cotton ikat scarf

Deadlines are what keeps me going!  I committed earlier in this series of posts on indigo dyeing to finish the project I began in October last year at the Indigo and Weaving Workshop in conjunction with the SDA Conference at Arrowmont.  Putting something in writing is a promise to yourself and publishing adds even more pressure. So thank you for making me a better person, to paraphrase Jack Nickolson in "As Good As It Gets."  

This is the cotton yarn after it was wetted out.  I had measured it out on a warping board - forgot to take a photo of that step.  While it is stretched in place on the warping board is the time to wrap it with the ikat tape which will maintain white areas against an indigo background.  You can wrap the whole warp or you can split it and wrap parts of it.  I experimented with no real pattern in mind.  I was standing next to Shelly who was also measuring a warp and we were enjoying a lively conversation - no time for concentration or measuring carefully.  Workshops are a great way to get to know people you might never have bumped into ordinarily.  Below is my dyed warp drip drying in front of someone's dyed cloth. 

After rinsing and drying, this is warp tied with the green ikat tape and the skein of dyed cotton for the weft.

The opportunity to warp the looms at the workshop was there, but we were running out of time and most of us were weavers with looms at home. 

This is the warp on a couple of pegs to hold the cross I made when measuring - this ensures that I will use the warps in order as I had "planned the design."  See that little chain on the warp?  That is the counting thread I put in as I measured.  It slips out easily when you're ready to thread the loom.  Each chain represents 10 warps and so I knew I had 140 ends.  The heddle I was going to use only accommodates 96 warp ends (8 inches x 12 ends per inch).  If you're lost here, just think about those numbers on the package of bed sheets.  Thread counts on woven goods indicate the quality of the goods in most cases.  A sheet with a 120 thread count is much coarser than one with 600 thread count, so a 120 thread count would be about ten times as dense as my little scarf. But that's fine for a drape-y soft neck scarf. 

I decided to use the remainder of the warp as weft and it's coming along great, IMO!  :)  I did a line of hemstitching at the beginning and the excess which is tied to the loom (and looks like a jumbled mess at the bottom of the photo) will become the tasseled fringes.  Crossing my fingers I have enough weft dyed to weave enough to hang around someones neck. 

Here is the weaving a little farther along and you can see I split the warp when I was wrapped it with ikat tape.  I'm weaving this part with some of the leftover warp.  The horizontal white bits in the woven part are caused by the color of the weft. 

At this point in the weaving, I'm about one-third of the way through the scarf and I've switched to the solid dyed weft yarn.  I will finish up the scarf at the other end with more the leftover warp with the white spots so that it looks balanced. 

There are very tiny specs of white in this part because I tied the skein to keep it neat and didn't work hard while it was in the dyepot to be sure the indigo attached in that area.  It's kind of a nice accidental effect and breaks up the big expanse of just blue.  It's easy to learn to like what you can't fix.  Back to weaving since I want to be able to show you this scarf finished.

 The cloth rolled up on the beam is getting pretty thick.  Close to the end of the warp. 

There was two inches of weft left after hemstitching the final end.  Then I tasseled the fringes and after this final photo was taken, I dunked it into cool soapy water and swished out any remaining indigo.  It's drying now and will need a bit of a press.  So happy to be finished with this one.

wool indigo ikat

Diane here with another post on the Arrowmont workshop on indigo and weaving.  I should begin by saying that a lot of the following may sound foreign to non-weavers but play along, smile and nod knowingly.  Much of what happens on the 'net is pretty foreign to me, too. 

After we had measured and wrapped the resist tape tightly on the weft, the wool was wetted out and dipped into one of the two indigo pots we had mixed up a couple of days before following the instructions from Sara Goodman, the indigo teacher for this workshop.  The weft bundles are the ones with the white areas hanging on the drying rack.  They have been washed with mild soap and rinsed thoroughly.

Now it was time to begin weaving and Mary Zigafoose, tapestry artist, who was the other half of the teaching team for this workshop, took over again.  She is second from the right in the photo below.

This is my weft arranged nicely after taking of the green ikat tape.  On this my first time using the tape, I had not wrapped tightly enough and the edge between the blue and white are not sharp and clear.  I improved on my technique when I tied the next project which was warp with cotton yarn. I took it home from the workshop to put on one of my looms - more on that in the next post. 

Here is the weft turned the other way and sitting on the loom I was going to use at the workshop.  This was the point at which I wound the weft on a shuttle beginning with the end that is closest to the bottom of the photo and ending with the last bit that is at the top of the photo.  That way when I begin to weave the design will end up oriented in the direction I intended - not that it's a realistic image... :) but it's sort of a house shape. 

The first shots of weft show that the spots of white are beginning to line up.  It was decided with a consultation with Mary that I really should have had a loom with two more warps to accommodate the weft width - no time for that adjustment - so she suggested that I use the temple (that red thing)  to force the width of the design to allow the spots to match up. 

Here is the finished piece below.  As you can see the middle is stretched out but the top and bottom are trying to shrink back to the actual warp width.  I'm okay with it as a sample!  I did a firm warp finish with the linen warps on the top and bottom. 

 

Weavings by others in the workshop.  This one shows that she too had ikat tape tying problems, the yellowness at the edges of the white.  Then the second weft she measured was obviously dipped into the pot after it had been improved with more indigo and she tied her tape only one side of the measuring groups.  I took a photo so I could remember this as I really like the way this turned out!  Mistakes can be beautiful.  

Here's another sample with the edge finish in progress along the top edge.  The bottom edge is completed.  I placed the sample on the red paper to give enough contrast to see the linen warps. 

Next up, I warp a small loom with the ikat dyed cotton yarn and got so excited I almost forget to take enough photos. 

indigo and weaving workshop

Last October I went to Arrowmont in Gatlinburg, Tennessee for The Surface Design conference:  Made Aware.

 

Beautiful country, best time of the year to see the Great Smoky mountains.

The craft school is a big rambling campus on the side of the hill ... but just around the corner is a

bustling tourist town with lots of shopping and restaurants.  But there was no need to eat out, the dining hall at Arrowmont was great.  Housing was like college dorm life only quieter.  In fact, the a/c in my room was not working so they found me a new one right away.

There was a juried fiber art exhibition at the same time and I really enjoyed the time to carefully study each one. 

The facilities were fabulous work spaces and the workshops offered were taught by talented experts in their fields. 

I

I had such a wonderful time and learned so much about indigo and ikat weaving.  The workshop was team taught by Sara Goodman and Mary Zigafoose, tapestry weaver. Sara taught us how to develop two indigo vats - one with henna and one with fructose.  I tried a small vat when I was back at home and I proved the rule - you really have to deal with the pot every day.  Mine died a sad death when I went out of town for two weeks.  I poured off the water and kept the blue dregs and my plan to see if I can revive it during this indigo month.  I'll keep you up to date on that.  The photo below is not my vat, this is Sara stirring the indigo/henna vat at Arrowmont. 

I brought home an ikat dyed cotton warp and weft and I'll be putting that on one of my looms and finally seeing how well that worked out.  First ikat project we did in class was tapestry design using wool as the weft - the looms were mostly warped for us when we arrived.

My wool ikat was mediocre - more on that in another post. The dye seeped under the green ikat tape so my edges were not super crisp - lesson learned.  When I began the second project in cotton, I wrapped that tape reeaallly tight. I can't wait to weave up this narrow cotton band.