I got two inquiries this week about weft faced weaving and a request for more posts about weaving last week. These help me know what to post about, so I appreciate your suggestions. Write me your suggestions as a comment any time.
Note: To find information in previous posts: 1. You can search for subjects on my website using the “Search” widget on the right sidebar on every page. 2. You can also click on any category in the Categories List on the same sidebar.
WARPS The illustration shows examples of 2 warp yarns. Both have 4 warps per inch or ends per inch. (4 EPI) Note: warps are often called “ends”. Hence: 4 epi or 4 ends per inch.
WRAPS Here a yarn is wrapped around one inch on a ruler. The number of wraps per inch in this case is 15. We might say 15 WPI. You can wrap the yarns on a ruler fairly far apart, so they just graze one another, or so the yarns are squashed together. I suggest wrapping the yarns somewhere between these two options; that is, touching one another very closely, but never overlapping.
Compare this illustration with the first one. This illustration represents wrapping—you can see that the threads touch each other. In the first illustration there are spaces between the warps which is what you would see on the loom. Unless a project is warp faced, there is always some space between the warps on the loom. The number of warps in an inch is called the sett or EPI.
The spaces between the warps in the illustration allow for the wefts to intersect. In this case we have the same yarn for the warp and the weft and a balanced weave with the same number of warps per inch as wefts per inch. (That does not always need to be the case.)
Following the previous illustration, here we see that the wefts take up the spaces between the warps. That’s why there can only be 2 warps per inch (EPI) when there are 4 wraps per inch for this yarn.
It has been determined that there should be 2 EPI (warps per inch). Notice the dotted circles at the top of the illustration: they represent the WRAPS of the warp yarn in an inch. I hope you see the difference now: the warps per inch are what the warps on the loom are. The wraps are used to help figure out how many warps per inch there should be for your project.
The big sale has come and gone but I still want to remember it. It was a huge success and lots of friends old and new, former students, and a surprising large number of textile enthusiasts came. It felt like a big party, and I had such a good time. Again, friends took care of things while I could just enjoy myself. This photo shows what greeted people as they entered the show. They were surprised and impressed. It really was like something completely different. The party went on from there. Visitors as well as volunteers all had a grand time. The original design was by Cynthia Broderson. She helped from early planning through to the end when I had things at home to put away.
I’ve gotten a few photos of people showing me how their new treasurers look in their new homes. I would love to see more photos. You can send them in the “Comments” or email me at Peggy@peggyosterkamp.com so I can share them here. I got one the other day and I can’t find it. I hope the new owner will send it again.
This is one treasure that went to a new home and her owner emailed asking how I hung it. That got me to thinking. This is 1//3 of a kimono length and I wanted to show that it was the beginning end where the artist/weaver “signed” it as an original.
I hung the kimono length on a closet pole (from hardware or lumber store) that I covered with washed white flannel. The flannel keeps the acid from the wood from touching the textile. Here I’m showing that method hanging another piece.
This shows the end of the covered closet pole and the large S hook I used.
This shows the end of the closet pole covered again.
The length of the closet pole and how I stitched the cover.
Very often I use monofilament to hang things when I can hang something from the middle of a rod. I might have used monofilament instead of the S hooks to hang the jacket shown above.
I always have monofilament on hand at home.
Here is the S hook. There were many types to choose from on Amazon.
After the holidays I think we’ll have things that are left on sale online. Stay tuned. First, I have to mark everything as SOLD on my database to know what is still available. You can click on PeggyOsterkampCollection.com to see what went into the sale. I’ll update it when we do the online sale.
I had my first sale at our Textile Arts Council’s Textile Bazaar on November 12. It seems long ago to me now, but I’m still coming down after all the preparations and then the excitement of the day. The Textile Arts Council (known as TAC) is a group associated with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. The organization raises funds to purchase textiles for the museums’ collections. There are two museums connected as one entity: the deYoung Museum and the Legion of Honor. I was on the board in the 1990’s heading the programs. We had 29 people come to our lectures at that time. Now I would say over 100 came before the pandemic. Now days the lectures are on Zoom and people join in from all over the world.
I (I should say we) had a large booth at the bazaar to give a taste of what would be available at the two-day sale the next week. It was an impressive space and people said my pieces looked great. Really, it was the booth itself that was beautiful. I had much, much help. Mainly I had a woman who does textile sales professionally help me and we designed the space together with her inspiration. We had stands up on the tables with special pieces. A coat from Uzbekistan, a silk under kimono from Japan, and a contemporary coat made by a local designer made a big splash on the stands. There was a rack of clothes and lots of textiles to paw through.
My woven ruffles, natural dyed silks, and a banner hung down from a high frame. I had volunteers to collect the money and replenish the tables so all I needed to do was to answer questions and schmooze with people. We also handed out a flier that announced that there would be lots more available at the sale the next weekend. It was a big success.
It’s so close to my big sale. However, on THIS Saturday is another big sale–sort of a preliminary one. I scheduled it primarily to advertize the one next week. However, getting it ready for packing our cars tomorrow has been a big and exciting task. I think my advisors have designed a wonderful booth for the Textile Arts Council of the deYoung Museum’s Textile Bazaar for day after tomorrow. Pictures will be in a follow up post. It’s a trial run for me completely.
