Testing Lampas

Lampas tests on TC-1 loom

I wove these tests of lampas on Sunday. I used the lampas structures from The Woven Pixel that are designed for a warp ratio of 3 ground ends to 1 pattern end, and a rotation of three wefts (1 ground weft and 2 pattern wefts). I was trying to see if it made a difference if I designed full width (880 ends), for just the ground warp (660 ends), or for the units of 3 ground warps to 1 pattern warp (220 ends). After putting in the structures, I expanded each test by three in the height (the number of picks) because I used three wefts. I didn't really notice much difference except the obvious one that designing on only 220 ends made my writing cruder. I did use different size yarns in the tests, so the picks per inch differed in each example. I think if I started with a digital image and then reduced it, I might have seen more variation than here, where I drew my designs.

Detail of lampas showing longer floats of my pattern warps in the ground structure

I always weave lampas with the pattern warp end that will tack the pattern ends raised over the ground weft. It means my ground structure (a 4/1 satin) is modified by these floats, which show up as a twill line (since they weave a 1/2 twill). Depending on the angle of viewing, and how the light hits the cloth, this disruption of the satin hardly shows, or clearly shows. I could weave two layers in that area, keeping the pattern warp and wefts to the back, but I like it this way.

Tomorrow I am going to test a design using 4 wefts. This always happens, I do these tests, then when I start some "real" work, the tests are irrelevant. I am going to start at 120 picks per inch and then modify my image depending on what I find. I have been playing with modifying colors in my image in Index Mode/Color Table, to get a sense of the colors I plan to use--but I won't really decide until I see them woven. I do like the quality of this warp very much and am glad I decided to postpone putting on another black and white tencel warp (though I have a 10 yard warp wound and ready to go).