Friday 23 April 2010

Fan Reed (4)

These are weft colour samples on the fan reed silk fabric (60/2 silk). The three warp colours are light orange, dark orange and red-brown. Each 'fan' is one solid warp colour and each section is separated from its neighbours by four dark blue threads. In the centre of the reed (vertically), the width is two inches for each warp stripe. I have set  the reed down towards one end so that the strip widths are about 2.5 and 1.5 inches. This is so I can see the colour changes. The weft colours used are (from the bottom) light orange, white, red-brown, dark orange. If you examine the colour appearance of each stripe, you will see that the colours are different depending on whether the stripe is weft-faced (2.5 inches wide) or warp-faced (1.5 inches wide). The narrower stripes are nearer the self-colour of the warp. Looking at the colour effects, I prefer the light orange as weft.

I will weave a bit more dark orange and then do some light yellow and any other colour which I can find in the stash that takes my fancy. It would be better to use the light orange as I have have quite a bit of that yarn! Have I said that I dyed the two shades of orange myself? The red-brown is from Fibrecrafts and the dark blue from Handweavers Studio.

Added 2 hours later
The yellow weft is not as good as the light orange so light orange it is.

You will all be wondering why the blue stripes move sideways as the red-brown weft starts. Nothing to do with the yarn but something I had forgotten about weaving with a fan reed. I freely admit to being lazy and this means winding on as few times as possible which means I wind on several inches, maybe five. Well that won't do with a fan reed. When the fell-line is nearest to the breast beam, the reed slants forwards at the fell-line and a different part of  the fan reed beats the fell-line. This does not matter with an ordinary reed which is straight. With a fan reed, the length you wind on is restricted to less than 3 inches.  This applies to the Louet Kombo which has an overslung beater, rotating about a point higher than the shafts. It would not necessarily be true of another make of loom although there you would have the problem of getting the fan reed and its vertical movement installed.

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I am weaver and - -. I dye my yarns with acid dyes, I paint my warps, put fabric collages and stencils on my weaving. I have three looms, a 12 inch wide, 12 shaft Meyer for demos and courses, a 30 inch Louet Kombo which is nominally portable but has a stand, two extra beams and a home-made device containing a fan reed. And last a 32 shaft Louet Megado which is computer controlled, has a sectional warp and a second warp beam and I am the proud owner of an AVL warping wheel which I love to bits and started by drilling holes in. I inserted a device for putting a cross in. I have just acquired an inkle loom and had a lesson from an expert so I can watch TV and weave at the same time. I am interested in weaving with silk mostly 60/2 although I do quite a bit with 90/2 silk. I also count myself as a bookbinder with a special interest in Coptic binding.