Back to work

The title does not mean that I have not been working. Over the holidays, I dug my home loom, an 8-harness floor loom, out of the packing and wove a belt warp on it. I also set up the knitting machine. So when the AA2A is done, as it must be eventually, and I have left over ideas, which is practically guaranteed, I will be able to go on working. Getting the loom set up was not as simple as it sounds. I was given it with no ties between the harnesses and the treadles. It took a number of visits to the local hardware store (and the fishing store, don't ask) and considerable experimentation on configurations of hooks and chain, but I did it. The knitting machine has not had a real try-out yet.

I am working on a knitting machine at NSAD, though. The looms are all being used, so it was time to use some of the other equipment. I have gone off in a direction totally different from what I had originally proposed, though I may get back to using the fiber threads I have left, before the AA2A is done. Last semester, I saw a student working on the knitting machine using a combination of wire and un-spun linen. I was stuck by the sculptural possibilities of knitted wire, and I find that I am still struck by it. What's more is, I was inspired by having some problems getting the wire knitting started using the NSAD method of casting on. After a few rows, the knitting would fall off the knitting machine. The good new is that those small pieces could be formed into petal shapes, so I now have a purple wire rose.

I have ordered several spools of wire and hope to do all kinds of things with it. I want to make shaded roses with stems and thorns and leaves. I want to make other types of flowers. I want to make a 2-D multilayered piece based on water and the patterns it makes as it flows and reflects all aorund it. I want to make jewelry using weaving patterns and the different colors. Who knows what else. Letting myself follow my inspiration and never mind the practicallity is going to be worthwhile to me whether I actually manage to produce any piece I am proud of or not.

I am also starting to further process the weaving I did last semester. Today I worked with the first two repeats, dying them. One was dyed an orangy pink with madder. The wool ended up a deeper color than the silk leaving the cotton very pale. I intend to overdye with a dye specific for cotton and not silk or wool. This piece will be processed nearly without heat so as to not produce much shrinkage or felting.

The second one was boiled with purple acid dyes (more than I intended, but at least it's deep purple rather than so dark you can't tell what color it is. OK, I could have done tests beforehand, but I am so very very determined to be experimental and not my usual overly-systematic self on this that I chose not to.) This left the cotton a stronger purple than I might have wished since my original intention was to make the second color orange. That might have ended an ugly brown, so I used a red direct dye for the second dye, again boiled, which added considerable warmth to the color of the piece. I shocked the heated fibers with cold rinse and with washing soda and dried the whole piece on the radiator.

There are pleats in this piece in the areas that have the most wool particularly in the area where there is the most silk warp and wool weft. The area in which the warp was the most wool and the weft the most silk has a slight honeycomb texture, and the wool/cotton and silk cotton areas are pretty flat, with slight sideways waves in the wool/wool region.

The piece processed without heat is still soaking and I won't know what its final textures are until after I do the second dyeing. Perhaps I will try to post pictures of the pieces as I finish them. I'm not sure I'm even finished with the boiled one.