Marquetry Draft

So I'm spending a couple of days winding down from the mad month that was, but apparently I can't help myself when I see this on Pinterest - direct link

I personally call this kind of thing 'marquetry weaving' but I'm sure it has plenty of other names.

So Elizabeth, just for you -
16 shaft (as is in the pic) -

 8 shaft-

and even a teeny-weeny 4 shaft, using the same principles - 

Another similar and fun derivative is 'Pinwheels', created just by having equal warp and weft stripes -

16 shaft -

8 shaft - 

4 shaft - 

 Hope that helps :)
--melly

Onward to a New Scarf

Remember this sketch from yesterday's post?

 Well I decided that it would be my first to prototype and put into production. So I refined the design a bit.

 Decided upon precise proportions of colour across the warp. All the green areas are super fine monofilament because it's soft enough to wear.

 Next I had to decide on the structure. I'm restricted to 8 shafts at the moment so I had to play with 6 shafts for the pattern - the other 2 are for the monofilament. I also wanted heavy and light weight tiny squares to make some textural difference to the surface, even though it will be felted after weaving.

 Next I was onto dying. It's very tricky to take photos on my phone to show the right colours, but this was the closest with adjustments. Slightly veriagated magenta.

 The next is a kind of dark purple.

 I have also dyed some black wool but am considering also dying some tencel black to add yet more texture and shine.. but maybe I already have enough texture!

Am I insane? These are the two very thin monofilament warps. 20epcm .. hmm.. They will go into a lime dyepot tomorrow. Looking forward to it!
--melly

From Design Concept to Weave Structure

This was a bit of fun from some of the work I did during my holidays. The starting point was an idea from a book called Caffeine for the Creative Mind - to take photos of as many round objects as possible. That was it really. At the time I had just bought a beautiful Moelskin grid book (*sigh* i do love stationery...) and was discussing design exercises with an architecture student friend of mine. So this is the progression - quite a few leaps in between but that's how play works for me..

 The initial round image.

Design play on graph paper.

Weave draft.

This was definitely a fun little exercise - I can think of about 5 other different variations of this draft - was very good for brain exercise!

--mel

Cross-eyed Draftiing

I could barely see clearly last night after doing this... it took me a few hours to arrive at the structure I was looking for - going though many different threading, tie-up and lifting sequences. This accurately depicts what I was after though - kind of graphically mimicking the drape of fabric within the structure of the cloth.

It will be woven with the fine coloured 60/2s silk sett at 50epi (though I'm a little concerned that the won't be close enough). 349 ends in total - going onto my 8 shaft table loom at home. Because of the huge number of floats, I am hoping the structure of the cloth will move about a bit and be very drapey. Hehe like a drape within a drape.

Colours will definitely involve pinks and reds and golds. Can't figure out yet whether I want to incorporate a brocade or embroider on it..

--mel