Japanese Style Books

I want to make some trial Japanese style books. True Japanese books with their stab binding use Japanese paper which is very flimsy - hence my purchases on Wednesday this week. The paper is used folded. You can see a fold in the two samples on the left. The free ends are bound into the spine of the book leaving a 'pouch' formed of the folded paper. In making a sample book with this paper, you can't give it to someone to use as a journal because the use of a pencil or biro would wreck the paper. It is actually intended for wood-block and other printing or perhaps calligraphy using special ink.  I decided that I wanted to have some content on the pages and what better than calladium leaves? Watercolour or pastels is not feasible. Oil pastels might be, I thought.  So I printed some calladium leaves at the appropriate size on to thick paper, cut them out and made stencils, then used these with oil pastels. A sample is at the top and I do not like it at all so I tried paintstix (lower sample) and decided that was fine. Another problem which I had not envisaged is that the paper just tears with a craft knife. So I have cut the sample pages with scissors but will have to do better as the edges are a little ragged. 

The paper of the samples is a roll of Chinese watercolour paper I brought back from Kuala Lumpur and am using because Michael does not want it.

Jobs to do then are to find a good method of cutting the paper to size, prepare some pages with stencils and bind them. My tutor brought in two Japanese books for me to see this week. One was bound in paper and the other in silk donsu!!! There's a thing to aim for!

The threading is progressing and I am approaching the 20% done mark. The next thing on the Megado is going to be a  good length of Tencel on 4 shafts - broken twill, easy to warp up and weave! I have realised that the last three Megado projects have been too many to the inch!! The Vale of Evesham was 90 epi, Convergence was 60epi, the current one is 100 epi. I think I will ask Linda Scurr if she has some spare handspun which I can weave at 6 epi!

Michael's Enamels

On November 6th 2009, I showed some output from Photoshop of a project using Michael's enamel samples. This is the latest (definitive) version. I matched the plain colours as well as I could to William Hall's shade card for 2/12s cotton. The colours are muddy which Michael says, is the results of using a copper base. The only one which was a problem was the red so I ordered two slightly different shades. Now they are with me, I have decided to use both. I decided that I did not want to make up a coloured square out of two colours of cotton but have both warp and weft the same in each coloured square. The colours have been changed round so that, in each row and each column, there are only two colours. So I need two cloths for the colours plus one black and one grey silk for the pockets. Each column contains 80 threads and I am winding a warp for each column and each colour, 15 warps 3 meters long, each with 80 threads in it. Plus the grey silk which will go on the second beam.

For a minute or two, I considered warping up the Megado from front to back but realised this is not feasible. I could not reach shaft No 1 from the back of the loom to thread it up. 

Last time I blogged about this project, I was worried about the draft. I can just about see it is okay but the warping is correct and, once that is on, I will soon find out if I have the draft right. I started winding the warp last night and have done a third of them.

Annuals VI

The top picture shows Annuals VI off the loom. It is 21 inches long as shown.  The picture below shows the woven fabric after the machine embroidery of grasses and seed heads has been added to Autumn and the flowers have been sewn on to Summer with metallic gold thread.

This shows the whole thing assembled on its five inch perspex cube. The viewpoint is looking at Summer and Autumn.

This one shows Spring and Summer.  And that is the end of the Annuals series.I have started on the Fruit and, after some trials, have finished a square of apples. I have painted the warp for pears and will complete that tonight.

I have also worked out what to do about the triple cloth for the enamels. I have decided to do it in 12/2s cotton and have ordered some from Halls.

This last weekend we had Priscilla Lowry  at the Kennet Valley Guild to give a talk (The WoW Factor) and two courses (One on Knitting Silk and one on Spinning Silk. The talk was very interesting - what does a juror look for at a juried exhibition. Something different, something that stands out. Something that has been designed. Definitely food for thought there. She is a first rate teacher and one very knowledgeable lady .

Last Thursday Michael and I squeezed in a visit to an Exhibition at the NEC in Birmingham dealing with Art Materials. We had booked for a half day course on pastels with Tim Fisher and that was very informative. I learnt such a lot. We were used a paper new to me - basically high class sandpaper!!! Not something where you blend with your fingers.

Using Enamelled Tiles

I have been exercised about colours and how to deal with the new project of a weaving which includes Michael's enamels. I have carried a trial on Photoshop which has been helpful.
First of all I drew a grid on white foam board and laid out the enamels as I wanted them. Each enamel is 70 mm square and I an going to make the pockets at least 75 mm square. Maybe 80 mm would be better.

I had quite a job with Photoshop because the 'white' of the board is not white but patchy due to undulations and lighting.  A first trial only put black round each enamel and that is much better than a white surround. Then I filled in the other squares with bright colours and did not like it at all.

