Monday, November 10, 2008

Rep Weave or Ripsmatta Weave

Rep Weave is a weave structure that was completely new to me a few months ago; so when I was planning for my Guild of Canadian Weavers Intermediate test question on warp faced weaves, I knew that sampling would be in my future.

I pulled my rep weave warp in light blue, purple and navy orlec, set at 45 epi. Yup, 600 threads! I wove my samples, trying different wefts and in the end, I thought the overall effect was bland.
I decided to start again, but to change the selvedge to navy to help hide the navy weft I had decided on. Then, to add a bit more colour I added a pink thread for each of the two blocks. Well it was obvious that I didn’t completely understand the weave structure; my 2 thread pink stripe was not balanced on the sequence changes so it looked a bit dot, dash, dot, not what I had envisioned at all.
I bit the bullet and warped it a third time, a big undertaking, this now was my third 600 thread warp in two weeks! This time I used 4 pink threads, 2 for each block change, making the pink stripe appear solid in each block change; this worked much better. This would be my final test submission warp and finding a soft 6 ply cotton weft made the piece I wanted.

Hindsight tells me that this whole thing was moot - I could have easily submitted the first rep set and it would have done as well for the test as my third effort ! Ahhhhh well....
The upshot of the whole repeating rep weave was that I had a number of pieces that didn’t match. They kind of look the same, but with differing wefts they couldn't be used as placemats, close but no cigar! What the heck was I going to do with all of these bits of fabric? And yes, I had more than just these three samples to deal with - I had done 3 yards each time!!

When life hands you too many rep weave samples - make PURSES....
I tried to make them a tad more interesting by adding some beading to each bag - they are all fully lined and have plastic inserts for structural integrity.

5 comments:

Sunrise Lodge Fiber Studio said...

WOW!!! These bags are amazing!!!

Susan said...

I agree amazing! I had the good fortune to see them in person in September and the finishing and detailing is first class.

Those will be snapped up at sales!
Heck, you'll be getting custom orders....

:) Susan

Dorothy said...

Oh, very nice indeed! Beautiful fabric and beautifully made up.

Meara said...

What did you use for your thick weft? I am having a terrible time finding any suitable yarn for rep weave!

Anonymous said...

Like the purses, a great idea! Nice work.