Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Scallopped Selvedge

Thank you for your thoughts on-line, off-line, and from Facebook! Ideas we collectively came up with so far are:
  • Use of floating selvedge
  • Different weave structure in the edges
  • Different shrinkage
  • Manipulation of draw in
  • Weaving extra picks in the edges
  • Passementerie techniques
To borrow Lynne Mackay's phrase, "the martyr that I am," I'm interested in putting in extra picks in the edges in a fan shape, but that would require not only very careful planning but individually-weighted ends, so this is way in the back burner for now.

We just got back from four days on the North Island, a road trip from Wellington to Napier and back with my friend Trish. At the tail end of the trip I finally got to visit DEA's yarn shop in Levin, which was like Disneyland for me. Deanna and Adam were even lovelier in person than the loveliest people I imagined communicating with the by email and phone for... nearly 3 years? Unfortunately I got too excited I didn't take any photos, but I got to see the inner sanctum, and I feel much better about my stash, and there is another, existing range coming from them next year. (Ben, stop saying theirs is a commercial stash!)

If you have more idea about scalloped selvedge, do please comment, send me links, photos, etc. Particularly if you know crochet, tatting, bobbin-lace-making or other techniques.

EDIT: Desirée called my attention to the cover of Vav Magazinet, 4/09, Textil Tidscrift. Desirée writes:

"The rug is called Näthinnebild I, 2009 (Retina image) from MMF of Marie Miesenberger.

"MMF stands for Märta Måås Fjetterström an artist who made a lot of famous rugs. Many of her rugs are still in production, and the company invites artists every year to make new ones.

"There is a 90yr jubilée this year and an exhibition at Liljevalchs in Stockholm. I have plans, and train tickets, to go there after chrismas. There is just one problem, you are not allowed to take fotos!

"Good luck with the edges! Maybe it's the fringes that's the solution. You never know if they are made from warp or weft."

Thank you, Desirée.

2 comments:

  1. I don't know if this will make sense, and it would depend on the structure of what you're weaving, but here goes (also it'd probably be more of a zigzag, and the two sides would be offset)...

    If you have multiple shuttles, then you can put them all through to one side (one pick at a time, clearly). You'd then have a whole bunch sticking out one side that you could manually intertwine, so that the last one you put through is the first one that goes back, and they're all woven into a triangle. I guess you could probably make it more scallopy by fiddling with tension, or adjusting how you did the edge weaving.

    I haven't had much luck finding pictures of what I mean, but I can attempt to draw up a diagram if I've completely failed to make sense.

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  2. I think, Sonya, what I'm imagining is what you described! I hope to experiment with this sometime in the near future. We'll see if we mean the same thing, then??

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