I made a website of examples of some of what will be availabe. Just click the link at the bottom in the picture below to check what will be available at my big show at Fort Mason in San Francisco.
Whew!! Finally I feel like we are close! I could count the days, but I’m afraid to because I know I would have a panic attack. The big sale as you can see above is November 19 and 20. But I am going to have a nice booth at theTextile Arts Council Bazaar the week before on November 12. More info on that at the end of the post. Saturday, November 12, 10 AM — 4 PM, St. Mary’s Cathedral, 1111 Gough St. (at Geary), San Francisco.
I’ve had so much help with this enormous project. I think if I realized what I was getting into, I would never have attempted it. I’ve hired a person who has textile sales professionally and she helps with pricing, setting up, everything else including psychotherapy when I go berzerk.
Before that I had an appraiser of Asian Art to help me understand what I have accumulated in my textile collection. Now, when I look at a treasured piece, I remember all about how I bought it and in what country. Of course Japan (many trips) but also India (3), China (3), Uzbekestan, Philippines, Mororrco, and Bhutan.
Besides downsizing my collection (no heirs), I want to part with my work. I’ve had a couple small shows, but haven’t sold the majority of my work. I wonder if people ever sell much at shows! I have lots of weavings but also a lot of dye work that I did during the pandemic.
My tech guy, handsome Bob, has designed so much, as well as offered good advice along the way. We made hang tags, 2 flyers so far, and a large banner. The photo above is of the hang tag. At the sale he will show images of a large obi I have that is made of precious linden bark with sumi ink drawing. It is one of my most precious pieces. It hangs in my apartment and measures about 14″ by 24′.
Another very special piece is an under kimono. Jaspanese ladies liked to wear red underneath their subtle outer kimonos. The red was dyed with safflowers and is fugitive so it has faded over time. That’s how we know the kimono was dyed with safflower–because of the way the lining has faded.
My friend, Cathy arranged a trip for us to go to Amami Island in Japan to see a very special textile being woven. Kimonos would be woven of the cloth and the textiles are known as Oshima Textiles. We went to a special Oshima shop in Tokyo once and all the kimonos were very unattractive to our eye. However the mud dye and the weaving is extraordinary. We went to Amami Island and saw them weaving what I’d heard about: TWICE WOVEN cloth. That means, at first the threads would be woven for the RESIST when the threads were dyed. AFTER THAT the threads would be put back on a loom and WOVEN again.
I brought home quite a few pieces of beautiful cloth; each one is amazing! And to imagine and realize that each and every thread had been woven twice! In future posts I can show diagrams and pictures and you can see my pieces in my collection for the sale at my new website in the Oshima section: PeggyOsterkampCollection. Click Here
Looking forward to seeing everyone at the Bazaar and at Building C (Room C 205) at Fort Mason.
Introduction: The posts are fewer than usual because I’m up to my ears working on my sale which will be November 19 & 20 at Fort Mason in San Francisco. A preliminary sale will be on November 12 at St. Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco. Get there for the first look!
The last blog was about making moiré by pressing two cloths to make the “watered” look. In this post, I bring up again about making moiré by weaving and other ways of having two layers on top of each other. See my previous post from June 20, 2022, for more on two layer moiré. SEE HERE.
Recently I found three small scraps of fine silk warp woven in double weave. When I held them up in the air, voila! Moiré. It is about 10” long. The warp was about 3 ½” wide. If I put it on a flat surface, the moiré would disappear and you would only see plain weave.
The second little scrap. This one is 8 ½” tall not including the fringe.
The third one is 6” long. I did a little black ink on it but if you put it on a flat surface, all you would see is plain weave plus the ink places. The moiré depends entirely on the two layers. Don’t forget to look at the previous post. SEE HERE
Introduction: Watered : Term used to describe textiles in which a rippled or watered effect is produced by pressing certain ribbed fabrics in such a way as to flatten parts of the ribs and leave the rest in relief. The flattened and un-flattened parts reflect the light differently. Synonym: Moire From my go-to book, Warp & Weft by Dorothy Burnham.
This is the watered look or moiré on one of the pieces I brought back from Uzbekistan.
Here are the huge rollers that press the fabric to make the moire.
The first step is wetting the fabric.
The cloth is doubled before going into the rollers as per the definition above in the introduction.
The cloth is fed into the rollers.
The double cloth is separated.
The cloth is dried.
Moire can be on plain cloth, too.
A special piece I found was still doubled and here you can see it being separated. The moire is on both cloths but it took the two of them to press on each other to make the watered look (moire). I was thrilled when I found my photos and the fabrics I brought home. And now they will be in my sale. I hope lots of people will come: there will be interesting stuff as well as museum quality things and my own work. It’s a big deal for me. November 19 & 20 at Fort Mason in San Francisco. The reason for the sale is that I’m downsizing and want to pass my treasures out into the world and see the people who they go to.
We saw this scarf and marveled how the ikat was done.