So I used the eye dropper in Photoshop to pick up colours from the enamels and filled the squares artistically with those colours. This is a great improvement. Now all I have to do is decide how to get those colours. I don't know if SEKA silk paints will work on cotton and I will have to try that out. It will still be a case of trials and samples if the paint does take.

The colours above are much darker than they really are.

I can see a way of painting the warp if I go to four cloths not three. It is definitely a job for the Megado and this is going to eat shafts. If it is tabby and three cloths, I need 12 shafts. If it is tabby and four cloths, I need 16. I was thinking that a complete goose eye twill in each coloured box would be nice but that will take 24 shafts.

I will need to do experiments but I only have enough tiles for the final version.  There are three slightly longer tiles which I can use and Michael has agreed to paint a set of 'tiles' on thick paper.

I have finished the Vale of Evesham series. Number IV has gone to the Midlands Textile Forum (MTF) Annual Exhibition in Birmingham. Annuals VI is finished and off the Megado - no more of that either. I have painted the next bit of warp in green and red and it is drying at this moment. We are going to have apples and pears next. But everything has to be off that loom by Sunday 15th November as I have a major project which is late in starting!!

I got the train to Birmingham to deliver  Vale IV to the MTF and had plenty of time to read John Becker's Pattern and Loom. This is available from

http://staff.hum.ku.dk/dbwagner/Pattern-and-Loom.html





Just download it. The author has examined many early Chinese weavings and replicated them. The book is a very scholarly work - full of drafts and photos of early weavings and his versions of them. Very good indeed, even if not for the average weaver to try out!
 

A New Project

Last week was taken up with three lengthy visits to Worcester Royal Infirmary and two to our local GP. Lots of waiting time which can be used to think. I had an idea!! My husband has done some classes in enamelling and we have a number of his samples on square copper plates about 10 cm square.  I have been thinking about these for two years. Must be something I can do with them. My idea was triggered by a picture in Val Holmes' book on Machine Embroidery which I borrowed from my sister though I see it has my niece's name, Cally Booker, written on the flyleaf. I wonder if she knows I have it. I was reading this book while husband was having an MRI scan. Val Holmes showed some embroidery which was attached to squares of raku-fired tiles  with holes in them to which the cloth could be sewn.  Val Holmes attached her tiles together using metal wire. They were probably quite heavy. The enamelled tiles are also quite heavy. My thought was some form of double or multiple weave.
 

 
Some years ago, three of us did an entry for the Association of WSD's birthday, the Gold Challenge. It is about A4 size and is double cloth with 12 pockets, each pocket holding an example of textile treatment. There are knitting needles and a ball of wool, some tapestry, dyed fibre , a weaving, all in dolls house proportion. Chris Fletcher and Linda Scurr did all of these. All I did was the double cloth and tucking the miniatures in each pocket. Fine silk (60/2 NM) was used for the front cloth and 2/6 cotton for the back.














If I did a similar straight double cloth and put a tile in each pocket, I don't believe the weaving would stand the weight. So suppose I make it a chequerboard with a tile in every alternate pocket and use (say) a 30/2 silk as the front cloth over the tiles but have three cloths and bring one to the front in the non-tile squares. If I used warp and weft interchange, the cloth would be really strong. So I would have

Cloth A 30/2 silk set at about 20 to the inch - this will need experiment.
Cloth B 2/10 cotton
Cloth C 2/10 cotton.

The cloths go, in order from the front, Cloth A, Cloth B and Cloth C  under a tile
In the other squares, they go Cloth C, Cloth A and B

That should make it a stout cloth and secure the silk threads.

In addition, I could warp up in stripes of colour in Cloth C and have something like a colour gamp in the non-tile squares.  Or how about painting that warp on the loom? I don't know if cotton will take my SEKA silk paints. Cloth B would be white to show off the tiles - or black?
Experimentation is called. I only have a limited number of tiles so the first experiment will have to use squares of card. And can I get away with doing this on the 8-shaft Louet Kombo or do I need more shafts? I can't see why I need more than 6 shafts if each cloth is tabby.

I am still weaving the Vale of Evesham (up to number 4) on the Megado. Linda Scurr has suggested that I need some unripe plums among the leaves on Side 3, Summer. Thank you Linda. I will implement that idea. It has to be done this week.

I had thought I could not develop the Annuals any further but two versions have been staring at me in the sitting room. I do not like the Autumn side with falling petals so am going to replace it with a design of seedheads. To which end I went to the Autumn Quilt Show to get some more colours of machine embroidery thread. Pretty much a washout. The Spring one is twice as big and has people like ArtVanGo and Ario not to mention a fantastic stall selling Japanese fabrics. Nothing like that last week, and no nice glossy thread. Quilters apparently use only cotton. Bah!