Focus on Tartan

Spring keeps trying to happen up here on the 45th and some days I can't bear to stay inside, but fiber is keeping my attention between the fits of digging in the dirt, pruning and bicycling.  The bike rides are to look for mushrooms - none found to date - pick up cans, spot wild flowers,  and when we make the full 6 miles into town, we usually find some icecream.  Well, at least the fresh air and exercise parts are good for us.  The crop of Dwarf Lake Iris is lush this year.  These rare beauties are about four inches tall.

Our guild offered to demonstrate fleece to Michigan tartan shawl at the Alcona County Fair on August 25th. We began with a fleece from Big Hand Farm near Boyne City.  IBL (Itty Bitty Lamb) is a clean, well-crimped Romney fleece with a four-inch plus staple.

Happy International Tartan Day

Tartan is one of simplest, most exciting, colorful, and creative forms of weaving I do. I have even woven tartan with draw-loom work with supplemental weft over it. To learn more about tartan history go to http://www.tartansauthority.com/

A picture from my competition days - 15+ years ago. Kilt is Angus District Dress - handwoven and hand tailored my KM.  The hose are knit Argyll to imitate the kilt's pattern.


Tartan Day is not known as a drinking holiday, so will never be as popular as St. Patrick's Day, but celebrate! I'm going to thread up a 2/8 Heather yarn version of the Michigan Tartan. It will be for a vest and moggins, as well as a test of my new 7-dent reed for upholstery-weight tartan Happy Tartan Day


Kati Reeder Meek 4-6-11

Michigan Tartan: New-yarn Sett-samples

Quite a range of quality from one yarn! 8 epi to (almost) 30epi.

The Lake Charlevoix Area Weavers Guild asked me to give a program on Weaving Michigan Tartan. The group project is for each member to use the pattern in a defferent way, with different yarns.

When trying a new yarn for any tartan, I first want to learn what sett range works for the yarn. First I count the wraps for an inch. For plain weave, we usually take half that count. For a sett sample, I want to test an even more open weave - thinking lace.

     With JaggerSpun 8/2 Heather, 20 WPI suggested 10 epi. To push the boundries, I began with 8 epi and wound 136 ends in about 3/4ths of a full Michigan Tartan pattern, making the warp 3 yards long. Then I wove this in 2/2 twill - pushing it even further. The 45 Degree paper guided the gentle placing the wefts - very tricky to keep it open! With one square of the pattern completed and both ends hemstitched, a few picks of PW in smooth yarn made my first sample ready to cut down - leaving the smooth yarn on the loom, in front of the reed.

     Then I re-sleyed to 10 epi and wove another sample. The samples continued. For 12 epi I used my 6-dent reed, for 16 epi, the 8-dent reed, for 18 epi the 9-dent. At this sett, the weaving was becomming much easier. It actually required a bit of a 'press' on the beater. The samples continued with 20 epi in a 10 dent, then 24 epi with a 12. The 24 epi sample was quite dense, but still weavable 'to square' i.e. 24 picks per inch with a double beat.

     Every yarn has an upper limit for how densly it will weave into a balanced cloth. Sometimes, even with a weighted beater and resounding second beat on the next shed, it simply won't pack in 'to square' or to that magical 45 Deg. twill line. The 8/2 Heather met its limit at 30 epi! Though worsted-spun yarn is traditional for tartan kilts and other smooth and durable applications, this short fiber, carded yarn has potential for lofty blankets and throws.

     The J-S Heather, being like a woolen-spun yarn, fulls beautifully. The first test of the samples with 5 minutes gentle agitation and line-drying was so-so. A re-wash with 4 more minutes agitation plus 10 minutes in the dryer produced dramatic results. I went back to the loom and re-sleyed one more time - back to 24 epi to weave off the rest of the warp. I'm thinking coating and upholstery. (Hello, Queen Victoria and Balmoral Castle).





My 5 1/4-inch wide warp-end provided enough to upholster my tea mug. I think I like this yarn!

Treadle with Joy, Kati

Trapeze Demo in New Jersey

Margriet Carrico recently gave her NJ Jockey Hollow Guild a demo of how she uses the Trapeze. I thought their comments and the photos Sally Ogren took might be of interest, especially to Trapeze skeptics. Here are some pictures from the event. The warp is 20/2.



