More of this and that

I've been playing around with the jacquard woven fabric after cutting it up. I still have two of the original five that I haven't altered yet. I'd like to keep one as it was woven but will probably do something with the fourth. So here's what's happened to three of the squares, to this point.


The back and front of the original weaving showed a positive and negative effect so I thought it might be interesting to combine the two sides. First, I cut up two of the squares into 2" strips, then reassembled the strips in order with front and back stitched together, side-by-side.



By adding the second square into the first, the image becomes abstracted even more. The leaf shapes are still able to be "read" as leaves but the effect now seems like they are fluttering in the breeze. I also liked the black and white checkered effect that happened in the border--I wasn't planning for that since I was so focused on what would happen to the leaf image. But that was one of the happy accidents that sometimes comes about when playing around.



Next I thought I'd try one of the squares as a nine patch, again combining front and back. Here are the three strips of three before sewing them together:



I then cut the nine patch into quarters to try something called "disappearing nine patch" that I'd read about at one of the online quilt blogs.



I tried various combinations of the quarters before deciding on the version I stitched together--and now the image is quite abstracted. So much so that the original leaf image is totally hidden.




I am also going to weave handwoven fabric to use as border fabrics around these reassembled jacquard fabric pieces. Just last week I wove a sample for school using an aluminum/poly thread, sett at 30 epi and with a simple point twill on a four shaft loom. This yarn has been recently donated to our weaving program at the university and I wanted to sample with it before turning students loose with it--I wasn't sure what challenges it might give them since I haven't used that kind of yarn before. The warp I set up was only about a yard long and 3" wide. I had some challenges with the beaming because the thread is flexible yet heavy and quite slippery. It definitely has a mind of its own! Once I had it under control, though, it wove up just fine and I didn't have any threads breaking along the way. Perhaps this sample will become a strip in the border of the jacquard piece.



For a bit of R & R I'm going to a mini-meeting for Tapestry Weavers South this weekend at Oak Ridge. Marti Fleischer, former president of TWS and also American Tapestry Alliance, has planned a day for TWS members who can get there and I'm looking forward to seeing a few old friends for some down and dirty tapestry talk!