Sampling Procedures

1. Fill out Record Sheet from the start! Record:
1. Warp Yarn size, brand, and color.
2. Sett
3. Length Warped
4. Width Warped
5. Width in Reed
6. Draft
2. Sample 2" each of each possible weft colour, weave at least 2 samples, or plan to cut the sample into 3-4 pieces. This will allow you to also sample finishing techniques.
3. Sample at a finer sett, just to see if the drape is better for the end product. 
4. Sample at a looser sett, again to see how this effects the drape of the final cloth.
5. Sample different treadling orders than you originally planned. Remember there are 75 sheds on a 4 shaft loom! See my upcoming Cyber Fiber Class on Weavoltuion.com
6. Finally, wet finish your samples, I do this as they come off the loom for more instant gratification! :) I wet finish with just boiling hot water and an eco detergent, another with boiling hot water and low agitation, in the washer on high heat on the delicate cycle, and if I'm really feeling bold on a full cycle hot temperature. I drink a lot of tea while wet finishing, more on wet finishing specially later. :)

The Importance of Sampling.

As I am enjoying a wonderful holiday break from work. I have more time to spend in my studio, aka afternoon nap time. I am working on my son's cloth, but I am also working on the sample for my next mundane project. This project is inspired by Van Gogh's Wheatfields. I have chosen many possible warp colours, but obviously must also decide on the weft colour(s) and finalize other design elements. Enter sampling!
I admit about 10 years ago, I was one of those weavers who would make disparaging remarks about sampling. However many years ago, I was shown the value of sampling. Sampling is not a wast of yarn, in fact it is quite the opposite. The sample I am now weaving will provide more information that one might imagine. It will show me exactly how every colour will interact with one another. It will show me how my intended sett will drape. It will tell me how much shrinkage to expect, and let's face it who can afford to be wrong about shrinkage?! We've all done it, refused to sample to save yarn, only to end up not warping enough width or length and having to change plans on the use of our handwoven cloth! So if you have not yet seen the value of sampling, I urge you to make your 2015 resolution to sample, sample, sample! Keep good notes, keep your samples for reference and you will build a library of inestimable value!

Fibre Interest Group Banner Project

For those who don't know HL Isabella Maria came to me a few years ago with a wonderful idea for the Insulae Draconis fibre artists! Her idea was for us to design a banner which would commemorate Fayre Raglan, one of the Principality's most loved events and sites, and would also allow a variety of people to participate in the project and show a variety of fibre arts.
I agreed to organize the project and was lucky enough to find Lady Agatha and Lord Kit, who agreed to work together on a design.
Agatha and Kit came up with a wonderful design. The centre panel will be made of a scene depicting Raglan Castle and the many activities that occur throughout the Farye, such as cooks working at a bread oven, fencing, battles, tents, etc. These designs were based on (INSERT INFORMATIOn HERE). This panel will have a tablet woven border that separates it from the heraldry of each Shire in the Principality. The corners of the woven border are quarter suns in spelndour, to represent the Principality. Another tablet woven band will surround these embroidered slips as well.
The slips that will comprise the centre panel have been given out to individual embroiders who reside in the Principality. Each Shire's device has been entrusted to a member of each Shire. We hope that every member of the shire will take a turn putting a few stitches in the group's heraldry. Shires were provided with wool to use in embroidering their heraldry. and were asked to use outline and chain stitch so these slips are consistent with one another. The embroiderers of the centre slips have provided their own embroidery materials, but were provided with cloth to use, to keep the slips approximately the same weight. These embroiderers are choosing the techniques they think suit their slip best.
The group has made very good progress. Duchess Fiona, Mistress Mary, and Lady Edith has returned some lovely centre slips. Fiona and Edith have even volunteered to do a second slip! Thus far, I know Flintheath and Klakavirki are complete. Lady Catherine weaver has provided many meters fo tablet woven bands to trim the banner as well. One of the nicest things about this project have been hosting times at Raglan for people to work on the project. The first year, when everything was just beginning a number of people from outside the Principality showed up and asked if they could help! It is great to see from the very beginning that this project is inspiring to others. Since we have made good progress thus far and we will beginning sewing the finished pieces onto the banner soon. If you would like to help out in any way, please do contact me.

Royal Artisan

I am pleased to announce that at Drachenwald's Kingdom University, I was invested as Drachenwald's Royal Artisan. I obtained this new position by completing the yearlong Royal Artisan Competition. I would like to share my experience entering the competition with you.
The Royal Artisan Competition is a rigorous competition. I had to enter items in at least 3 broad categories over at least 2 events. The categories are now Culinary Arts, Fine Arts, Textiles Arts, Performance, Martial Arts, Decorative Sciences, Functional Sciences, and Research Papers. Within each category there are a number of criteria for specific entries. I hope you will find the explanation of my entries below helpful in understanding the criteria of the competition.

