Tag Archives: wedge weave

Gearing up

Gearing up. Getting ready for December, even though it’s already here. The studio MUST get cleaned up, as well as the adjunct studio (AKA dining room). So, it’s a bit of this and a bit of that around here.

Newspaper

Newspaper

This is what I found when I went out for the newspaper this morning. I frequently find the paper in this position, but not usually floating in water. The water is because I have had 8.77 inches of rain beginning on Thanksgiving and ending on Sunday. Actually it’s surprising that it is still floating since it was so waterlogged. The depth of this ditch is really deceptive. If the newspaper is not visible from my porch, I get the grabber ’cause I know it’s in the ditch and I don’t want to crawl down into it. Too early in the day for that.

Grabber

Grabber

Below is my latest effort at wedge weave. I will learn how to do this, I will learn how to do this,I will learn how to do this….. This was woven on the tiny Lani from Mirrix.  I don’t have the shedding device on this loom, but might consider it later. Right now I’m just using tapestry needles as shuttles. As you can see, there are issues with this bitty weaving, but overall I am pleased. The selvedges are wavy as they are supposed to be. You can see too much warp the the “line” where the weft changes directions, which is not aided by the amount of draw-in–both solvable, I’m sure. Embroidery floss allows for almost infinite colors. For this I used the six strands as they came out of the package. I did blend colors on a couple of the Christmas trees I wove, which gave the color more depth. Once I feel better about weaving wedge weave, I want to try some silk. Gotta think about that draw-in. How do you fix that?

Wedge Weave, embroidery floss, 4 x 3 inches

Wedge Weave, embroidery floss, 4 x 3 inches

I have had these inexpensive boxed bookshelves sitting on the floor for a while, but finally tackled the project. Yes, the instructions say it’s a two-person job, but I am just one person. The boxes are too big for me to move, so I cut one open and moved the parts individually. I am looking forward to organizing my art and weaving books. Maybe I’ll be able to find something more easily now. Have you heard of Dictionary.com’s Word of the Day? Bibliotaph came in the other day. Scary. I’m not going to think about that.

Bookshelves

Bookshelves

This is the time of year that I get a new calendar, I guess like everyone else. Even though I use the calendar on my phone (and love it!), I still like to have a paper calendar. I have decided to try a new one this time. It’s called the Week Dominator from Neu Year. You can see the one I usually get here and here. What I like about the usual calendar is the yellow column on the right, where I can write down goals or whatever for the week. With the calendar I’m trying this year, you can write those goals down below the day but above where the hours begin. I also like the dot format as opposed to lines. We’ll see. I may go back to the tried and true.

New style calendar

New style calendar

My treat for myself this week. A workshop totally unrelated to weaving, except for what’s floating around in my head. We’ll see…. More about that later.

 

Morphed and things I’ve learned about wedge weave

Before

Now

You can see from the pictures above that this piece has changed. I don’t usually change mid stream, but I couldn’t continue to weave all those various colors. Stressful! So hard to decide on the next color! 😉

Wedge weave is also known as pulled warp, according to Peter Collingwood. I have his rugweaving book, but wanted just the few pages on wedge weaving to carry to the loom with me. So voila! Since he allowed his books on rugweaving to be placed in the archive at the University of Arizona, I didn’t have to try and fit that huge book on the scanner. Links for download can be found here. I prefer the term wedge weave because I think of pulled warp as a whole ‘nother critter altogether, like here, here, and here.

  • Somehow the back and forth of the triangles confused me, and I added to that confusion by trying to vary the width of my shapes. Actually, they are probably parallelograms and not triangles. I am directionally challenged—see below
  • Slant up towards the left when starting on the left, slant up to the right when starting on the right
  • This technique really does pull the warp at the selvedge, and it’s hard to beat in for about an inch or so there. A generous bubble of weft helps.
  • Obviously, due to the nature of the technique (pulled warp), a hand beater is necessary—something I hadn’t considered when starting this project.

Learning curve

Do you remember when you first started weaving? Most new weavers start out by weaving projects in magazines like Handwoven, recipe weaving. It might be many moons before the newbie branches out to take the weaving knowledge into a new and different place. I think I’m kind of in that spot. To give my creativity a boost, I started a wedge weave project, and when I try to change things up, the learning curve rears its ugly head. I don’t yet know enough about this structure (?) to know where I can go with it. I’ve got lots of ideas, but they’re going to wait until I know more about what to expect. And frankly, it might be better to just weave my design ideas in plain ol’ tapestry. At least by trying this new-to-me weaving process, I seem to have gotten past the creativity hurdle. And that’s a good thing!