Upon looking at it closely we could see that the weft skeins had just been tie-tied randomly. We never saw a pattern develop, just random horizontal lines. Just 2 colors.
Then I saw the color blanket aspect of the whole scarf and the few and interesting colors that were used. For example, the warp had only red threads and green threads.
Many of us know that you get iridescence when you mix complementary colors which red and green are. So, in the areas where red and green crossed we do, indeed see iridescence.
It got too much for my brain to figure out all the wonderful combinations that were achieved in this scarf.
Then we discovered another scarf with the same type of weft ikat—where the weft threads are randomly dyed (and resisted, hence: tie dyed). This gave a completely different look to the regular warp ikats that we normally saw around Uzbekistan.
Another view of the scarf with the same wefts going all the way across the ikat patterned warp threads.
How interesting it was to travel with weavers on that trip. And I love re-living those days while getting these ready for the sale. Almost everything is numbered and photographed and, in the database, now. And everything around my apartment has Post It labels with numbers. The number for this scarf is 865. The hang tags are at the printers. That’s a next step and I have to decide on the prices! This is a huge job. All needs to be done by Nov. 19 and 20.
The very most interesting part of seeing the ikat weavers in Uzbekistan was finding out about the heddle maker. I saw the weavers working and I saw them making the warps, but I kept asking “How do you thread the looms” and I would never get any answer. Only,“it happens.” Finally, after really, really insisting, they understood that I was asking about the man who comes to the loom when needed and makes the heddles for the warps—ON THE LOOM! They had him come to show us how he did it which was fabulous! This is a page in a large picture book for the region and I saw the picture of the heddle man and was overjoyed. (Simple things can make me very happy!) So, I spent $40 and bought the book. I always thought I could cut out the page and save it and make nice calendar pictures out of the rest of the book but none of that has happened.
Weavers know that the warp threads on the loom must be evenly tensioned and lined up. Every warp thread needs to be threaded through a loop, in our case loops of string. The loops are called heddles. You can see they all need to be the same size.
The complete heddle for each thread consists of two loops. This is not unusual in the world but not the way our American heddles are usually made.
The heddle maker brought his jig so that each loop is the same size. I loved the jig and wish I could have bought one. I am very sure I tried.
He found a cross that I’d never seen used before. I think it came from the regular weaver’s cross plus something like what we call the false cross. That way he picked up the threads for 4 sets of heddles. We would say for 4 shafts.
Here he is picking up his heddle string with a needle that is on the jig to make his loops of string. Probably a blunt needle.
All the string heddle loops for one shaft are on the needle, ready for a bar to go through to make the top of the shaft from which the tops of the heddles hang. Remember this is repeated for the bottom heddle loops forming the bottoms of the heddles.
Here he pulls the heddle bar through.
Now, 4 shafts worth of heddles are in place, the registration lines are lined up, and the weaving can start.
I unearthed my pile of ikats from Uzbekistan when I found the Philippine blouse in the previous post. I’d forgotten how vibrant and beautiful the pieces I brought home were.
I also found my photographs that show precious aspects of the process of weaving these ikats. Here is a photo I took of men tying the warp threads. When they are dyed, what has been tied will resist the dye. When all the colors are dyed, they will be put on the loom and the pattern will loom into view as the cloth is woven. What a marvel! Here it looks like all the threads were first dyed yellow. Here they are tying the areas of the pattern where the yellow will be protected from the new dye colors. In so many techniques, it’s the way of resisting the dye that is the technique to make the patterns. This is sophisticated “tie-dye” for sure!
Here is a photo I took of a warp on a loom. Notice the woman in the back of the photo doing something. There you can see where the end of the warp is. The warps are tremendously long. In the previous photo the threads are folded several times on the tying frame so the pattern is repeated over and over for the very long warp when the length is stretched out.
The line across the pattern is so they line up perfectly. It’s called the registration mark. It would be at the ends of the warp shown in the second photo—where a repeat would be. I sought out fabrics where the registration lines showed because that interested me. Notice the mirror image of the design –that happens when the warp is folded back on itself on the tying frame.
Here’s a registration line visable on the warp on the loom.
Here is another photo of a long warp. Check out the remainder of the warp in the back corner. So, for the entire length, the pattern has to match up.
Here’s a shot of the weaving room in one of the studios we visited.
Another shot of some of my fabrics.
More to come about my Uzbekistan textiles in posts to follow as I get them ready for my sale.
Introduction: I realize I should explain more about my sale in November. Online sales will probably be available AFTER the sale is over. The reason I’m talking so much about it here on the blog is that is what is consuming me now. And I’m finding it really interesting and exciting, really, to see things I have stored away and to revisit their stories. I hope you’ll bear with me on this adventure. I’ll also be selling (for very, very little) my own work. I look forward to enjoying knowing who the new owners of my treasures are. I hope to goodness it all works out. For some of my special treasures from my travels I’ve even engaged an appraiser.
I was wondering where in the world my blouse from the Philippines could be because I wanted it for my sale coming up. Well, the big surprise was that it turned up in with my stack of ikat textiles from Uzbekistan!! You wonder??? It was balled up and bound with a rubber band! I guess that was it because was so stiff and took up so much space. I remembered it so well—we found it in a junk shop on the last day of our trip to the Philippines.
