(106) Controlling Creative Chaos: Focus on the Warp

Learn non-traditional techniques in setup and design while working effectively and efficiently with multiple warps chains and diverse warp elements. Students will use instructor-provided hand-painted warps in which the colors flow and change – creating designs in the woven fabric that appear complex in planning, but actually spring from making flexible and intuitive decisions as they are set up and woven. You might choose to mix warps of different weights, textures and fiber content to create stripes within the space-dyed design. Or choose to flip sections of the warp from end to end which creates color flow in the weaving lengthwise as well as horizontally. Learn to cleanly split warps to use threads that your current project requires while saving extra warp threads for future projects.

These warps can be woven in a variety of weave structures: plain weave, ribb, repp, turned taquete, twills, double weave, etc. Hopefully, students will give them all a try! No two warps or designs will be alike so class members learn from their own projects as well as from others.

Students will start the design process tying on to a dummy warp you have threaded on your loom before class. Tying on can be a method to approach design techniques at the loom as opposed to on a computer or pen and paper. This workshop is appropriate for 4 and 8 shaft looms – it is not suitable for rigid heddle looms.

Instructor will bring a huge pile of hand-dyed workshop warps students will choose from.

Instructor:

Kathrin Weber

Experience Level:

Intermediate

Maximum Class Size:

10

Materials fee:

$88 covers handouts, supplemental weft choices, extra tools, etc. for those who forget a few things on the list. Students will choose from a large variety of 3 pre-wound, hand-dyed cotton warp chains - 4.5 yard/100 threads each for a total of 300 threads.

Equipment required

4-shaft Loom, 8-shaft Loom, Pre-warped

Student Supplies:

• 4 or 8 shaft loom with 300 thread dummy warp. Info for setting up dummy to follow.
• Personal weaving tools: decent full size scissors, tape measure, threading hooks, two shuttles (boat for fine weft and ski or rag for heavy weft).
• Appropriate sticks or paper for winding 4.5 yard warp. Do NOT skimp on this. Many students find that they are held up because they did not bring enough paper or sticks .
• Fine Point Black Sharpie Pen
• Calculator
• Two clamps big enough to clip onto your back beam. Any will do, but I prefer the clamps with rubber handles that you squeeze to open rather than the screw type clamps.
• Roll of 1″ painters masking tape. NOT wider than 1″. Yellow, light green, or LIGHT blue painters masking tape are best choices.

Homework:

Dress your loom with a 300-thread dummy warp sleyed at 2 threads per dent in a 10 or a 12 dent reed to result in a sett at either 20 or 24 epi.
Click here to download warping instructions as a PDF.

Dummy Warp Info:
In the weaving workshop we start the designing process while tying on to a dummy warp at the loom. Tying on can be a time saver, an eye saver and a method to approach design techniques at the loom as opposed to on a computer or pen and paper. This will be one of the topics we explore. To prepare for this workshop please thread your loom with a dummy warp.

A dummy warp is just a short warp not meant to be woven, but used to tie your primary warp threads to. Set up by whatever method is comfortable and familiar for you. I give info on how you might approach it here, but please feel free to improvise as long as you end up with a mistake free short warp which is secured to the back rod (dummy threads should not be simply looped around a back rod.)

Notes on Dummy Warps: A dummy warp is a warp that is threaded through the heddles and the reed and secured to the back rod but is not long enough to actually weave. We will use the dummy warps to tie onto. If you haven’t used the tie on technique before, this will be another aspect you can look forward to learning. If you are not changing your threading pattern with every project, tying on can be a time saver and sight saver. For me, it is a valuable design tool, too.

How to start a dummy warp?
Wind the dummy warp threads a generous 1 yard length. (You will thread your reed, your heddles, secure on the back rod and tension onto the front rod. You can do this front to back or back to front in whatever order or method works best for you. Weave an inch or so to check for errors. Time spent re-threading errors will take valuable time away from your workshop experience. Leave it that way for safe traveling.)

What to use?
Use inexpensive yarn. Sley alternating colors through your reed and heddles. Light colors are easier to see. Avoid black if possible. It needs to be small enough that it will pull through the reed and heddles after it is tied to another thread. It needs to be strong enough not to break during that action. The dummy warp will end up being loom wastage. Carpet warp (8/4) works well.

How many?
You should have 300 threads in your dummy.

What threading?
This class is more about learning new techniques for using materials, setting up, contemplating how color sequence creates patterning. A straight draw using all your shafts will give you many design options. If students have 8 shafts and would like to use a more complex threading, choose any twill block pattern that always moves from odd to even shafts. (No broken thread drafts.)

What sett?
These projects may be warp dominant in order to showcase the hand-dyed warp yarns. You might choose to weave a light weight fabric or a dense fabric. Please use a 12 dent reed. Sley the reed two ends per dent and one thread per heddle. That will mean that you have it sett at 24 epi. If you don’t have access to a 12 dent reed, a 10 dent reed will work as second choice.

Weft material?
Since we don’t know which warps or which projects you will choose, it is hard to know exactly what you should bring for weft. The warps are usually sett at least a bit on the warp dominant side so the weft is less of a consideration than it might be otherwise. Bring a few cones of medium weight cotton yarn (8/2 to 4/2) in whatever your favorite colors are. It is safe to say bring anything you have in black cotton or rayon. A few spools of 8/4 black carpet warp will likely come in handy. Please be prepared to swap/share weft with others in the workshop if that is helpful to you all. You will do most of the weaving for this project after you return home so the weft is just to get you started on your samples.

Don’t stress over this. Keep it simple.