Clamping the Trapeze to the Baby Wolf [This is easily done alone, but a helping hand is hard to refuse]

Spanking the tensioned warp to even out tension

Picking out a snarl. [More tension and more spanking, or just 'strumming' near the lease sticks, usually solves such. I would have moved the lease sticks up where I could reach them without bending over. km]

Warp going onto the beam smoothly

Comments:

"The Demo of the trapeze was last night and everyone had a few moments where the lights went on. As you can tell from Sally's comments the comfort of the height seemed to impress most of the members... I needed to do samples for the Cross Country Weavers so...I killed 2 birds with one stone... all in all it went well and I told the members that I have not put on a warp without (the Trapeze) in 5 years. I hope they will use this method because itmakes weaving so much more pleasurable
Sally says: "By bringing the trapeze in and letting us "play" with it, I was struck byhow nice it was NOT to be stooped over the warp all the time. You reallydon't get that from reading a book, you have to experience it. [the message throughout the book is good body mechanics. 30 years of arthritis has taught me a lot. km] "Most of the process is at a very comfortable height. The last photo particularly reminded me of that. Even on a fiddly warp, it wasn't so bad to separate the groups at the lease sticks because they were at a comfortable height. Can you image what a pain that would have been to mess with those fine strings if they were at standard loom height?"

Joyous New Year

Wonderful to have holidays and family and parties. Even more wonderful to return to some semblance of routine.

Tomorrow is St. Distaff Day or Roc Day to celebrate returning to the spindle after the Christmas season. We're having a spinning/dying party.

Half of one of my napkins that now need place mats. This draft from Alice Schlein's article in Weavers #36 was so interesting that I beamed a linen warp to see if waffle weave in fine linen was possible. It worked so well I beamed another even finer, each new warp was tied on to the previous warp thrums. Then I ended up weaving "waffle dots" on a plain ground. The story is slated for the February issue of the Complex Weavers Journal.

In the meantime, I'm working on the design for repp place mats to go with the waffle napkins our group exchanged last year. A narrow warp on the inkle loom with wee pick-up bits has me excited. The tiny squares of pattern echo the waffle squares without being busy. Then watching the snow drift down and pile up, I sketched out how I think I want to weave them. (see tiny sketch with the inkle band). Doesn't it look like snow, dense at the bottom, sparce at the top? The Next step is graph paper. Then design the threading. I Think I have three blocks which should work on 4 shafts.

The State of Michigan has its own TARTAN

A small scarf showing the stripe pattern in the warp on one end, and the exact same stripe sequence woven into the weft with a 2/2 twill interlacement, producing the tartan pattern that is now accepted as the "State of Michigan Tartan", on the other end.

Building a warp, one thread at a time, counting the color stripes carefully and keeping the thread order with a "cross".

Weaving in the weft with one shuttle each for the five colors. I find that playing Scottish Country Dance music is perfect for keeping the rhythm of the counting/treadling/shuttling/and laying in the weft, without losing track of the color sequence.

The "sett" of the Michigan Tartan (the color sequence and thread count that describes a named tartan) is BG18* W2 BG8 W2 T8 DG2 T4 DG24 DR4 DG4* (* = pivot points, double the threads for full stripe width) BG-blue green for the Great Lakes and many inland lakes; DG-deep green for Michigan's forests, rolling hills and meadows; T-tan for the sand dunes, Petoskey stones and roads for the model T; W-white for our snow, fruit blossoms, lake ice and summer clouds; DR-deep red for the autumn maples, cherries, apples and red-top grass.

After years of work by many Scotish organizations and individuals the especially designed plaid, now called "Michigan Tartan" has been declared the official state tartan with signatures of Governor Granholm and Lt. Governor Cherry.

Detroit St. Andrews Society (past president), Scott David was especially committed to this effort.

Thank you so much for everyone's interest, efforts and energy that led to the final, official declaration giving our beautiful state its own tartan! I am honored to have been involved in the design, but without the efforts of many, many people, Michigan having its own tartan would never have happened. I am a textile designer, not a promoter, nor do I have any political connections. Others efforts were absolutely key to this final adoption.

The original design began many years ago with an October morning view of Lake Huron with sun on the whitecaps, red-top grass in the sand, all emerging from the cedar forest. Through the following day, weeks, and months a cloth design emerged as a tartan (striped warp with matching striped weft). I wove up a scarf using the pattern and liked it. This was over 10 years ago.