It was a mess and I needed to iron it, but how? So, to the internet and of course I found it right away. I think the fiber is abaca (not pina, pineapple fiber). Never iron when dry only damp on cotton setting, and then how to iron the sleeves?? It worked perfectly and was so fun to see this miserable wad turning into something so flashy. My sleeves aren’t perfect, but they’ll do for the first attempt. They are sometimes called butterfly sleeves. I think of them as Imelda Marcos sleeves.
You can see my original post about buying the blouse on the post for March 3, 2016.
I unrolled this rug to get it ready for my sale of my collection in November. I have to document everything which means take photographs, give it a number, put it in Word with the number, put it in the database. Then comes the rest: pricing, making the hang tag, packing it up, taking it to Fort Mason for the sale and then setting up. This is piece #644 and there are a lot more pieces to record.
I bought the sampler rug in Oaxaca while on a textile trip there some years ago. We visited the workshop and saw that all the yarns were dyed with natural dyes and then woven in the studio. There were skeins of yarn drying in the breeze on the roof. The same pattern is used but each section is made up of a different color combination. That’s what appealed so much to me. I love samplers and to sample.
Here is the pattern and you can judge the scale. Note this color combination.
A completely different color scheme for this section.
When I unrolled it, I noticed the signature of the weaver in the corner. What a joy to see it and remember seeing it and falling in love with it. It might be hard to let things go, but I am thoroughly enjoying visiting my treasures.
Several years ago Yoshiko Wada gave me some of this kibiso silk to experiment with. Then on a trip to a silk farmer in Japan, I asked for some. I was shocked when he presented me with an armful of 6 or 8 huge skeins of it. It’s the waste that is taken off the outer part of the cocoons. I’ve never seen a cocoon with this waste; it must be removed right away.
Here is a close up of one area of the skein. You can see there are finer and thicker areas. It is very stiff because the sericin is still on the filaments.
A close up of another area of the skein.
Here is a close up of an area of a hanging I wove with it as part of the warp. I didn’t put the kibiso threads in heddles but put them in between them. The threads didn’t go up or down but stayed in the middle of the sheds. When I wanted them on top I put the shuttle underneath the threads. When I wanted them underneath, the shuttle went over them. That is similar to how floating selvedges work.
Here is a close look at the loopy area.
Here is the whole piece. I did weave more small pieces and undegummed some of them. The fibers turned soft like cotton candy and the blue threads bled to dye them.
To quote Giovanna Imperia in our post dated July 5, 2022 found HERE:
“The filament from the cocoon is covered in sericin — which is a protein gelatin produced by the silk worm to bind filaments while making the cocoon (Think of it as worm spit). It is not removed from the filaments being reeled to add strength and minimize breakage.”
More from Giovanna.
To quote Cheryl Kolander in her book:
“Raw Silk” Unbleached, cultivated silk noil fabric is very popular under the name “raw silk”. This is a misnomer: true raw silk is silk which has not been degummed. The reason for the nickname may be that the noil fabric has the muted luster and lack of sparkles associated with true raw silk.
Oddly enough, it is the lack of luster of raw silk—both the true raw and the noil—that is their greatest asset. The matte finish gives them a casual look. They can be worn places and times where a sleek, lustrous silk would be too dressy.
Noil silks are also popular for clothes because they are very wrinkle-resistant. And noils spin a soft, bulky yarn that knits or weaves a lightweight but thick and substantial fabric.”
I bought this exquisite scarf from a silk farmer in Japan. The threads are single silk filaments.
A close up of the single filament scarf.
A close-up of a noil scarf.
Another shot of the noil shawl in the post on July 25, 2022. SEEN HERE
Introduction: Here are more bits and pieces of silk information that I think are interesting.
This is a corner of a large cap (flattened out) made of layers in preparation for spinning.
You can see one thin layer pulled back and the interesting edges of the layers.
I’m sure I bought this just because it was so interesting. I’m glad I saved the label. 130 layers is a lot of layers!
During the pandemic I brought home this silk roving and my spinning wheel. Remember, I’m a weaver and not a spinner! Besides my wheel doesn’t like to spin fine; it’s better just as a twister. But since silk doesn’t draw like wool, I thought to give it a try.
My silk spinning with no instruction. I’m reminded of how proud I was when I learned to spin wool and my thick and knobby yarn! Junco Sato Pollack wrote and suggested having a bowl of water to wet my hands but it all seemed too much. I’ve taken the spinning wheel back to the studio and don’t plan to spin any more in this lifetime. In the meantime, I have some thick silky yarn for a future weaving project.
Here is some silk that Junco raised herself.
These spools are what I used for the warps for sheer fabrics and my ruffles. The color is fugitive–temporary—only so those at the mill could know which were S or Z spun or plied or overtwisted. Most are undegummed (stiff) and highly twisted. You’ll see how fugitive the colors are in the next photos.
This is the color those threads on the spools turned into as soon as they hit the air on my warping reel. The white “fringes” were from a silky silk (degummed) skein that I gave up on unwinding and just cut the skein and laid in the long threads.
