This blog post is all about what designs are available at Cloth of Kin Weaving Studio and will give you a good idea on what style would suit your family most :)
So you've gotten some colours chosen by those special people in your life, now what?
Let's start with...
WARP:
The colours that your family members have chosen will be arranged in the warp.
There are currently 3 warp designs to choose from:
Unity
This warp design is the most traditional with simple stripes of colour, it is quite stunning when the colours used in the warp as also used as panels in the weft!
Fibonacci
This warp design is a mathematical approach to designing fabric with vibrant results. The colours as blended together using Fibonacci's formula.
Symphony
This warp design breaks the colours into smaller stripes and arranges them into a secret pattern. The smaller stripes give the sense that there are more colours present.
Warp options
Pinstripes - We really liked the way the fabric turned out that had pinstripes between each Kin Colour so we decided to add this as a warp option. The pinstripes have to be all one colour, preferably one that contrasts well with the other colours
Rainbow Pinstripes - This concept captured our hearts, where a rainbow pinstripe, about 14 threads wide, is placed somewhere in the width of the warp as a tiny little accent that may just take your breath away!
WEFT:
With your warp details decided, you must now take the quantum leap into weft designs. It can be a little more difficult to comprehend how the weft gives the fabric structure and character. The weft is the yarn that is perpendicular to the warp.
Weft fibres
There are weft fibres available through Cloth of Kin Weaving Studios with a brief description of each, please refer to the clothofkin.com website for pricing and colour palettes:
Cotton - easy care, cushy, mouldable
Hemp - natural, supportive, durable
Cotolin - breathable, open, becomes softer with use
Bamboo - drape, shiny, slippery, strong
Silk - light weight, smooth, lustrous, delicate wash
Alpaca/Silk - warm, fuzzy halo, drape, slippery
You can choose up to 10 weft colours for your weft design. We find that using the same warp colours for the weft colours can yield striking results which is why we offer up to 10 weft colours for one piece. If you have more than 10 colours in your warp... well... try me!
Weft options
Length - you have up to 20 meters of cloth to divide up as you see fit. We weave each piece based on the measurements you specify, then take the fabric off the loom in one big roll, and cut each of the woven pieces apart. Depending on the day, the weaver, the fibre, and many other factors, we sometimes end up weaving a piece longer than specified... rarely ever shorter. We like to plan each piece to be 10% longer than requested to allow for hemming.
Middle Marker - this is an option that we created for our baby wearing customers who use the middle of the fabric to measure where to start wrapping their baby. The three middle markers we offer are tactile, panel, and stripe.
Tartan Weft - this used to be called Fibonacci weft but the dual warp and weft name caused mass confusion so we now refer to the "plaid" effect as Tartan Weft. The plaid effect is accomplished by the weaver changing wefts many times following a weft formula to produce a plaid. It is quite labour intensive and requires a great deal of concentration but can create such a beautiful accent that we really promote it! It is especially stunning when all the colours of the warp are used as colours in the tartan weft which usually creates about 1 meter of woven fabric, a nice accent to the edge of middle of a piece. Although the tartan weft looks great with any of the warp designs, it was originally designed for the Fibonacci warp design.
