Weekly 1

Aspen Kimlicko

For this first assignment, I just want to experiement with a few different materials and techniques. It's not my first time weaving but I have never really learned any official ways of doing it except for the basic plain weave. I have woven a grass mat in the past, so I wanted to try grass with yarn wap threads. I also tried tin foil, because I wanted to see how a malleable yet very different material would work with yarn.

First rows

My first rows of weaving were simple, just so I could get the hang of weaving. I really like the sheds, but I always have trouble knowing how tight I should pull the ends of the weft.

Weaving with grass

I wanted to try some different materials, so I picked a few pieces of grass and split them in half longways. when trying to weave with it, I notices a property of the grass that was both annoying and interesting. The texture of the grass gave it a kind of grip on the warp threads, so I could slide it in one way but when I pulled it the other way it pulled the warp sideways instead of sliding out. I found that weaving with yarn and grass make a stiffer, less tight weave, that will likely change once the grass dries.

Two colors

I tried adding two colors in several different ways. First, I alternated the weaving, with both pieces next to each other. This worked fine and was very simple. Next, I twisted the two colors together, which ended up jsut looking like the first attempt and was a little bulkier. I then followed the video to do multiple separated colors, which was visually interesting (though I found it really confusing and difficult at first). I don't like how it makes a kind of knot in the middle, but I played around with moving where that knot goes, and it was fun to make patterns in the weaving. Finally, I tried just passing one string through the sheds but wrapping it around the other to pull it halfway through. I liked this a lot because it was quick, and the connection between the two colors wasn't that noticeable. It was also easy to change where they interesected.

Conductive thread

At first, I wanted to make the thread as visible as possible, so I tried wrapping the thread around the warp that was lifted to make it more visible. I think this would work if I wanted to make some kind of shiny accents on a certain part of a weaving, but it's really meant to be hidden in the yarn, so I tried to wind it around some yarn and weave with that. I liked this but I think I could have wound it tighter so that it looked like part of the yarn (like the black line in the yellow yarn) because it looks a little messy to me.

Tin foil

I tried two ways: twisting the foil into a kind of thread, and using a flat piece. The twisted thread broke easily and caught in the yard, but it was very malleable and could be pressed flat against the weave. The flat foil didn't work very well at all in terms of being packable. It covered a lot of surface area, and I think it could look interesting if combined with some other material of maybe using a different weaving pattern.

Basket weave

Finally, I tried the basket weave. I liked it because it covered a lot of surface area and I'd like to try mixing colors with the basket weave to create some thicker mixing of colors.

I am already excited to work with new materials and new ways of creating forms and patterns. These simple weaves are still pretty difficult for me, so I might research some tips for weaving when we do more of it. I wasn't surprised that the tin foil didn't work well, but it was interesting to see how much it could be flattened and bent, and I think it could potentially be interesting if I were to try to make a completely metal weave with conductive thread and tin foil.

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