Crackle weave: final project

marie-Claire Declerck wrote

on 22 Feb 2011 6:37 AM

I am in the planning stage for my final project in Crackle weave: an 8-h silk shawl. This is part of my decision to quit production weaving and weave for the pleasure of weaving and exploring new structures.  I am making this shawl for myself in my favorite pastel blue-turquoise colors and  I will indulge in dyeing.  I especially love the lacy look of some of Susan Wilson's treadlings (A Weaver's Book of 8-shaft Patterns) and opted for # 496.  As I visualize it, the warp and tabby weft will be in light colors and the pattern weft a medium blue/turquoise.

I have a question for the selvages.  So far I have used one repeat of straight twill for selvage and noticed how well the straight twill combines with crackle treadlings.  What about a point twill?  I do not have a CAD program to explore the idea. Any suggestion?

marie-Claire Declerck wrote

on 12 Mar 2011 12:45 PM

  Shawl off the loom!  I am doing the fringes.  If I  only knew how to post pictures of the weaving in progress here, I would.  So I will put the finished piece on the weaving study gallery.  I opted for a different treadling that I could center on the color stripes and added a second treadling as a border. The colors are very nice: three pale to medium blues with a hint of turquoise.  Pattern weft a meduim-dark blue turquoise, tabby weft the palest of the warpcolors.  All in 30/2 silk.  

Srw_weaver wrote

on 20 Mar 2011 2:45 PM

Marie-Claire has been busy! I have finally found the gallery for the crackle study group (am still rather mystified by "social networking"), and see lots of great pictures from her. The shawl is stunning. I also love the scarves and other samples. I'll comment on some of them in the gallery area. Marie-Claire, I know you used some of my samples from the 8-Shaft Pattern Book for your study - it was fun to see them woven in beautiful yarns in "real" projects. I'm sure after all those samples, you now know how to arrange the blocks in threading and treadling and create your own new designs. It's such a versatile structure.

If anyone else has things to post, please email me directly with a heads-up, to remind me to look at the site. I thought I was initally set up to receive email notifications (a daily digest?) with a list of messages, but haven't received anything in a long time. And without a reminder, I'm bad about checking in. I willl try to figure out how to set this up again, but will be in and out quite a bit this spring.

Susan Wilson

marie-Claire Declerck wrote

on 21 Mar 2011 6:28 AM

Thanks Susan! I really appreciate your reply and comments. Could you postsome of your crackle work? I would really like to see what a seasonned crackle weaver makes. You should receive notificatin of posts with your e-mail.  I do. I think it somethhing you specify when you post on this site. but I am not sure how.  Yes I know it is a box/default you check at the bottom of your message.

catweeks wrote

on 1 Oct 2012 10:51 PM

Hi Marie-Claire.  I live in Santa Barbara, CA and have been weaving for 2 1/2 years.  I just saw a picture of something in crackle weave last week and have become interested in exploring this weave structure.  I did a web search and saw the beautiful scarf that you made using Susan Wilson's # 501 treadling.  I would love to see this shawl that you made. I also love blue and turquoise colorways and have recently woven a couple woven shibori scarves that I dyed these colors.

I have looked over Susan's drafts in A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns after seeing the photo of your scarf using the 501 treadling.

I am hoping you can answer some of my questions so I can plan a crackle project. 

1.  Are these patterns woven with just 2 colors - the warp color and one pattern weft color?  It looks like it works best to use a light color and a dark color for contrast.

2.  Are the thickness of the warp and weft yarns the same?  Would you recommend 5/2 or 10/2 cotton to make sturdy fabric for a handbag? Or something else?

3.  Should the tabby weft be the same color as the warp and a thinner yarn? (perhaps a 20/2 cotton?)

4.  Should I calculate the sett for a twill?  Did you use a floating selvedge for your projects? (I saw one crackle scarf that someone made where they wove 4 ends on each edge in plain weave.)

5.  I don't think that the threading draft shows all that is shown in the photos in the book. In pattern 501, is the draft the first two designs with the first one repeated to create what is in the photo?

6.  I think I understand that when the number is more than one in the treadling, that you do the number of picks of that number with one tabby pick inbetween each one.  Is this correct?

7. Are the photos that are in the book of pieces with a light warp and a dark weft?  I think this is true because it looks like you used a dark warp and light weft to get a reverse of the photo in the book.

I look forward to hearing from you as you have experience with this weave structure. My weaving teacher had never made anything using crackle and wasn't able to help much last week when I asked her. I would also like to know where I can see other crackle pieces - wish Susan had a gallery on her website.

Warm regards,  Cat (Weeks)