Playing With String
Remember the rainbow shawl I wove from my towel warp? Last time we saw it, it looked like this:
During the latest heat wave we had (with which I DO NOT cope well!), I decided that weaving upstairs was out of the question, even though I am still under the gun to get the last 5 scarves woven for the consignment shop. So I set myself at the kitchen table, with an oscillating fan nearby, and began to work on the fringe of this shawl.
I know I could have left the fringe as it was, since this is cotton after all, and I also knew that I didn't have to twist it, which was a bonus for me. So I decided to do some knot work. My husband, who has been around boats, both in them and repairing, them all his life, has a book of knots, so I perused that. After consulting with him, I decided on a simple tying plan, meant to leave the fringe looking like diamonds, with knots at all four "points" of each diamond.
Here's my set up:
And a close up:
I always knew those old encyclopedias, circa 1960, would come in handy one day! As you can see I lined the fell line up with a line on the grid of my cutting board. I used to have a foam piece that I could pin my weaving to, but that got lost in last year's renovation.
My first plan was to tie the fringe in 2 groups of 4 ends, approximately one inch from the fell line. I looked around for something to use as a filler, something to tie the knots against. After looking around, I decided to try my eye drop bottle. It was quite small, and seemed to be what I wanted, but once I tried it I realized it was too big. Its cap became the next thing to try, and that worked out fine, though it didn't stay in place very well.
The first row went quickly, but then I just couldn't figure out how to tie the next level of knots. I tied, and untied, and tied again, and untied again. Clearly the diamond idea was not going to work. So I tried something else, crossing the ends over each other and then knotting, not at the cross, but below that. I couldn't use the cap or any other filler, so I tried to tie the knots so that they were on the next line on the board. Of course, looking at it now, why couldn't I have knotting where the fringes crossed as well as where I did knot???
I did this for another row, and ended up with this:
Not too shabby, I thought. So on to the other end, which of course went much faster. My hubby was also impressed. I tucked it away for a few days while I worked and wove, until I washed it up. The fringe did get quite twisty (didn't I say I didn't want twisted fringe?!?), but ironing helped a bit. So here's the finished project:
And a close up of the fringe:
Still too twisty for my tastes, so I guess I won't use this technique again, even though I really love how it came out initially. At least the shawl is bright and cheery!
During the latest heat wave we had (with which I DO NOT cope well!), I decided that weaving upstairs was out of the question, even though I am still under the gun to get the last 5 scarves woven for the consignment shop. So I set myself at the kitchen table, with an oscillating fan nearby, and began to work on the fringe of this shawl.
I know I could have left the fringe as it was, since this is cotton after all, and I also knew that I didn't have to twist it, which was a bonus for me. So I decided to do some knot work. My husband, who has been around boats, both in them and repairing, them all his life, has a book of knots, so I perused that. After consulting with him, I decided on a simple tying plan, meant to leave the fringe looking like diamonds, with knots at all four "points" of each diamond.
Here's my set up:
I always knew those old encyclopedias, circa 1960, would come in handy one day! As you can see I lined the fell line up with a line on the grid of my cutting board. I used to have a foam piece that I could pin my weaving to, but that got lost in last year's renovation.
My first plan was to tie the fringe in 2 groups of 4 ends, approximately one inch from the fell line. I looked around for something to use as a filler, something to tie the knots against. After looking around, I decided to try my eye drop bottle. It was quite small, and seemed to be what I wanted, but once I tried it I realized it was too big. Its cap became the next thing to try, and that worked out fine, though it didn't stay in place very well.
The first row went quickly, but then I just couldn't figure out how to tie the next level of knots. I tied, and untied, and tied again, and untied again. Clearly the diamond idea was not going to work. So I tried something else, crossing the ends over each other and then knotting, not at the cross, but below that. I couldn't use the cap or any other filler, so I tried to tie the knots so that they were on the next line on the board. Of course, looking at it now, why couldn't I have knotting where the fringes crossed as well as where I did knot???
I did this for another row, and ended up with this:
Not too shabby, I thought. So on to the other end, which of course went much faster. My hubby was also impressed. I tucked it away for a few days while I worked and wove, until I washed it up. The fringe did get quite twisty (didn't I say I didn't want twisted fringe?!?), but ironing helped a bit. So here's the finished project:
Still too twisty for my tastes, so I guess I won't use this technique again, even though I really love how it came out initially. At least the shawl is bright and cheery!
Comments
Post a Comment