I started my competition year by entering a set of hoods made for my family. These hoods are made from my own handwoven cloth, see a photo of my husband's to the left. These hoods were entered in the Textile Arts category, to be judged using the Accessories, Clothing criteria.
These hoods were exceptionally fun to make. I started with a simple herringbone weave, but got bored with straight treadling and decided to reverse the treadlining. I measured how far I wove before the first reversal and continued with this throughout the weaving. The effect is a nice herringbone wool with diamonds every 6".
The hoods are based on the Skjodlhamn find from a Norwegian harbor. The design is very close to the extant hood, for more detailed information on this find please see Løvlid's dissertation. The hoods are the closest thing I could find to a "Viking" hood, though they are a bit late to be considered Viking in the strictest sense, but they are within the period that my husband chose to recreate. These hoods are made from J.C. Rennie wool in grey (warp) and blue (weft). For more information on this project, see my blog entry here.
My second entry was a damask pouch, right, I wove for Margaret de Mey as a present to celebrate her elevation to the Order of the Pelican. This pouch was entered as heraldic display. My judges were very kind and as I have spoken to several heraldically inclined individuals, they have all commented on their love for heraldic display in items other than banners! The pouch itself was based on a heraldic purse on display at the British Museum and an article on Cote Simple, on aumonieres.
This project was very fun as well. The damask cloth was woven on my drawloom and was one of my first projects using the drawloom attachment. I had to do a lot of sampling to draft the design to get the water bugettes just right, but I go there in the end and the journey was well worth it.

Photo courtesy of Lia de Thornegge

My final entry was in the Research Paper category. This paper is thus far the culmination of many years of research on Medieval textiles and loom technology. I discovered that I have a vast library of books pertaining to Medieval textiles and learned many new things while reviewing the literature for this entry. I also visited the newly formed Clothworker's Centre in London to view a few new textiles to add to the paper. As part of the research paper, I included a number of samples of my own weaving to help people understand the various different weave structures I have documented and the weaving terminology. This entry was probably the most difficult entry, but again was a joy to complete and is a work of which I am very proud. I plan to bring the samples with me to events, so if you would like to see all the samples, please find me at events and I would be happy to let you peruse them.
Overall the competition was a rigorous, but fun experience. I look forward to helping our fine Royals in any special projects they would like completed and in encouraging Drachenwald's artists. If you have ever considered entering the competition, I would encourage you to do so. This was not my first time entering the Royal Artisan Competition. I have had some wonderful feedback along the way and have made many new acquittances from people judging my work and coming to ask questions or give compliments after the competition. If you have any questions about the competition or my experience, please ask!

Taquete sample!

AS 50 Challenge

Although I don't post about it often, I am working on the AS 50 Challenge. If you are not in the SCA, next year marks the 50th anniversary/birthday of the Society. A challenge was issue many years ago for artisans to complete 50 projects, parameters of their choosing, by the 50th anniversary event. I challenged myself to weave 50 things. Today, I am taking stock of my progress.
Here is a list of what I have woven since taking up the challenge.

1.Belt for Magdalaina
2- 3. Lattice work garters for Comtesse Margarette de St. Martin-sur-le-Mer (2)
4. -11. Tokens for ID Viceroy teachers 7 completed
12.-14. 3 Rigid Heddle Bands for Viceroy A&S Prizes- 2 lengths approximately 1.5 yards each. One will be cut up as tokens to be given by the populace. The longer, nicer band, will be given as the prize for the overall winner of the A&S Competition. The bands are approximately 1" wide. The piece that will stay in tact could be used, by the competition winner, as a head band, to trim some sleeves, or a bag, etc.
The design is not based on any extant designs, but could have been created using a rigid heddle in the Middle Ages. The bands are woven in Shetland Wool from the Handweaver's Studio in London.
15. Rigid Heddle Sampler this sample has been important for choosing colour combinations in future projects. Sampling is an important part of professional level weaving and likely was a large part of an apprentice weaver's day.
16. Tapestry Roundel Sample, woven in the William Jeffries workshop, this was good prep for a project I still have planned.
17. Green & Gold Straight Twill 3 yards<
18. Purple and Gold Horizontal Herringbone Shawl
19-20. Purple and Gold bags for Drachenwald Gift Basket to Calontir year?
21-22. Woven Cloth for Drachenwald Gift Bags Pennsic year?
23 Cloth for Organizer of the Gift Basket Project, thus was a personal gift.
24. Rigid Heddle Woven Bag for Salonge in houndstooth
25. Double Weave Bag for Gift for Ashunpudle
26-27. Herringbone Leg Wraps for Eldgrimr
28. 1/2 Lozenge Twill Cloth for Eldgrimr's Hood, yellow and red hood
29. Rigid Heddle Blanket for Siubhan
30. Herringbone Hood for Eldgrimr
31. Herringbone Hood for me
32. Herringbone Hood for Thor
33. Herringbone Shawl
34-35. Warp faced bands for bags
36. Damask Sample of clovers, possible gift for Sir Clancy
37. Damask woven pouch for Mistress Margaret de Mey
38. Cloth for Delia, which we made into a rahter nice tabard. She has enough left to make into a nice script as well.

