Weaving Gauze

In Ann Richard's book "Weaving Textiles which shape themselves"; there are a couple of paragraphs about weaving gauze, with a technique that uses a small bead after the heddles through which is threaded a pair of fine 'whip threads', which are threaded through the heddles on either side of a 'ground thread which is usually thicker. Each group of two whips and one ground are sleyed through the same dent. The bead allows for the whip threads to be pulled either to the left or right of the ground thread (depending on which one is treadled) and act as single warp thread. The end result is that the wefts are gripped much more tightly than they would be in plain weave and so fabrics with a wider sett remain stable, a gauze is created.

It is also possible to weave plain weave at twice the sett by treating the ground thread as one warp thread and the pair of whip threads acting together as the adjacent warp thread, pulled either to the left or the right. It doesn't make much difference if they're pulled to the left or the right, except when they change sides a diagonal is created.

It's a fairly simple structure related to leno, only without the hand manipulation. 

The magic with gauze happens when the gauze and plain weave areas are mixed and active (think high twist yarn) and passive threads are used for the weft. The shrinkage should be more even in the gauze sections where the weft is gripped and more chaotic in the looser plain weave areas and with an open sett more extreme.

Searching books and the internet I found some images of amazing textiles by a handful of textile artists (Noriko Matsumoto, Fiona Crestani, Ann Richards) but nothing on technique. Evidently it's a "black art" so I was immediately attracted!

If there is much changing of sides of the whip threads in the plain sections I imagine the take-up will be greater than the ground threads, so I will put the latter on a second warp beam. I'm going to be using linen for the warp with a sett of around 5 epi (for each group of three threads) and a wide variety of different weft yarns.

In order that I can do a lot of experimentation on a single warp, I devised a tie up for 4 blocks to produce many combinations of gauze and plain weave (see below). I should be able to create horizontal and vertical seersucker, checkerboard and window type patterns. 

I had hoped to use my spring loom for the first weave but having thought about how the bead works on the whip threads, I ve realised that the system only works with a Jack loom, where the raised whip thread is at a greater tension than it's partner in a three thread group and is thus able to pull it to its side of the ground thread. With a countermarche loom the raised thread is at the same tension as its partner because that thread is automatically lowered by the treadling. I ll have to use a tableloom as both the spring and megado have countermarch actions.

Weaving programs can't work with this kind of structure so it's back to drafting by hand. I'll start warping the loom tomorrow and then the magic can begin.

 

Upright pleats

Farmwork (hedgelaying) intervened in the proposed deflected doubleweave project and when I returned to it I changed my mind about what to do. I wanted to revisit pleating.

Last time I made some self-pleating fabric by using high twist wool and a combination of other yarns including silk wrapped stainless steel. The pleats arrived on wet finishing. This time I wanted to explore woven pleats of a diferent kind.

These "upright pleats" as Stacey Harvey-Brown terms them, are created by using a doubleweave structure. The warps for each layer have to beamed separately so that their tension can be independantly controlled. 

one warp on the sectional beam the other on the second beam passing through lease sticks

An integrated cloth is woven then the upper layer only is woven to create both sides of the proposed pleat, leaving the other layer's warp floating beneath. When both sides have been woven the upper layers warp is untensioned and with the beater the pleat is rucked up and eventually pinned flat to the integrated cloth, so that a little tension can be put back on the warp to allow a shed to be formed. Weaving continues with the integrated cloth once more and eventually the pins are removed and the pleat is formed.

I've used satin for the integrated cloth and plain weave for the pleats as the setts are roughly in a 2:1 ratio. I forgot to exclude the floating selvedge from the plain weave (pleat) on the first pleat and this made rucking it up difficult. The second and third pleats were more successful with the selvedge excluded but there's some residual "springiness" when beating. The selvedges aren't the best but the fabric is for a cushion so they'll be hidden in seams.

 

lift plan

tie up

The different colours of each side of the pleat should create a nice effect when they're sewn in different directions, coupled with a graduation in colour of the satin which will continue into a very dark blue.

More deflected doubleweave

Had lots of conflicting ideas for the next weave, but in the end have decided on something in DDW. Simple motifs in a "colour and weave" pinwheel ground cloth (something I saw in "Double with a Twist" by Marion Stubenitsky). To make things interesting I'm using a combination of active and passive yarns, the greens in the image are wools (merino 24/2 and a much thicker wool/silk 10/2) whilst the reds are passive superwash merino 30/2 and either a cotton 16/2 or cottolin 22/2 - haven't decided which yet. 

the long floats in the areas of DDW should allow for some differential shrinkage and give a bit of texture aided by the different thicknesses of the yarns. The 10/2 might have to go on a second beam.

 

One day weaving

 Lucy, Lottie and Paula with their debutant "one day" weaving course creations.

On our one day weaving courses, the looms are set up and ready for you to weave. After a short introduction we get straight to the action! In just a day you can create your own fabric on our 8 shaft looms. We also give a brief history of weaving, information on how looms work, show you many different yarns and discuss their properties and differences, plus a visit to our flock of sheep!

