video and fabrics from her textile travels in Asia. We also had a chance to admire her amazing handwoven garments and weaving art. Lynn also shared her latest creative experiment, indigo "paintings" on paper.

Marjorie Logie Warren shared her knowledge of Scottish history and traditons. Her discussion of tartans, Harris tweed and estate checks was timed perfectly since each of us in the class had just woven our own tartan blankets. 

My blanket warp color order on the chalkboard. Guide string is in green with warp threads ready to be wound.

For this project, I used llama yarn that I had brought from home with a brown heather and three different colors of wool that had been donated to the class. My blanket was woven in twill with an oversize plaid design. The taupe llama yarn alternated with the brown heather for the background.

Scottish-inspired blanket requires a Scottish warping technique....

I still marvel at the wonders of winding a warp this way...

...it looks like a lot, but it took me only minutes per inch of warp.

Nothing is prettier than a full warping board!

Blanket warp, sectioned and ready to wind on. Boo-yeah!

FLASHBACK: Penland spring weaving concentration

One year ago, I was starting the spring weaving concentration at Penland School of Crafts in Penland, North Carolina. Beth Johnson taught the class called Weaving Traditions.

Our first project was for the class to weave enough napkins for one meal service in the Pines dining hall. We could weave any type of napkin we liked. I designed a simple twill napkin with sections of alternating green and white and solid stripes. 

Beth taught us her nifty Scottish warp winding technique, which I used for winding this warp. For someone who used to require the stars to be aligned in order to even contemplate winding a warp, this method was a revelation to me.  I started winding my warp in the late afternoon, worked my work-study shift at dinnertime and then came back and finished winding the warp in the evening. Beth also showed us how to coil our sections of warp into what I liked to call "snakes", ready to be wound onto the loom.

The third and final section of warp on the warping board

My loom with two coiled "snakes" of warp

The warp, partially threaded

In the middle of threading the loom, the view from the warp beam with the raddle still in place.

I decided to weave the width of one napkin, so my warp turned out to be about 17 yards long. Before this, I had never wound a warp that long, ever!

Lots of knots

I have been tying a whole mess of knots lately while getting the looms dressed and ready to weave.

Here is the ikat warp tied onto the front beam apron bar of the floor loom.

Sometimes it's nice to do a bunch of the same thing at once so I tied these the same day I tied the knots on the tapestry loom.

These are square knots. My default when tying is a granny knot, but they don't hold properly.

I have to train my fingers to tie the square knot by repeating to myself...left in front, then right in front. Sort of silly, but it really helps me get the right knot tied!

Close-up view of knots on apron bar.

My tapestry loom is also being warped for a new tapestry. It is a Shannock upright student loom and the warping starts with lark's head knots on the top bar. The warp is then threaded into string loop heddles on the heddle bars. Once threaded, I tie on with square knots on the bottom bar.

Upright Shannock student loom, threading done, warp is 14" wide.

My weaving sett will be 5 ends per inch (epi), so I've threaded every other heddle on 10 epi  heddle bars.

The lovely and useful square knot!

I have some more spacing and chaining to do on this tapestry warp before I can get started with the weaving.

Shifty, continued

Here is a photo of the dyed and now shifted warp on the loom. I wound the warp on using the shifting box to move sections of the resisted areas of the warp. I threaded the warp for a Spot Bronson weave and it is now ready to be tied onto the front beam.

Shifty

In ikat (Malaysian term) or kasuri (Japanese term) weaving, portions of the warp or weft are bound and dyed. The resist created by the binding along with manipulation of the bound areas results in patterns in the woven cloth. In warp kasuri, the warp threads are bound and dyed and in weft kasuri, the weft threads are bound and dyed. There is also double ikat which involves using the bound and dyed threads in both the warp and weft of the weaving.

The warp, bound and ready to dye

Warp dyed and drying; small area unbound at lower right

In warp kasuri, you can also vary the pattern by shifting groups of the dyed warp threads. There are different ways to do this, but I am trying my hand at shifting my warp using this warp shifting box built by my husband, Jean-Francois. The metal rods you see in the center holes and on the floor are used to elevate sections of the warp while winding it onto the loom. I can choose the holes to put the rods in to vary the shifting of the resisted areas across the warp.