The overtwisted character made for wonderful collapse pieces. I had fun with collapse and was careful to keep water away from anything I didn’t want to collapse.
My ruffles I made by weaving very long tubes and turning them partially inside-out. The sett probably was 96 epi at one repeat (8 ends) per dent in a 12 dent reed.
This is a skein a friend gave me of silk chenille. I dyed it with black walnuts. It’s so precious I don’t know what to do with it.
These are more natural silk cocoons. In Japan a man I met at a flea market has a business of selling natural fibers. These cocoons thrilled me!
You can see why the above cocoons interested me when you realize most cocoons look like these.
Did you notice the stem on one of the cocoons in the above photo? I did and found out that the silkworm MAKES the little twig that makes its attachment.
Here is a little bit of the silk fibers in a fluff along with the silk “twig”.
Here is a skein of yarn made from the silk twigs. I am calling this the baby bear yarn. A strand of 5/2 cotton is for comparison.
This is the mama bear size yarn.
This is the papa bear size yarn.
This is grandpa bear size!
Here is a lovely shawl made from the cocoons shown in the first photo.
A closer look at the fabric. It is soft and a joy to wear.
Many know that I’ve travelled a lot looking at interesting textiles and all things textile related. I’ve brought home many things that interest me. The other day a friend came to my studio for some kibiso silk for her artwork and then came back again for a cocoon. When I got out my cocoons I found a lot of things I’d brought home from China, Japan, Uzbekistan, and India and ?? This post is the first one about cocoons. Note: I’ll be selling my collection of textiles in San Francisco in November. Stay tuned.
We visited a silk growing place in Japan where they raised at least two different varieties of silkworms. There was a video showing how they saved some males and females for breeding. They showed putting a pair of moths under a domed basket where they bred then I think the eggs came and the moths died. These two cocoons made two different silks.
This scarf is made of two layers. Each layer was made from silk from a different variety. One layer is pure white and the other is yellow-ish.
These cocoons made the thread on the spool. The silk filaments were reeled off as the cocoons were unwound. The silk threads in the scarf above were unwound (reeled off) from the cocoons. The scarf is stiff which tells us the sericin has not been removed and is called raw silk.
In the case of the breeding cocoons, the “bug” (pupa) inside the cocoon develops into an adult that breaks out of the cocoon as a moth. Since the cocoon is broken, the fiber cannot be reeled off. These spent cocoons were in a wastebasket in a mill where they were reeling off the silk. I helped myself to see what the cocoons looked like and was pleased to find one pupa. (The word chrysalis is the same stage as pupa but only refers to butterflies).
These cocoons were purposely cut open so that silk fiber cannot be reeled and must be spun. It means the moth can exit the cocoon on its own without being killed. However my understanding is that the moth soon dies a natural death.
On a silk growers farm in Japan we made hankies like these in preparation for spinning. The cocoons had been degummed, were wet, and had been cut open. We put our thumbs in the hole and worked with forefingers and thumbs from both hands to pinch and spread out the cocoons into flat pieces like these. We draped them over a dome and piled up a certain number (maybe 12?) together, then removed them for spinning. These were called caps. If they were flat they would be called mawata.
Here are silk hankies on a small frame with several layers. I’m finding there are lots of ways to spin silk in the book “A Silk Workers Notebook” by Cheryl Kolander. Apparently, each method produces a very different type of thread.
We all love to weave with silk! It is such an incredible fiber: soft, supple, yet very strong and with great aging stability. However, not all silk is the same. Starting at a high level, silk can be classified based on the moth type and the yarn construction. Below is a good way to visualize the differences:
Muga silk is also produced by a specific type of Antheraea moth (Antheraea assamensis) exclusively in Assam, India. It is very rare and is highly sought after because of its warm golden color and sheen.
Reeled silk Cocoons are placed into hot water and filaments from several cocoons are pulled together and reeled. This produces a continuous multi-strand yarn. A number of multistrand yarns are then plyed together to create the desired yarn size. The filament from the cocoon is covered in sericin — which is a protein gelatin produced by the silk worm to bind filaments while making the cocoon (Think of it as worm spit). It is not removed from the filaments being reeled to add strength and minimize breakage. Both Bombyx and Tussah silk are available as reeled yarns. They are both very strong. The nice thing about Tussah is that it can withstand high torsion due to its natural strength. So, it is possible to achieve high TPMs (Twist Per Meter) when creating crepe yarns. A good example is the Italian silk crepe that Lunatic Fringe currently sells. The base yarn is partly degummed Tussah silk. The Italian mill that I used to source the yarn was able to apply 1800 TPMs — making this a very tight over-twisted yarn with a lot of elasticity that can be used as warp. One word about degumming. This is the chemical process that removes the sericin from the silk. Degumming improves sheen and softens the silk, making it easier to dye. However, degumming also removes the protective layer of sericin that adds strength and protects the silk from abrasion. Partial degumming is an attempt to take advantages of both sides of the chemical process: remove some sericin to soften the yarn, but retain some to maintain the strength needed for high torsion. In my experience, undegummed or partially degummed silks are the best as warp. The long filaments rarely break under tension or due to friction. The sericin can be removed after the weaving process to achieve a softer, more drapeable fabric. Because reeled silk is a continuous multi-strand yarn, it does not pill or fuzz with use.
