Weaving Class

As I mentioned a little while ago, I recently started taking a weaving class at the Chicago Weaving School.  The class I am taking is the complete beginner course and the general idea is to start on a 4 harness loom and weave a sampler to introduce the basic concepts in weaving.

In my first class, Natalie got me started by sitting me down with a table full of colored wool on cones.  She explained some of the basics about weaving and warping and the loom I was going to use, and then let me decide what I wanted to warp my loom with.  It probably comes as no surprise to anyone that I focused on blue and purple hues, and incorporated a lot of bright color.  My final warp included a 3" section of blue a 3" section that alternated magenta, purple and magenta in one inch segments, a 2" segment with alternating rose and yellow warp threads, a 2" segment with blue and red alternating every 2 warp threads and, finally, a 2" section alternating green and orange every 4 warp threads.  If this had been a project with a distinct purpose I might have been more purposeful with my color selection, but because this was meant to be a sampler, I was more interested in seeing the interplay of different colors.

Preparing my warp threads, sleying the reed and threading the heddles took all of my first class.  On my second class, I tied the warp threads to the back of the loom and then wound the warp onto the back beam and tied the threads to the front beam.  And after that, I was pretty much off and weaving.

My heddles were threaded in a "straight twill" (meaning that the first thread is controlled by the first harness, the second thread controlled by the second harness, the third thread is controlled by the 3rd harness and the 4th thread is controlled by the 4th harness and this threading is repeated for the entire width of the warp).  I've practiced plain weave, basket weave, basic twills, and weaving on opposites.  I've learned how to set up a floating selvedge -- which I now think is likely to be manadatory on almost any project I work on.  I'm not changing color with too much intention, except to see what happens with high contrast and low contrast yarns in the context of my warp and weft.  I'm not all that excited about the bright yellow, but it did help me see something, so it ended up working the way I needed it to.

Last Thursday was my 4th class and I finished up one of my last "basic" structures: rib weave.

On a 4 harness loom, this is accomplished by raising either 1 or three warp threads at one time and alternating colors in the weft.    You'll notice that where I was working on rib weave, the warp contributes little to the color perception, that's because rib weave is very "weft faced" and it's very easy to pack the weft threads tightly sot hat the warp threads are mostly hidden.

This class has really got my creative juices flowing again.  I find weaving very engaging in a visceral sort of way.  So much color, so much texture, so many fibers so many possibilites for household textiles.  I already have half a dozen potential projects running around in my head and different looms and techniques that I want to try.    I've decided that it's likely that  floor loom will be in my future, but not any time soon.  I want to test out a lot of options to figure out what the best options are for me.  And really, the more I play with the 4 harness loom,the more impressed I am with what can be done with my rigid heddle with the help of a pickup stick.  But more on that, later.