The 10 loom, 3 week mission....

I can't help but thinking it was a rather bad omen seeing a dead Parisian rat on my journey home tonight. At the end of the first of three weeks of weave I am exhausted. It is not because I'm being pushed too hard but there is something about the thinking that goes into weaving that really gets the brain cells going especially since the french way is so different to what I'm used to.

I think I have previously explained the weave challenge I am embarking on for the next few weeks. After week 1 I can definitely report that it's going to be a steep learning curve. Basically, every loom is set up with the intention to create fabric for a different purpose. And this is serious stuff, no experiments allowed. Our teacher inspects our samples afterwards and if there is a hint of an error, even one measly thread where it shouldn't be, it has to be redone. We also have to put a lot of thought into our weft yarns as this is also criticized frequently. Should the weft be the same diameter as the warp??? Yes. Should the cloth have the same amount of end per inch as the warp??? Yes. No, that float would not be practical as it would snag. No that has not been beaten tightly enough, it would become loose after several washes. That print is definitely too big for a coat etc.... Great emphasis is placed upon achieving a just cloth, fit for it's purpose. A sample should have the repeat of the pattern, otherwise when is one to know the repeat and how is one to know that the pattern is not just a cloth. I have learnt so much practical common sense knowledge about cloth that I hadn't even thought about before, like how line is a more suitable weft for tea towels and table cloths that clothing as it is far stiffer and less supple. I know these things may seen fairly obvious but in Chelsea when creating a cloth, my thought pattern is on a totally different wavelength and aesthetic qualities definitely reign over practicality!

I want to talk about each loom in turn, I will be spending a lot of time with them so they are sure to become my friends. But also so I can put all this new knowledge into some kind of order as at the moment my brain is bursting with threading plans, wefts and fluff.