Interleaved Waves

It’s magical to watch the amazing color blendings of a four-colored warp and one-colored weft as the weaving progresses on the loom.  Inspired by the various images in both Marian Stubenitsky‘s book, Weaving With Echo and Iris, and Bobbie Irwin‘s book, Weaving Iridescence, I designed a few drafts using four colors and interleaving in the threading.  The color blendings looked pretty good in one of the drafts so I wove it as a sample that I plan to cut up and share with my fellow members of the Fine Threads Study Group at Complex Weavers.  Here are photos of the finished piece and also how it looked on the loom:

Interleaved Waves, woven on 16 shafts, cotton, 2022

Interleaved Waves, woven on 16 shafts, cotton, 2022 (close-up)

Interleaved Waves, woven on 16 shafts, cotton, 2022 (on the loom)

For the warp I used 20/2 non-mercerized cotton in four colors: blue, yellow, green, and black. For the weft I used the same cotton in a dark pink. The sett is 42 e.p.i. and about 40 p.p.i. As you can see below, these yarns do not look very impressive at first glance, they are not even shiny, but once woven, wet-finished, and seen in proper lighting, the transformation is magical. The colors become iridescent – they appear to be changing as the angle of view changes. The colors are most playful and bright from close-up and not so much when viewed from a distance.

Warp and weft for Interleaved Waves, cotton, 2022

Using Fiberworks weaving software, my design started out with a simple pattern or design line that I networked using initial 4. Opting for non-parallel threadings, I then interleaved this networked pattern line with a straight twill, and then interleaved this with itself. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? It really is with the interleave tool in Fiberworks. The final result is four interleaved threadings with four repeating colors. The treadling is just one networked pattern line of one color. Here’s a partial draft of my design:

Partial draft for 16-shaft Interleaved Waves, 2022

Hope you’re inspired by this post. It’s mid-February now, and I’m enjoying the subtle beauty I see in my yard. A few days after I took this photo it snowed again, but I’m looking forward to Spring:

Waiting for Spring, February, 2022

Wishing you well, see you next time!

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Tags: interleave, network drafting, weaving, weaving drafts

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