Deflected doubleweave

Latest design and warping complete....more later

First real foray into designiing something in deflected doubleweave. I started with developing the block draught of a design by Margaret Coe in Marion Stubenitsky's book "Double and twist". The final draught requires 20 shafts. I have a stash of DMC embroidery thread that I got on Leboncoin so used those colours to enhance the design. After dressing the loom I did some quick narrow samples to check the sett to achieve the square design requiring a balanced weave. Alas my sample was too narrow as once on the main project I quickly realised the design was 4 x 5 rather than square. I ve cut this first piece off and re-sleyed 18epi. This is now working out close to square, I probably need 17epi to be perfect but I should be able to wet finish and block the fabric to get it square enough - I don't have enough warp to re-sley again and tie on a third time!

first attempt at 20epi

Finally square at 18 epi

After washing the cloth in the washing machine and gentling pulling it to exactly square and allowing it to air dry, I set about making the cushion covers.  DDW in cotton is quite stretchy so I lined the fabric machine sewing through the yellow grid. A plain back incorporating a placketted zip and a cord filled binding completed the construction. The finished covers measure 55 x 55cm.

 

Gamping

More gamps from the same threadings for the weaving experiences and courses.

Pointed twills

undulating twills

 

Bertha Gray Hayes overshot

Whilst at the "Fil et Fibre" festival I wove some overshot with two a colour mercerised cotton warp 5/2 and a dark blue silk noil 3/14 for the weft. I ve used some of it to cover a laptop case for John's 70th birthday.

Warps are going on the table looms ready for one day weaving experiences. 

Festival fil et fibre

This weekend is our first festival/market to start selling and promoting our courses. The festival is at Le Mas d Azil.

Time for a few more

There are still another 8 days until the wool festival at Mas d Azil, so time for a few more creations! These scarves use a networking threading based on overlapping sinewave design lines. multiple twill tie-up and "tromp as writ". 16 shafts for the design plus 2 for the plain selvedges.

This one is with a silk warp and cashmere weft.

This one is with a silk warp and merino weft.

Extract from the draft

Pashminas

A new pashmina design in merino and silk warp, with combinations of linen, silk and lambswool weft. This design has a patterned border inspired by kilim rugs. I ve also added some thicker wool silk in the warp. Because it's not evenly distributed and a lot thicker, this was warped traditionally rather than sectionally and has gone on a second warp beam.

detail before finishing "fluffs" the fibres

the thicker wool/silk measured out on the warping board

merino (red and blue) and the silk (yellow and green)

the thicker wool/silk on the second warp beam

 

Second pashima underway with linen/silk warp. I think it might be much more linen than silk and a bit stiff, I ll sleep on it before deciding whether to change it back to linwool.

Reverted to linwool!

Double weave shawls off the loom

The double weave shawls are finished. The second shawl I tried substituting the 1/7 lambswool/linen/silk for 2/16 linwool. Which has worked out fine giving a side which is less slubby. On the final part of the warp I tried 2/10 wool/silk. The colours are amazing and as the 2/10 is too thick to maintain an even pick density  through the integrated areas, the weft opens up which has actually produced a subtle transverse stripe in the finished cloth. It's a heavier, thicker cloth than the linen ones.

Something for next time.

The fringes were knotted in groups of 6 and trimmed before wet finishing. Slightly quicker than hemstitching but much easier on the eyes at 30epi!

Last time I took the cloth to 56 degrees to get some width shrinkage, this time I stayed cooler and left the width almost unchanged.

 

Delicate warp

The two doubleweave shawls in 30/2 superwash merino and 1/7 linen/lambswool/silk are underway. Real problems with the selvedge on left had side with repeated warp breakages. The 30/2 is at the limit for being a viable warp but it has worked in the past on other projects with the same warp and weft. The blues and yellow shades I have used before seem much stronger and less sticky than the red. In the end there was a twisted thread around a heddle eye that was probably exacerbating the problems and the 15 epi reed may also be causing too much friction, I'll use 10 epi next time with 3 ends per dent.

The two faces are in sharply contrasting colours, each face is a separate cloth joined in the little double density squares where all the yarns form a single "integrated cloth". The cloth shrinks on finishing the results can be seen here.

My problems haven't ended there, I forgot to lock the draft in Tempoweave and at some point when returning to weave I will have clicked my wireless mouse to turn it back on (when unused it goes off to save battery) evidently the mouse must have been over tie-up and changed it very slightly...enough to produce long floats on the reverse side of the cloth (hidden from view) in line with the integrated squares. By the time I noticed I had made over a hundred passes of the shuttles.

No alternative but to unweave (I only have enough of the light grey weft to make the first shawl so I could not cut it off). The super fine warp and slubby weft stick together and in the dense integrated squares they were literally feltef together! It took 2 hours 30 minutes to undo. Things are back on track now and I'm halfway through the first shawl. There'll be a colour change on the second.

 

Weaving course pieces

Here are some photos of the amazing fabric Ruby wove on the 4 day course. 

She had never woven before.

 

Weaving course underway

Susie and Ruby, neither of whom have ever woven before, are my guinea pigs for the beginners weaving course. The first day and some of the second was spent dressing the looms but by the end of day 2 they have both made some fantastic designs! Two more days of weaving and learning still to come.