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Crackle Evolution

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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!

From Turned Taqueté to Twill

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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.

Handwoven and Handsewn

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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.

New! Rhythm and Blues Turned Taqueté Towels Weaving Pattern for 4 Harnesses

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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:

New Turned Taqueté Design!

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I’ve been working on a new pattern design for my Etsy shop (see right 🙂 ). And I thought towels would be awesome. And what better structure for towels than … Turned Taqueté (or Jin if you prefer)? This time I’m aiming for the 4 harness weavers and the 8 harness weavers. Yes, two patterns will be offered. Same design, but easily woven on either 4 or 8 harnesses. Cool, huh?

I wove these towels in 8/2 unmercerized cotton sett at 24 ends per inch. As you know, Turned Taqueté structure alternates dark and light threads to create the design. I used navy as the dark option, and a selection of blues and green for the light option.

This is Turned Taqeuté on a straight draw threading. Four harness weavers will thread the loom 1,2,3,4 all the way across, alternating dark and light threads. The pattern is created by changing the color order for each new block. The difference for eight harness weavers will be the ability to spread the threading over all available shafts.

I’ve started writing up the patterns (slowly). I’ll be announcing the patterns soon!

New Year, New Weaving

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I’ve had some 2/10 wool/tencel yarn on hand for well over a year. Don’t remember why I purchased it originally, but I believe it was on sale at the time, so there’s that. I really love the feel of it. It is very soft, and yet very strong, and ideal for both warp and weft, as well as knitting. In keeping with my palette cleansing projects, I decided to go with some wool/tencel scarves on the Ashford loom.

I chose a 16 harness Zig Zag twill pattern that I found on handweaving. net. This is pattern #43169, and the source is Weaving Draft 16330, 2500 Armature – Intreccio Per Tessuti Di Lana, Cotone, Rayon, Seta – Eugenio Poma, Italy, 1947. Italian translation not provided ; – ). It is super easy, threaded on a straight draw. I warped up for two scarves, purple warp and dark red weft for this one, and now I am weaving a different liftplan with a mauve for weft.

I couldn’t wait for the second scarf to be woven, so I cut this one off and put it in a Eucalan soak, then air dried it and pressed it. It is super squishy. A very nice change!

Also, I was totally using my Tempo Treadle for the actual weaving. I have come to really depend on it. One feature on the TT that I didn’t notice previously, is the time tracker. It keeps track of all the weaving time, and FYI the total for this scarf was 9 hours and change. Slow cloth, but an enjoyable process!

This and That

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Here we are at the end of the year, and I just have a few loose ends to tidy up.

You might recall that this was on the loom a couple of months ago. It is my version of the Vlak-in-Vlak-in-Vlak pattern. If you still haven’t gotten a copy of that pattern, I gave the link to purchase it in my last post. This is not my original pattern. I’m just a satisfied customer.

Here are photos of my finished scarf. I wove it in 8/2 rayon, and the structure is Turned Taqueté on 12 harnesses. I love wearing it.

After that was done, I wove a batch of Circles and Checks towels on my 8 shaft loom, and they are in my Etsy shop. Here are some photos of those beauties:

Next, I want to give a special shout out to Bradley Rohr. He has an Etsy shop in which he is offering for sale variations of my Circles pattern in Wif form and with PDF pattern instructions. Bradley has very kindly given me credit for the original pattern. Always appreciated!

Here is the link to his shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/BradsWarped. You can get a pattern pack of 6 patterns, or you can buy them individually.

Sales from his Etsy shop raise money for Ukraine. According to Bradley, he and his husband have been able to raise nearly three thousand dollars this year for the UNHCR Ukrainian refugee relief, as well as one thousand dollars for direct support to people in Ukraine for food, diapers, boots for soldiers, etc. This is a great cause, and the patterns are well written and provide endless entertainment!

I wove samples each pattern at the end of my towel warp (see above), and here is a taste:

Until next year!

Palate Cleanser

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In September I was weaving text and getting up to speed with my Tempo Treadle setup. When I finished the Bon Appetit mat, I was pretty dissatisfied with how it turned out. If I’m honest, 16 harnesses is really not enough for a good rendering of text in weaving when using 3/1 twill or broken twills as the foreground and background. The letters aren’t scaled up enough for clarity, and it kind of all turns to mush when it is washed. Sigh.

So I needed a change of pace, a palate cleanser, if you will, and the stars aligned quite nicely when I decided to turn my attention to the pattern called Vlak-in-Vlak-in-Vlak. This pattern is woven in Summer and Winter. It has been floating around the interweb for a while. It’s very intriguing. But it’s hard to find it. Links to it are good for a while and then they don’t work anymore. Years ago, somehow I had managed to find a Dutch language copy of the pattern and printed it out. That’s the first part of the story.

The second part of the story is a posting by Bonnie Inouye on a Ravelry Warped Weavers forum on Drafting Turned Taqueté. In 2020 she whipped up a short tutorial and drawdown using just part of the Vlak pattern in Turned Taquete using 12 harnesses. I became obsessed with working this out myself using her method, and I finally was successful. For those interested, this is the link to that posting. (You have to be a member of Ravelry, BTW. Scroll down the page until you find a posting titled “Creating TT drafts with blocks or Images”). The point of this exercise was to draft a Turned Taqueté design with clean lines separating the elements, rather than moving along a diagonal or a curve.

So I was a busy little bee for a while, working on the draft, working on the colors that I ultimately chose. Eventually I came up with this draft:

And I posted it on my Facebook page. People seemed to really like it. I was really excited. I started weaving, and it looked really good. I began thinking that I might work up a pattern for it that I could put in my Etsy shop.

However, I knew that at some point I would have to contact the designer of this wonderful draft. Who turns out to be Ineke Elsinga of the weaving studio Tissien in Haarlem, Netherlands. I emailed concerning my use of her weaving draft, and she kindly informed me that the pattern is copyrighted. Also, it isn’t free. She sent me the link for purchasing the pattern and I did so. The website for Tissien is in Dutch, so when accessing it, it works better if you use a browser, like Google Chrome, with a translation feature. But even if you go to the website, the pattern link is hard to find. So, if you would like this pattern, which costs 15 Euros, here is the link that will get you there:

https://tissien.nl/#!/Vlak-in-vlak-in-vlak-pattern-woven-in-summer&winter-EN-translation/p/306531328/category=21408636

Further, the pattern is for personal use only, for making items for gifts or oneself. Commercial use is not allowed. If you publish or exhibit something using this pattern, the following line must be used in full: Design © 2011 Ineke Elsinga – http://www.tissien.nl. This copyright ownership is clearly stated on the first page of the pattern and when purchasing the pattern.

I’m just glad that I can weave it for myself. And it makes a lovely break from the frustrations of weaving text.