Christmas Rosepath

Last year I wove an overshot table runner in red and white, that I had hoped to get finished by Christmas.  Well, I didn't get it completed till January, so I called it a Valentine's Day table runner.  I had similar plans this year to weave small figures using an 8 shaft rosepath threading, including Christmas trees, stars, hearts and gingerbread people.  I was not sure exactly what I would do with the cloth, but thought that it could be cut up and made into flat Christmas tree ornaments each about 2 or 3 inches square.  My other plan was to make Christmas cards with a cutout in the front cover peeking through to a woven tree or heart as shown on Amanda Cutler's blogpost here.  I ended up with Christmas trees, stars, and hearts.  I couldn't find a draft for a gingerbread man that would use only 10 treadles and 8 shafts.  I had to change the tie-up for each of these designs.  Tim's Treadle reducer program was helpful to reduce some of the drafts from 12 or 13 treadles to the 10 treadles on my loom.

Date Finished  December 2013

Loom  Baby Wolf

Weave Structure Rosepath

Reed  8, 24 epi

Warp     Fiber cotton

              Count  8/2

              Color  natural

              Mfr  Valley Yanr

              Source  Webs

Warp     Width in Reed  6.6"

              Ends  160 plus 2 floating selvedges

              Length  3 yds

Weft      Fiber  cotton

              Count  8/2 cotton

Pattern Weft      Fiber  cotton

              Frogged cotton in red, green
              5/2 perle cotton in blue
Beat       50/50                     

Size

Notes  The 5/2 was not thick enough to make a good pattern.  3/2 would be a better choice.

ARROWMONT SCHOOL OF ARTS AND CRAFTS

I am headed to Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts for the Southeast Fiber Forum - a three day workshop on a variety of weaving, spinning and dyeing topics.   About a year ago I took a week long workshop at John C. Campbell Folk School and I am hooked.  A workshop junkie.  I will be taking Karen Donde's class on Turned Beiderwand.  Karen's weaving studio, Sutherland Studio, is located in the River District of Asheville.

Arrowmont is located in downtown Gatlinburg and was built as one of the settlement schools in the 1920's to educate and provide work skills to theresidents of the rural Tennessee community of Gatlinburg. The craft training has continued and the original school is now a public elementary school.

Emma and Gary are coming along to spend the weekend in Gatlinburg and enjoy the Great Smokies National Park.  It's Emma's spring break and so the three of us will have an adventure in the Smokies.  We have rented a cabin about 10 miles outside of town.  They have plans for hiking, fishing, visiting the aquarium and seeing the sights of Gatlinburg.  We plan to come in the back way via Cosby to avoid Pigeon Forge and Sevierville.  We don't want Emma to see the Goofy Golf, Go Kart Tracks and all of the distractions before getting to the National Park.  Of course Gatlinburg is not free from tourist traps, but they tend to be not as big or as flashy as the ones on the highway into Gatlinburg.

The focus of the workshop is Turned Beiderwand, a very old weave structure comparable to overshot.  A Beiderwand draft typically uses a ground weft and a heavier pattern weft yarn.  This weekend we will turn the draft.  A turned draft is one that uses the weft for the warp and the warp for the weft.  Instead of using 2 shuttles for the weft, the turned structure uses only one and uses the two different yarns as warp.  Because the warp yarns are different sizes and would perform differently under tension, the turned structure uses a second warp beam.  I don't have a second warp beam on either of my looms, so we will be creating an alternate secondary warp beam using a raddle as the warp beam and water bottles as weights.

I will be using a 3 block profile which uses 8 harnesses.  The background warp is an 8/2 variegated cotton in purples and pinks and the pattern warp which will be warped on the "fake" secondary warp beam is a 5/2 white perle cotton.   I will try a variety of wefts, all 8/2 including the same variegated cotton used in the warp, and also a red, black and blue.