Examples of reeled and handspun silk. Bottom row from left: 2/260 partially degummed natural ivory tussah (Japan, from Lunatic Fringe), handspun tussah (Japan, from Habu Textiles), naturally yellow reeled tussah (Laos). Top row from left: two handspun tussah skeins in natural brown (Japan), reeled bombyx in natural white (Japan, from Habu Textiles)
Examples of spun silk with even and uneven ply. Top: spun handdyed variegated silk with even ply (China, Red Fish). Top left: hand spun handdyed, slubby uneven ply (US). Bottom left: tram handdyed organzine silk (Source unknown, dyed by Randy Darwell) . Cone on the left: bleached spun tussah uneven ply (Italy). Cone in the middle: recombed spun tussah organzine (Italy). Cone on the right: silk shantung loose ply
Spun silk Most spun silk commercially available today comes from China. In Italy, where the production of silk has essentially disappeared, many mills import the fiber from China and then ply and dye the yarn in Italy. This allows the Italian mills to maintain their quality controls while benefiting from lower production costs. Once the first quality silk is reeled from the intact cocoons, the reminder as well as the damaged or pierced cocoons are used to produce a variety of styles of spun silk. Sericin is first removed from the silk waste. Next the fiber is carded and spun. Generally speaking, spun silk tends to be weaker, more fuzzy and less durable than reeled silk because it is produced from shorter fibers. It is also important to consider how the fiber is being plyed: an uneven or slubby ply will make the yarn weaker, and more difficult to use as a warp. Not all the spun silk is the same. Since it is produced from the silk waste, different types of yarn are actually produced. For instance, here in the US we are very familiar with Shantung and Noil (In Europe also called Bourette due to its knobby appearance).
However, in Europe spun silk also includes another grouping called “Schappe”. This type of spun silk is actually a higher quality than Shantung or Noil. In fact, Shantung silk is typically produced with whatever is left over after the production of Schappe silk.
All three types of spun silk can be used in a similar fashion. The difference between them is mostly in terms of sheen, and smoothness of the yarn — with Schappe being the smoothest, most consistent and with the greatest sheen.
Let’s summarize: • Reeled silk is a continuous multi-strand yarn. Very strong. Smooth with no imperfections. Bombyx is high sheen. Tussah is more rustic. Reeled silk does not fuzz or pill. If undegummed, unlikely to be affected by abrasion. • Spun silk is produced from the silk waste. Short fibers that are always degummed before carding and spinning. Some are spun with intentional imperfections. Not as strong. Not high sheen. More sensitive to abrasion, and over time it fuzzes and pills. • Warp yarn: • Tight and balanced ply • Undegummed or partially degummed yarn • Spun silk with longer fibers • Weft yarns: • Unbalanced ply with slubs • Loose ply such as tram silk • Spun silk from very short fibers Shantung • Originated in the Shandong province in China • Spun from whatever is left over • Purposely stubby and uneven • Often confused with Dupioni • More refined texture than Dupioni with smaller slubs and less stiffness Schappe • Spun from the higher quality short filaments after the cocoons have been reeled, and from cocoons where the moth has emerged thus damaging the continuous filament of the cocoon • Irregularities are removed from the fiber yielding a smooth, regular, high sheen yarn
Bio At a very young age I became fascinated by the textures and visual and tactile experiences provided by certain materials such as fiber and metal. Over time, I also became intrigued with the possibilities created by the interaction between structure, techniques and material manipulation as a way of creating texture and threedimensionality. In my most recent body of work I have taken the tactile experience a step further by creating work that can actively involve the user as transforming agent. This is achieved by allowing the viewer to manipulate, reshape and reconfigure the work. Thus, transforming wearables and non-wearables into unique personal statements. My work has been shown in many juried and invitational national and international exhibits. Selected work has also been reproduced in textile and jewelry books, and can be found in private and museum collections. Over the years, I have written articles for Ornament Magazine, Strands, Handwoven, Shuttle, Spindle and Depot, and a variety of international braiding conferences proceedings. And, of course, I am the author of the book “Kumihimo wire jewelry.” Published by Potter Craft (Random House), 2011. Many of the yarns discussed in this blog are available from Lunatic Fringe Yarns (https:// lunaticfringeyarns.com). As I have been sourcing yarns in Italy over the last decade or so, I have built a collection of interesting spun silk. If you are interested in expanding your collection, I can be reached at giovannaimperia@mac.com
Weavers everywhere share a common language so I embraced the opportunity to virtually sit down with a group of selvedge to selvedge weavers and talk about what has become my first weaving love, tapestry. I started my weaving career making structured fabrics, moved to doubleweave when I wanted to make pictures, then decided to try tapestry. Two decades later, I’m still weaving images one pick at a time.
Tapestry weavers very rarely throw a shuttle and we don’t mess around with lots of shafts or threading and treadling drafts. Tapestry weavers might, on the face of it, seem a simple sort to those patterned fabric weavers who know and use lots of weave structures. But though us tapestry weavers most often utilize a simple unbalanced plain weave, we have a different set of skills.