The design was refined with input from others involved in Scottish Societies, Pipe Bands, Highland Dance, and weavers of tartan around the state. As I was an active member of the Scottish Tartans Authority http://www.tartansauthority.com/ with another design to my name, I recorded it as "Michigan Up North". (A tartan may not be a 'state tartan' without the official consent of the state. ) The energetic and well-connected Mr. Scott David began the process of finding official approval. Last Saturday I received a copy of the Certificate declaring that this design was now officially THE STATE OF MICHIGAN tartan.

I am very pleased that our beautiful state of Michigan finally has its own official tartan. I am honored that I was involved in the design. Now the tartan mills of Scotland and handweavers everywhere can weave their own copies. I hope that handweavers in states still without their own tartans will learn the joys of tartan weaving and design a plaid to represent them, then find citizen support to have it made official. Many countries around the world have their own tartans. Many organizations and all the provinces of Canada have their own tartans.

Now, MICHIGAN (my Michigan) has its own tartan. Hurrah!

Kati on Thanksgiving, 2010 eve. Revised 12-4-10

October 2010 update

Wow, it has been a busy summer and autumn, too busy teaching, weaving and spinning to update my blog - bad blogger.

Working backward from the most recent: Teaching at John C Campbell Folk School during Scottish Heritage Week was magical! https://www.folkschool.org/ I had a great group of students who came from Maine and California, Michigan and Virginia, Ohio and Georgia. They worked very hard, learning how to design tartan, warp with a Trapeze and sley and resley for a samples series to discover all the types of cloth that can come from one yarn. Their display of finished sample sets and rosettes of handwoven tartan impressed their teacher as well as Mr. Kennedy (above).

Tartan class in front of a few of the looms at John C. Campbell Folk School.

One student, Lois Foerster, had spun and vegetable-dyed her own yarns and designed a tartan for her spinning guild. Her sample and rosette at left. Lois has already passed on some of her learning to her young granddaughter, Trinity. Isn’t she cute - and knows how to hold a shuttle properly!

The weaving studio at JCCFS is a marvel of equipment and materials on a campus in the wooded foothills of the Smokey Mountains. It is out of a fairytale, as were the other studios, guest instructors, students and special guest, Norman Kennedy, who is looking and sounding far, far younger than his 77 years should allow. He mingled, he told stories and sang before breakfast, sang in the weaving studio, sang for a waulking, then gave a full concert with stories.

Complex Weavers in Albuquerque was an exciting adventure of connecting with old friends and making new ones in the heat and beauty of the Southwest US. Modeling my linen jacket/blouse while Bob Keates modeled John's black shirt (from the same warp) was much informal fun among other weavers wearing their creations.

Away from the conference centers I was enchanted with the adobe walls around old churches, the spicy food, the talent of the local potters and weavers. At Convergence I enjoyed meeting visitors to Weavolution's booth, signing books and exhibiting a bit of my weaving.

In between, I delivered Kay Faulkner to Michigan League of Handweaver's (MLH) Workshops. While there I took a course in Tied Weaves from Su Butler and got to hang out with a fine collection of great teachers.

Left to right John Mullarkey -Tablet Weaving; Rita Hagenbruch, Scandinavian Linens; kay Faulkner, Woven Shibouri & Velvets; Su Butler, Tied Weaves; the runt in front hanging out with the greats.

I was encouraged to submit something to the up-coming MLH Juried Show. http://www.mlhguild.org/ There, my linen jacket/blouse Rod og Sort took First Place Functional Fiber plus the HGA Award of Excellence. Another piece, Coverlet-turned-scarf, also shown at CW in Albuquerque in Jette Vandermeiden's Skillbragd/Smaalandsvav Seminar (where it was deemed nothing but a supplementary warp weave) was awarded Honorable Mention. A third piece, a linen runner/shawl with button fringe, Hanging out at the Long Branch got into the show... (Well, I like it.) Very pretty ribbons, a bit of cash and the honor are all gratefully accepted. I seldom enter juried shows anymore, but this was certainly rewarding.

Rod og Sort detail showing some of the old Danish pattern in the body, the decorative twisting, the tablet woven sashand the antique jet buttons. There is / through the o in Rod, but the system will not let me show it properly.

Now,with some pictures in here, it is a good start at coming up to speed with my blog and I can get back to weaving the 40/1 linen waffle-weave and see how my handspun Pygora/silk makes into a scarf for my daughter who gifted me with the Pygora fiber.
Treadle with Joy, Kati 10-18-10