HELP! - I am threatened with PUBLICITY.

Which is good, but I am of a nervous and retiring disposition, and my workshop is designed for work rather than looks (Alright, I confess - its a mess!) 

The current weaving is almost done now.

I have had a week of meetings, including a very pleasant meeting of the EPTA at Schloss Ringberg, where the Bauhaus and Art Deco Furnishings proved very distracting. I managed some quiet time alone with this rug, and was surprised to find that it was woven as a tapestry rather than loom woven. The colours are turquoise (probably custom dyed to match the handpainted wallpaper, ceramic stove, upholstery, paintings etc) and what seems to be natural light and dark fleece colours. I wish there was more information about this, but apart from the fact that all the wall tapestries were made to the design of the architect/artist Friedrich Attenhuber in Munich and that much of the furniture was created by local craft workers, there is no specific information about this piece. I would love to know more.
(I have more detailed pictures on  my FBAlbum)

Where was I?  Oh yes ... current weaving is almost done, so its time to plan for the next project. 2 small rugs to match a new bathroom.  Here’s the colour scheme so far, a heavy single ply darkish yarn and a couple of light 2 plys,the pinkish one looks a better match than the sandy one, but I’ll check again in daylight.

Later…. Bother, colours NOT approved. Request is now for  a design and colours similar to this old mat (currently doing time as a draft excluder. This is good and bad, since the mat (a krokbragd weave, can be made in all the smaller quantities of naturals that I have on hand, including the handspun that I’m spinning (see the Rug from scratch blog)

Following from my last post, the photoshoot and interview produced a really good article in November’s issue of Cheshire Life (and you should all go out and buy a copy if you’re in Cheshire.  Meanwhile Gillian has some of the pictures in the Made by Hands of Britain Blog.

Also following from the previous post, the weaving that was just a few inches of photographer’s eye candy is now two small sampling rugs relaxing on the floor ready to be finished. (A rug is woven under as much tension as I can manage to crank onto the loom without something breaking, so when it is finally cut free, its’ worth letting the whole thing lie very flat for at least 24 hours before taking any further action!)

Here are the two new rugs. They were made from handspun yarns and commercial yarns in natural colours (all the remnants from previous projects that I could find) and used a variety of weaves and patterns. The top rug is woven in a 3 end twill called “Krokbragd”. It is relaxing pattern side down to take out the curl where it was wrapped around the takeup beam of the loom while the second rug was woven. The second (lower) rug is woven in a 4 shaft broken twill. The twill offers a wider range of patterns and the back is the same as the front so the rug is double sided. I have made cones and diamond shapes along with combs and zigzags, but the patterns are not as sharp as the Krokbragd ones. (The pictures below show bits of the front of the Krokbragd rug)

There is a final piece of work to be done now for these rugs before they can be called finished and that’s to complete the edges. All those loose bits of warp need to be dealt with in such a way as to stop the rug unravelling. This will be another experiment.

I generally put a knotted fringe on the edges of a rug. This gives a neat finish and I know from experience that it is hard wearing, long lasting and encourages a rug to lie flat. But not everyone or every situation needs a fringe, so I’m experimenting with several ways to tie the ends and weave them in. I can then see how well this style of finish wears.

Here is result of a “Damascus” edging on one end of the Krokbragd rug, neat and tidy, but it’s pulled the edges of the rug in a bit (not shown here) .  So by no means perfect.
I’ll try a variation on the twill rug’s ends and see if that’s any better.

And the other result of the samplers is that I’m now starting a full size rug using some of the patterns that from the sample rugs. It was very tempting to weave a full size rug randomly (I changed colour every time a shuttle ran out and changed pattern at coffee, tea and lunch breaks) as the samples are very attractive, but I’ve decided to have a PLAN!

Just a quick note. Tomorrow I have  an interview for a local magazine and a photographer is coming to take some pictures of the workshop. I have just spent the hardest afternoon of recent years cleaning up. In fact it all looks so smart, that it is now officially a studio, rather than a workshop (or to be totally honest -  a garage).

I even had time to add a few more inches to the latest rug, but now I think that I’d better leave everything in case I get it disarrayed! This is the “rug from scratch” from earlier blogs, I’m using up handspun in white, grey, black and brown. This style of weave is called Krokbragd but I’d forgotten how slow it is to weave, so I may not be able to offer rugs in this style at a reasonable price. I have enough warp on the loom for 2 small rugs and a full size one, so I shall try out a broken twill weave next and see if that is any faster. It should be able to make similar small patterns. The final rug, will be either of these 2 weaves, or a plain weave (since I need to know how fast I can weave that style).

Following on from my last blog entry, I took what I found from the new weaves that I’d used in 2 small (~ 24” x 36” ) rugs that I’d woven as samples and designed a full size rug.

I’d woven one rug in a broken twill and the other in a Krokbragd twill. Each weave has it’s good points and less good points (and the non-fringed end finishes that I tried really weren’t successful - more experimentation is needed here before I commit the end of a full size rug to this!)

Broken Twill (You can see pictures in the previous post on finishes)
Good Points:

• Bigger variety of patterns
• Same pattern on back and front
• fairly quick to weave
• edges good

Less Good:

• Very thick, heavy weave (next time I would set the warp closer and use slightly finer yarn)
• Patterns not as sharply defined, close colours blended together too well, though more contrasty ones stood out OK

Krokbragd Twill
Good points

• Nice sharp pattern
• Good 3 colour variations are easy to do
• Rug had the required feel - I thickness and flexibility

Less Good:

• Back has a poorer pattern and structure, so really it’s a one sided rug
• Edges need care to keep straight and tidy
• Weave pattern needs concentration to avoid mistakes, so slower to weave

A finally decided to go with the Krokbragd weave. I felt that with care I could keep the edges straight. I’d bought a new metal temple (weave stretcher) at the weaving workshop in the summer and I used this for the whole rug to keep the weaving as tight and tidy as possible.

So here we go, I had a sack full of a sandy coloured Berber rug wool for the main colour, and a basket full of miscellaneous light coloured wools (commercial and handspun) for pattern highlights, and finaaly someone gave me an absolutely huge Swartbles fleece in a very dark brown, for the secondary colour. (The Swartles fleece is a little on the soft side so I blended in a small percentage of combed linen tops before I spun it to give it a little more definition and better wearing qualities).

It all wove up very well and the result is exactly as envisaged (it’s always pleasing when the final result matches the dsign so well). Here’s a final set of pictures.

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