The Crackle Concludes...

... on sample warp #1, at any rate. Got another five samples done today but I think that's going to be it for this warp since I've got to get Joey undressed for my first Scarf a Day warp tomorrow morning.

First thing I did was to check the treadling for the third Zielinksi sample I did the other day. Sure enough, I had it slightly wrong. The tabby was supposed to be ABAB in even blocks and BABA in odd blocks, with a connecting two shots between blocks. I was out of the 4/8 green that I used in the first three samples, but I found some of the same colour in 2/8 and used that to repeat the sample with the correct treadling:



Here's a comparison of the original sample and the new one. You should be able to see that the pairs of shots in what I'm thinking of as the half-tone regions are separated in the left sample and packed more closely together in the right one (click the image to look at it larger):


Another thing I noticed is that the tabby lift I was calling A was actually the one Zielinski calls B, so I switched those around too. This meant treadling my tabby backwards (throwing the shuttle from right to left while treadling the left tabby) which was very confusing for me - amazing how muscle memory takes over when you do something physically repetitive, like weaving! Finally I got down under the loom and switched the tie up on those two treadles so that I could weave as I'm used to and things went much more smoothly.

Still, I did not love weaving these samples, no sirree. I managed to grit my teeth and get through the obligatory Zielinski samples but once I'd done #3 the correct way I was So Done with two shuttle weaving for a while. The next thing I did was to try treadling #3 with a single shuttle, this time using 4/8 yellow:


The treadling here is exactly the same as in the first picture above. I don't love this colour combo, but I did like the single shuttle fabric about as much as the two shuttle one and actually enjoyed weaving it, so needless to say I won't be doing a lot of two shuttle crackle! I think the fabric could be quite attractive without the block-wise stripes in the warp and with a contrasting but complimentary weft.

Next I repeated sample #1 with the same treatment: 4/8 yellow for both tabby and pattern. Alas, I forgot to take a picture of it, since it came and went so fast that I was beyond it before I thought to get out the camera.

After that, I repeated sample #2, this time with a 2/8 blue for both tabby and pattern:


This is the only sample where I didn't follow the same block progression. This one is 432123414321234 rather than the 123412341 I'd been doing. You can just about make out the diamonds in the picture but they're obscured by the stripes in the warp.

I enjoyed weaving the last three samples since, without having to mess about with the two shuttles, I could really get into the rhythm and pattern of the structure and "feel" it as I was weaving. My autopilot could take over without making mistakes and I could take pleasure in the process rather than just being frustrated all the time. What a relief!

Then I cut those samples off and measured them - a little less than two yards, and I'd put on six. I hate to waste the warp, so I thought I might try weaving a scarf right on the crackle warp. I started in using a natural rayon slub and the same treadling sequence as the last sample, but I'm not loving it.


For one thing, I don't like the colour combo. For another, I'm not crazy about the syncopated colour and treadling stripes for a scarf. For a third, my selvages look Pretty Bad. I don't really want to start Scarf A Day off with a scarf that I don't love, so I'm thinking I might just call it sample #8 and Move On. Might also stop with the rayon and try a cotton chenille since I'm curious how that would look, and then Move On. In either event, Moving On will be happening very soon!

Parenthetically, I hit the wrong button in Picasa while editing these photos and wound up with this:


I think this is a really neat fabric, so I might explore some monochrome stripes.

A Cracklin' Good Time

That, my friends, is a leetle bit of crackle weave, woven in 1979(!!!) by some nameless member of the Guild of Canadian Weavers and included in their February newsletter from that year. Why have I shared this little darlin' with you? Because I have Crackle on the brain, that's why!

A bit of back story is in order. Last month at our Christmas party, I suggested to my weavers' guild that we start a study topics program to combat our recent bout of lethargy. The idea is that we'll take turns coming up with topics that we're interested in and then every couple months we'll start in on a new one. The weaver who proposed that month's topic will kick things off, maybe with a related draft, maybe with a bibliography and then we'll all go home and read up on the topic du jour and hopefully weave samples to bring back and share with the others. Since it was my idea, I offered to get things rolling and for my topic I chose crackle.

Why crackle, you ask? Because I know next to nothing about it. Years ago, when I first started weaving, a then-member of the guild told me that she preferred crackle to overshot. I probably had a vague idea of what overshot was by then but crackle was a completely unknown quantity. Years later I know a fair sight more about overshot, including the fact that I don't much care to weave it. Don't much care for it in general, in fact. This is practically heretical around here in overshot country but there it is: I Do Not Like Overshot. And so, although I still know hardly anything about crackle, it has always tantalized me as being a reasonable alternative to the other.

So anyway, we had our January guild meeting tonight and I did my little crackle song and dance, complete with bibliography and handouts. One of the other weavers also brought in her GCW newsletter from 1979 with attached sample to share with the rest of us. Everyone seemed to approve and some even seemed kinda excited, which was pretty groovy and exciting for me as well. Lethargy is bad, m'kay?

Incidentally, if anyone else out there is interested in crackle, you should hurry hurry hurry over to Peg from South Carolina's Talking About Weaving blog, which has tons of inspiring and informative stuff on it, and perhaps also read Ralph Griswold's monographs on designing with crackle and crackle tie ups and treadlings.

Now I've just got to weave off the scarf warp still on the small loom so I can dress it with one of the many, many crackle drafts I scrounged up and find out if I like crackle any better than That Other One!