I thought once I'd gotten everything sorted and my leaf looked good, I'd just zoom through the rest of the brocading. I was wrong. Last night I wove most of my first word:
I had already spent some time working out the spacing and stuff, and the f and o came out pretty much perfect. Then I got to the straight up and down letters and I found that their taily bits were really spreading them out. Here I've already given up on having a blank pick in between each letter and just woven them right next to each other, but I want the spacing to be closer like the first two letters. So I put it away for the night.
Tonight I decided that I would unweave back to the o and get rid of the very edge of the taily bits on all the letters. I tried putting the blank pick back in between, but it was too much space so I left it out again.
I think this is worse. You can see f-o-l, then a whole lot of straight up and down bits that all look the same and run together. It should be i-u-m, and you may be able to tell once I've pointed it out, but I don't like it. I think tomorrow I'll unweave it all again back to the f, then take out one pick in the middle of each letter. The pattern is that every stem of each letter is three covered picks, and each space between stems is three picks. So the o has three long picks, three picks in the middle hole bit, then another three long picks. I think I'll change it to three long picks, two middle picks and then three long picks. This will shorten every letter except the l and the i, which are already pretty short anyway. The m really bothers me because of how much it's sprawled out across the band. It's a third of the word all by itself, but taking three picks out of it altogether will squish it together more.
I'm also a little frustrated with how difficult it is to keep the band the same width. I've never had this problem before, and even though I'm paying attention to it it's still going all wibbly. I'm getting better now, it's only going out by one or two millimetres, but it's still quite noticeable, especially in the above picture.
I'm in two minds about whether this is going to end up getting entered in the competition. I think I could get it done in time, but it would be a bit of a rush. I don't want to rush it, but even redoing as much as I have been to get it to look closer to what I want doesn't fix things like the width. The brocade weft is also really obvious on the edges of the band, I can't get it to tuck in like I have in the past with cotton. Anyway, the whole thing is becoming a lot like my pouch. Something not exactly wonderful but something close enough and I'm happy for it to be functional, just not a showcase piece I guess. The only practical thing that would come from entering it would be possibly useful feedback from the judges, although I get the feeling they'd just confirm what conclusions I've already come to, like they did when I entered my pouch.
Anyway, we'll see how I feel the more I get done. Once I get past this first damn word!
Tonight I decided that I would unweave back to the o and get rid of the very edge of the taily bits on all the letters. I tried putting the blank pick back in between, but it was too much space so I left it out again.
I'm also a little frustrated with how difficult it is to keep the band the same width. I've never had this problem before, and even though I'm paying attention to it it's still going all wibbly. I'm getting better now, it's only going out by one or two millimetres, but it's still quite noticeable, especially in the above picture.
I'm in two minds about whether this is going to end up getting entered in the competition. I think I could get it done in time, but it would be a bit of a rush. I don't want to rush it, but even redoing as much as I have been to get it to look closer to what I want doesn't fix things like the width. The brocade weft is also really obvious on the edges of the band, I can't get it to tuck in like I have in the past with cotton. Anyway, the whole thing is becoming a lot like my pouch. Something not exactly wonderful but something close enough and I'm happy for it to be functional, just not a showcase piece I guess. The only practical thing that would come from entering it would be possibly useful feedback from the judges, although I get the feeling they'd just confirm what conclusions I've already come to, like they did when I entered my pouch.
Anyway, we'll see how I feel the more I get done. Once I get past this first damn word!
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