Tapestry is officially defined as a discontinuous weft-faced weave that creates an image. While multi-shaft weavers of fabric are throwing shuttles and clicking through their treadling patterns while rolling off yards of fabric at breathtaking speed, us tapestry weavers are meditatively tap tap tapping our weft threads into warps. Over, under, over, under is our song. Sometimes we even do all this without the benefit of a shedding device.
But though tapestry is slow and highly reliant on image-creation for successful artwork, there is a deep satisfaction in the slow building of that image. All weavers understand the structure of starting at one end and weaving to the other and that is no different in tapestry. The biggest difference between shafted pattern weaves and tapestry is those discontinuous wefts.
To make our pictures, we tapestry weavers change colors constantly. You can weave tapestry line by line meaning one pick at a time. But the color can change many times across that one pick. This results in a fell line with a whole host of butterflies or bobbins coming from it.
I often weave my larger tapestry on a Harrisville rug loom. This countermarche loom has a warp extender and worm gear which means I can get the tension on the warp very tight and very even. In the tapestry pictured below (taken from above—those are my feet standing on the loom bench), you can see the weft bundles at the fell line. I believe there are about 30 butterflies being woven at that point on this 24 inch wide tapestry, Lifelines.
The wefts are in pairs because most Gobelin-style tapestry weavers also use something called meet and separate. This means that adjacent wefts move in opposition to each other in the same shed. This manner of working means that a weft can be moved to a new position to create a form without putting two wefts in the same shed. The diagram below shows three butterflies moving in meet and separate in the same shed.
In the image of my Lifelines tapestry above, I’m weaving line by line and using the beater on the loom to keep everything square. I’m also using a technique called hatching where sequences of colors are alternated to blend them which can only be done line by line.
The diagram below shows irregular hatching. This is a little different from the shaft weaver’s clasped weft technique as we don’t lock the wefts around each other unless we’re specifically doing a weft interlock to close a vertical slit. Irregular hatching often means weaving line by line and in my work, I do a lot of it.
Tapestry can also be woven one shape at a time. It is common to build a shape with one color before picking up the bobbin or butterfly of another and building that shape. In another section of the Lifelines tapestry I wanted to create smooth lines around a curve and I built up shapes so I could do that. That curve can then be outlined with a weft that does not move perpendicular to the warp. This smooths out the steps that happen due to the gridded nature of weaving.
Making pictures
As a tapestry teacher, I find that the biggest stumbling block for weavers of patterned fabric when they first come to tapestry weaving is the design component. Suddenly there is a big piece of the puzzle that has to come from your own head. There aren’t books of tapestry patterns though there are many ways to create a tapestry pattern from external sources and I provide some simple starter ones in my courses. The weavers who embrace this new skill of designing most often discover a new well of creativity and expression and create some marvelous tapestries.
Rebecca Mezoff, Handbasket (detail), 14 x 14 inches, wool, cotton
Equipment for tapestry
Tapestry can be woven on large beamed looms but it is also a wonderful thing to weave on small equipment. You only need a small frame loom, cotton seine twine warp, a tapestry fork, a shed stick, and some time. There are many kinds of looms from the small untensioned tapestry looms pictured below by Handywoman Shop to larger tensioned frame looms like those made by Mirrix to large high-warp tapestry looms with beams and low-warp floor looms like the countermarche Harrisville Rug Loom I favor.
Simplification
Tapestry weaving is a great way to incorporate images in woven form. Those images often need to be simplified from what we might like to create due to size and sett limitations, but those challenges can also be fascinating. The world has gotten so complicated that some time with a simple loom, a variety of colored wefts, and the slow tap tap tapping of the weft into the warp is certainly a balm to our rushing way of life.
Tapestry is a wonderful adjunct to patterned shaft weaving and I challenge you to expand your weaving language and give this slower form of weaving a try.
Rebecca Mezoff, author of the bestselling book, The Art of Tapestry Weaving, loves nothing more than helping new tapestry weavers untangle the mystery of making images with yarn. Her fledgling career as an expert latch-hooker died before she made it to middle school, but her love of fiber never abandoned her. Now she creates large-format tapestries and is often found weaving in her pajamas which she affectionately calls her “home pants”. She runs an online tapestry school which has over 3,500 members and occasionally she leaves the studio to teach weavers in the real world about color, design, and technique in tapestry. Her current artistic work focuses on human perception and the long scale of geologic time. Her studio is in Fort Collins, Colorado. You can find out more about her on her website and blog at www.tapestryweaving.com.
I’ve been intrigued about moiré for many years. I ran across some samples and when I picked them up and saw light behind, I immediately saw wonderful moire patterns. Voila! These double weave tubes produced moire if seen backlit but only then. This photo shows that two layers superimposed can or cannot make moire, depending on the set up. I put a card behind a portion of the piece to show how it looked lying on a table and hanging with light behind it.
Here is the same piece as a little hanging. Art!
Another little moire piece I discovered and made into a little hanging.
