The Rhythm Crackle pattern that I have been making available to readers is now for sale in my Etsy shop (link on the right hand side of this blog page). You will get a newly edited and finalized WIF and an 11-page PDF instruction booklet. With color photos! Illustrations!
Cheers to all!
Back in February I planned and put on a warp of the Rhythm Crackle pattern with the intention of finally coming up with a digital pattern for my Etsy shop. I started with a cone of variegated 8/2 unmercerized cotton from yarn.com. I then planned on using a lot of different colors and sizes of yarn for weft to see what works best. It turned into a kind of free for all, a mash-up of what I had on hand, plus a couple of special orders thrown in.
Here’s what I did:
I wove four towels sett at at 24 epi. The colors kind of reminded me of Monet’s Water Lilies, so I stuck to greens and purples for weft.
Towel # 1: I used one shuttle, and wove the whole thing with 8/2 cotton weft, pattern and tabby. The pattern is discernible, but also kind of dispersed. A nice effect.
Towel # 2: I went to a two shuttle weave, with 8/2 Cotton for tabby, and 5/2 unmercercerized cotton for pattern. (I really like the Ashford 5/2 unmercerized cotton, but unfortunately it doesn’t come in many colors, and the 10/2 unmercerized cotton has been discontinued.) The pattern threads beat down closer, but not as close as they would have had I used 10/2 cotton for warp. Still, a good effort.
Towel # 3: Here I used an on-hand 10/2 mercerized cotton for tabby, with everything else being unmercerized. The pattern beat down well with the thinner tabby weft.
Towel # 4: I decided to order some Brassard 8/4 unmercerized cotton for this towel and the next one. Here the proportions are perfect for the 8/2 warp. It turned out well, with a rather heavier hand for a towel than I’m used to. It would work well for a blanket or placemats.
Towel # 5: I used a mercerized 10/2 cotton for tabby weft, mainly because the color worked best. The hand is ever so slightly lighter than #4.
I will continue experimenting with yarn sizes for the weave. Crackle structure is amazingly versatile. Using mercerized 10/2 cotton for warp and tabby with mercerized 5/2 cotton for pattern would work well for runners. 16/2 unmercercerized cotton (warp and tabby) with 8/2 unmercerized cotton (pattern) is a combination that would work for a lighter weight towel. Stayed tuned for the pattern in my Etsy shop!
Now in my Etsy shop! A limited number of 4 oz. skeins of hand painted 8/2 Tencel. I call this colorway Painted Desert. Check it out!
Just another update to my four shaft version of the the Rhythm Crackle Weave draft. In the first version I neglected to differentiate the weft into pattern and tabby, which are contrasting colors. (If you know me, you know it might take me a while to let the concept evolve : – ).
So, here is what the pattern looks like when rendered in contrasting weft colors:
This is how I wove my first little hand towel in this pattern:
You can weave this draft both ways! The pattern floats will never be more than 3 threads.
So, if you have already requested and received this draft from me, all you have to do is change the color order in the treadling sequence to dark/light (dark for pattern, light for tabby), and you are good to go. Cheers!
This is a little something I whipped up this morning from the Practical Weaving Suggestions Pamphlet Vol. 2-57, “Some Notes on Crackle Weave.” The weaving draft is straight from the pamphlet. The tie-up is a standard rising shed. I took the treadling from the profile draft, weaving each block from the block draft the number of times it appears.
Here is the profile draft again:
Traditional Crackle threading drafts are tricky. I tried this profile draft with block substitution in Fiberworks. There are three choices: Crackle Block Form, Crackle as Summer and Winter, and Crackle Twill Form. None of which worked very well. So. I am offering this traditional Crackle version of the Rhythm design to anyone who wants it. Leave a message in comments or send me an email.
Cheers!
This is a towel woven with 6/2 unmercerized cotton in a design that originated probably in the 1940’s. I took it from a Practical Weaving Suggestions weaving pamphlet published by the Lily Mills Company in 1957, where it was attributed to someone named Heather Thorpe from 10 or 12 years prior. The design in the pamphlet is called Rhythm Pattern and was written for Crackle Weave. It came with a woven sample that caught my eye probably about 25 years ago.
