All Tied Up 2

I started threading this week. Yesterday I think, hope, I finished my Day 2 of 5.

A week ago Tuesday, I combined past posts labeled "Summer and Winter" and "tied weaves" into one label, "Summer & Winter and Tied Weaves", (and Blogger now allows "&" in labels,) and read the 17, plus closely related posts e.g, P2P 2010. What a cringing, shriveling, embarassing experience, full of typos, missing/doubled up words, muddle thoughts, and poorly attempted humor! I knew I don't write cleanly but I didn't know how bad it was. Some years ago I started editing posts and ended up deleting a whole bunch but I only got up to early 2009. However do you put up with me? On the other hand, if you met me in person, this is how I talk. Not that that helps. 

I said I design, in the first instance, with the warp, maybe due to my first looms being jack looms. I never consider not all drafts are made with rising sheds in mind, and never remember this when looking up books. But for weaves where pattern wefts are the strongest element, I need to think sinking sheds, or keep in mind I could be designing/weaving with the B-side up.


There are many things I assume since I've been more or less mechanically designing and weaving  
twills for many years, and the assumptions don't necessary transfer to tied weaves. So I'm revisiting some basics, actually putting them into words and reading them out loud:

1. Vertical elements, warp threads and threading, are trickier to change once the loom is dressed, though not impossible, especially adding supplementaries; 
2. Weft threads are the easiest to change after the loom is dressed or after weaving starts;  
3. Sett is easily changed even after the loom is dressed, but I prefer to resley to a denser sett, so start with looser option; 
4. Lifting, (or tie-up/treadling,) can be changed after the loom is dressed or after weaving starts. On the big dobby, multiple variations should be prepared to generate different designs from the same warp/threading anyway; 
5. Surely more to come? 

Because I'm almost more interested in the tie-down pattern than what shapes pattern wefts make, I'm trying to understand how that works:

1. Tie-down patterns/shafts must be decided to determine the threading; it's the same for the pattern wefts but you see how I think. However, anything that can be woven from the same threading can be woven; this is such a "Ya think?" when you put it into words, but it took a while for this to sink in re. tie-down; 
2. Tie-down pattern is most visible in the warp-dominant areas, i.e. when the warp is raised, which may explain my interest; for me, this is weaving as usual;
3. But tie-down changes the shape of how the smallest unit of pattern wefts are shaped, the pixels; look up any old book to see pics of O vs X, for e.g;
4. Never forget about treadling, especially simple elongation/shortening and repeating. Because tie-down is not the main/only focus of the cloth, slight changes in the numbers can create a big enough change to the tie-down pattern for the whole cloth without it being boringly obvious as with all-over twills; 
5. What else? I know there is more.

Having arrived at this murky stage where I understand a few things when I'm told but haven't learned/experienced enough to proactively use them, I made up a few drafts and decided on something like this for the orange warp. (That is not to say I'm going to stop reading, no way, tied weaves are so interesting! But you know, the weaver wants to weave a little.)

Full width. The colors are very approximate; the "white" horizontal lines are blank lines between treadling units.

The pattern appears as an oval, but if you look at the "negative" space the shapes can appear as ovals or x's. All three pics are segments of the same draft but the colors get darker as I go closer. They are clean, clear colors in real life.

 

I used shafts 1 to 5 to make the diamonds; 6 to 16 for the pattern. 

Most of my tied weave samples are woven with 20/2 cottons in the warp, 20/2 and 60/2 in the weft, at 36EPI. The convention is to use threads the same size as the thinner weft as the warp, and I'd imagine a sett closer than 36EPI with this combo, to produce the characteristic pixilated look. 36EPI produces a lovely hand suitable for scarves, and shows off more of the color interactions than the pixels, both desirable for my purpose, so I thought to stay at 36. But, simple calculation said this would mean on-the-loom width just short of 78cm, with two shuttles, much too wide for me, and I'd need new footstool so I can weave standing on the big loom. I'm sleying at 39EPI to start with, and if I think it won't be horrible, may even move on to 42EPI. But I'll probably need another footstool anyway.

My workshop sample is still missing, although I have all others I've done. That big sample would have been handy because I used a slightly thicker cotton and I recall being more ambitious in the tie-down, but perhaps not. I've looked for it so many times in recent years I think it's safe to say I lost it. Boo hoo.

I also looked at my stash of 60/2 cottons, hoping I have a variation of purples to play against the oranges in the warp; I have one very dark one, and that's it; that's all the source has, too. In which case there may be a variety of purple pattern wefts in one of the pieces. Oh, I wished there were a few lavenders and red-violets in 60/2.  


Nevertheless I persist.