Weaving Tasks
39. Taquete sample for  research paper
40.Samitum samlle for paper/portfolio
41. Cloth for Eldgrimr I'm currently on this project! :)
42. Cloth for Thor
43. Cloth for me
44. Weave Apprentice belt, possible green on green damask
45-46. Damask MoAS Sashes for Kingdom and Principality
47. Woven headband
48. Tablet woven band for ID Fibre Interest Group Banner
49. Knight's belt for Halvgrimr
50. Woven thank you gifts for impromptu thank yous.
Wow only 12 projects left and 10 months to go. We'll see how much work, business, and life gets in the way! I have definitely woven well over 50 yards or meters since starting the challenge. I took the challenge to motivate me to weave more. I think this objective has been achieved. I hope I can fulfill my goal by the deadline, but either way I am a better weaver than when I started! :)

Cloth Reflections

I recently finsihed weaving 4 meters of commissioned cloth for a friend. Although she does intend to use it for re-enactment, she was not particularly concerned with an authentic weave structure. She had seen what I can only really describe as a tabard on a website and really liked the cloth, which was listed as jacquard. Over the course of many months, I drafted a cloth in a similar style, which resulted in an undulating point twill. I originally used 8 shafts,  then was able to take it to 4 shafts, which  Medieval weavers used.
In the course of being commisioned to weave this cloth my life went a bit topsy turvy. I became pregnant and moved 2 times in the span of 7 months. The first move 1 month before giving birth and the second 3 months after. Needless to say it was nearly a year before I was able to warp uo this cloth. In the meantime, I "accidentally" bought a Glimakra Ideal on Ebay. I decided this cloth should be my fiest cloth on the Ideal.
So off to warp the new loom I went, no biggie I had become quite accomplished at warping. Well acconplishment comes with practice, which I had not had recently. Thus started a series of warping mistakes, which were likely a result of being out of practice and deciding to use my warping board bottom to top. The catastophic mistakes I discovered before the warp went on the loom. I had skipped a peg on the warping board. The first bout I wound again. The second I was able to fix on the board. The final issue I faced was a twist in several warp bouts. I noticed this before threading and properly fixed all but one. I thought I had fixed them all properly, but the last twist was not apparent until the warp was under tension. I weave with the lease sticks in and decided to kerp my fingers crossed and hope for the best. After weaving .5 meter sample to allow my friend to make a final choice of weft colour, I was confident I could make it through the rest of the warp. I was correct. Since the twist was behind tge lease sticks, my experience allowed me to carefully seperate the warp and move tge lease sticks back. This made weaving take a bit longer, but probably not as long as the otger options.

Once the cloth was all warped up and the decision was made to soldier on, I was a bobbin and a weavin'. One of the things which really sank in while weaving this cloth, was the impirtance of winding a good bobbin. A well wound bobbin not only speeds up the weaving, but also helps keep selvedges even. A poorly wound bobbin will catch and come to an ubrupt halt. This can cause several problems. First the sudden halt will pull in the selvedge more. It will also cause the bobbin to jump in the shed, which may result in the bobbin going over and undr tye wrong threads. Finally it will waste time in having to reach in the shed to retrievw thw bobbin. I realized how important well wound bobbins are, because I wound my bobbins quite well this time and thus experienced to true joy of weaving with good bobbins!
I inititially used an aide de memoire to help me track my treadling. I treadled the cloth straight through 3 times, then treadled backwards 3 times. I think a small abacus would be a useful medueval tool to use for this purpose. By the time this occured to me, I had feel into a goid rhythm and found myself rarelt using the aid.
Finding your rhythm in your weaving is essential to efficient weaving. It also produces a very pleasant weaving experience. Finally, a rhythm allows you to reach a meditative state. This is one of thw tru joys of weaving and can be found in every step of weaving.
Finally there are 3 places in the 4 meters which areb't quite right. I could not decide if these are missed picks or picks which were improperly packed. In the grand acheme of things 3 picks of approximately 1500 picks isn't much of a flaw. They are only visible on one side, which is odd. I am exceptionally pleased with the cloth. I look forward to my Laurel having a look at it and giving me feedback.
For now I will just say ta ta!