This is the page from the pamphlet. It shows the Crackle threading for the Rhythm Pattern
This is the profile draft of the Crackle threading:
I wove a small finger tip towel from the pattern on an old table loom way back when:
Sidebar: We bought a c.1915 house in the 90’s that had been “updated” in the 50’s with some Mid-century modern Formica that was yellow green, complete with a kidney bean shaped kitchen table. That Formica was everywhere, but I loved it. I wove that towel as a kind of homage to the period.
But, it seems I wasn’t done with that design. About 10 or so years after that I became interested in Diversified Plain Weave using cotton and rayon chenille. I wove several scarfs in that weave, always starting with a profile draft. I seem to have lost the drafts for that scarf, probably when I switched software or upgraded my computer. Here is the scarf, again in greens:
Fast forward to now. I took the four block profile draft, expanded it, and, using block substitution in pixeLoom, transformed the Rhythm Crackle draft into a 16 harness Turned Taqueté straight draw weaving draft. I used 6/2 cotton (more greens!), because I had it on hand, not because I like it very much. But I enjoyed the process, and I think I will like it better as a scarf in 8/ tencel :-).
I recommend that you explore block substitution with this profile draft and see what you come up with!
I’ve written about this before in 2015. The blog post is titled Turned Taquete Variation [or] The Weave That Keeps on Giving. I had been weaving a lot of straight draw Turned Taqueté towels when I had a light bulb moment, realizing that this same draft could be woven as 2/2/ twill, just by changing the tie-up. Here is the towel warp I was weaving back then. I only wove the one warp, and soon moved on to other projects.
Fast forward to now, and I was weaving more straight draw Turned Taqueté with my Rhythm and Blues patterns (now on Etsy). Having finished that warp, I then thought to just tie on a new warp with some brighter colors, perhaps using up some stash, and weave them off in Twill.
Voilà.
It works very well, thank you. Although, at 24 epi, I think the 8/2 cotton might be a tad bit loosely sett. I wove four towels, with a different color weft for each. After washing, they have a nice lightweight hand.
For those who have purchased the Rhythm and Blues patterns, the drawdown will look somewhat familiar. The threading is the same, just different colors. The tie-up is a 2/2 twill on 8 shafts, and the treadling is whatever you make up as you go along.
In addition to all my other projects that are in progress, I have been doing some sewing. I lean heavily toward indie patterns, and I’m on a serious linen binge.
A little more than a year ago I had a skin cancer removed from the top of my scalp. So, ever since, I have been on a hat kick. I started buying bucket hats, and then I found a pattern in an article in Handwoven, September/October 2022. The subject of the article was sewing bucket hats with handwoven fabric and I thought I would definitely give this a try. The pattern is by Mood Fabrics and you can find it at moodfabrics.com/blog/the-bucket-hat-free-sewing-pattern.
I tried a couple of practice hats for size, and then made a real hat with fabric I had in my stash. It took a few months before I got it together to make the handwoven hat, but now it is done and I am pleased with the outcome.
Full disclosure, I totally hacked the pattern instructions. The hat in the magazine is a double layer for the brim, but only single layer for the crown and side panel. Leaving exposed seams? With handwoven fabric? I don’t think so. I made the hat in two layers and then sewed them together around the bottom of the brim, leaving a hole to turn the hat to the right side. then I sewed the hole shut as I was sewing parallel lines around the brim to finish it off.
Worked like a charm.
This is fabric that I wove in the fall of 2021 with 10/2 cotton and a little slubby yarn, all stash busters. I made a pair of pants from a pattern by GetWeaving’s Sarah Howard. (Shop on Etsy) The pants are great, but I had yardage left over, and I still do, but the hat helped with that.
Just listed in my Etsy shop! Straight draw Turned Taquete for 8 harnesses. Please visit!
Four harness weavers, this one’s for you! Just listed in my Etsy shop, this pattern with drafts for three different variations of my straight draw Turned Taqueté weaving pattern. You get three WIFs plus a PDF instruction booklet. Click on the “Etsy” button on the right side of this post to go to my shop.
The same pattern for eight harnesses is coming soon.
Group portrait of Towels #1, #2, and #3:
iowaweaver 