A third scrap turned into a hanging just by hanging it up.
Here is one of my original pieces where I discovered moire.
Moire sometimes isn’t desirable. This is part of an illustration in my book Weaving for Beginners in the Rigid Heddle chapter. Again, 2 layers superimposed can cause the moire effect. Perhaps you’ve seen in when 2 screens are next to each other.
This photo is from my go-to book for textile definitions. For moire it said, “see Watered”. The definition: “Term used to describe textiles in which a rippled or watered effect is produced by pressing certain ribbed fabrics in such a way as to flatten parts of the ribs and leave the rest in relief. The flattened and unflattened parts reflect the light differently. Synonym: moire”. From Warp & Weft A Dictionary of Textile Terms. Dorothy K. Burnham. Royal Ontario Museum, 1981. Now that I think of it, I think I had some fabrics like that from Uzbekestan, and we went to see the big callerending machine that pressed the ridges.
I got the idea for pads of graph paper when planning my booth for CNCH. I was thinking maybe some weavers might have questions and it would be much easier to work on graph paper that was on a pad like a tablet. I love my padded graph paper now. I took a sheet to my copy place and voila! They made copies and made them into a pad. So much nicer to work on a cushioned surface than on my desk which usually is full of papers. And I can rip off pages as I make variations or keep them together.
While I was at it, I thought if I wanted to help anyone plan a project, working on a padded surface would be nice, too. These are my project worksheets that I always use. They are in my book Weaving for Beginners. Someone asked if I could put them here on the blog so it will be easier to make copies than from the book. I first posted them on my blog 9 years ago in 2013. I posted them again in 2016 after I had 598 subscribers. Now after 2,135 subscribers, I’m posting them again—but this time with the pads idea. There are two sheets but often I just need one of them for a different version. So, I made each sheet on its own pad. You can download both sheets HERE
I use my worksheets to calculate the many things needed when planning a project. When I was starting out, I was always worried that I’d forget a critical calculation. Now I don’t worry about forgetting.
People loved these balls of rags. I do, too. I bought them in an antique shop in New York. I will sell them along with other textiles from my collection in a sale next year. Stay tuned (become a subscriber if you are not already one).
This needle book caught the eyes of many people, too. A weaver had one and I had to make my own. In this previous post, I explained how I wove it. See it HERE
Here is the second needle book I came across. Check out this previous post for a lot of needle books that I have now and love. See it HERE
Hi fellow weavers! I have a beautiful Ahrens loom I would love to donate to an enthusiastic intermediate or above weaver who is mechanically minded and familiar with Ahrens or AVL looms. I live in San Francisco, and you would need to move the loom. There are 25 cement steps to get to the loom. And the loom is heavy.
Send me an email if you are interested. Be sure to tell me why you are the person for this loom. And thanks for helping find a home for my very neglected Ahrens loom.
Introduction: CNCH (Conference of Northern California Handweavers) was last weekend. There was a whole lot of excitement and energy for the exhibits, Tableau (fashion show), classes, and vendors. I had a booth and bonded with the other vendors. Here is who else had booths and enticing things to sell. I didn’t sell anything but visited with a lot of weavers, friends, and enthusiastic new weavers. It was thrilling to meet up with so many who knew of my books, blog, and also my name!
Amazing Yarns is located in Redwood City in the Bay Area. The shop specializes in unusual hand spun and hand painted yarns and classes. They also have hand dyed yarns for knitting, weaving, crocheting and roving and fleece for spinning, dyeing and felting. www.Amazingyarn.com. Phone 650-306-9218
Carpool showed a lot of beautifully dyed yarns and fiber. I asked about the company name: a lot of travels caused it. They can be found on facebook.com/lisamendezmakesthings. Lisa dyes all the yarns! 773-507-8582
Ephemera Creations had beautiful “small batch hand dyed yarn”. They are dyed in Humboldt County, California. The photo of the booth says it all. www.ephemeracreations.com. Instagram & Facebook: @ephemera.creations.
Eugene Textile Center had a large booth that looked just like a store. You name it, they had it: Yarns, books, looms, spinning wheels, tools, and everything a fiber person would like. The store is at 2750 Roosevelt Blvd., Eugene, OR 97402. Phone: 541-688-1565. info@eugenetextilecenter.comwww.EugeneTextileCenter.com
Featherweight Finery sold vibrant handcrafted Jewelry all made by Sue Toorans. ”Elegant enough for a night on the town, comfortable enough to wear all day.” Sue@FeatherweightFinery.com . www.FeatherweightFinery.com on Facebook and Instagram as Featherweight Finery.
Lunatic Fringe Yarns. “Unique Yarns for Unique People!” They are known for Tubular Spectrum yarns in all the colors on the color wheel. Their newest line is “GevolveYarns. They are from the unique collection of Giovanna Imperia. www.lunaticfringeyarns.com. Phone: 800-483-8749
Peggy Osterkamp. I had my booth to visit with old and new weavers, colleagues, and students. The large pieces on the back wall are examples of textiles in my collection which I will be selling in the future. www.PeggyOsterkamp.com. Instagram at PEGGYOSTER and on Facebook.
