Summer & Winter Continued

I wove a short length of Summer & Winter sample on the table loom this week. The warp is 2/20 mercerized cotton; the weft includes 2/20 cotton, 2/60 cotton, 2/17 wool, wool boucle in three sizes, and an unknown synthetic discontinued boucle. The sett is 36EPI. Here are some views.

With boucle, it's better to exaggerate or simplify shapes they are not stripy or horizontal, unless you are trying to create that look. (Think Monet's Waterlilies.) I would love this in merino warp and merino or mixed boucle in the pattern weft in a bigger scale for jacket/coat fabric if I could sew, or for a skirt if my body shape were a bit more elongated...

Dukagang creates the most visible design, but also the most blocky in appearance? At the top is the late, lamented discontinued yarn.

In some places, I can see the shapes of individual units!

I used 2/20 cotton in the tabby at the bottom, and 2/60 cotton towards the top. I don't know if you can tell, but naturally the pattern color is more saturated and the hand a tad slinkier, but the blocks need to be elongated to achieve the same appearance, i.e. more picks and longer to weave.

I got a little sassier and used 2/60 cotton in the tabby in a pale yellow to create the metallic shine I like in combination with the warp color. I don't know if I achieved it, but it adds another dimension to the appearance of the cloth. A spool of orange (complementary) sewing thread in the tabby would be most interesting to experiment.

I don't like the hand of S&W in general, but particularly using 2/20 cotton both ways. Because I want to see the blocks I pack in the weft very tightly, creating a solid, unkind hand. I doubt I'd want to wear a blouse in this material. To remedy this, I could loosen the sett and the pick, but I'm not good at controlling my picks, so this will be a bit challenge.

I can tolerate the hand where I used 2/60 cotton in the tabby and 2/20 in the pattern. Wool boucle pattern wefts give sponginess to the cloth, which I like. In both of these cases, I have to make the blocks longer vertically if I were to weave the design I intended .

Thus far, I find the blocky look "old", and by this I mean, "dated", not historical or nostalgic. But using small blocks in a larger context and/or better use of colors could/would improve this, I think.

I'll fix the the threading mistake, (big strip in the middle, edited out from the photos :-P) and sample some more.