Weaving Magical Cloth…Ikat

A trip to Niles, Michigan to see Mary Zicafoose last summer was needed after reading IKAT (2020). Mary spoke about her journey with Ikat and how she fell in love with the magical cloth gifted to her as a child from her aunt who visited Indonesia. Ikat cultures exist in Indonesia, Japan, Central Asia, and India. Mary’s rugs and wall hangings are primarily Weft Ikat and to say I was in awe was an understatement!

I was so inspired by her weaving and monographs that the following morning I pulled out all my wool cones and contemplated making some wall art rather than weaving my current warp. The choke ties in a space dyed warp provided a small experiment for wrapping and simulating warp ikat. I often hand-manipulate painted warps to shift them in my weaving as a design element. I pulled some papers I used to clean my print plate earlier in the year and I had my background for “Shifted Warps.”

Mary Zicafoose presenting in Niles, Michigan

“Shifted Warps”

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I was thrilled to be able to take “Warp Ikat” with Mary at MAFA this past weekend! I was interested in both resist dyeing and additional shifting techniques. Ikat when used as a verb means “to tie or bind.” When used as a noun it means “thread, knot, or bundle.”

Step 1: Plan, wind and stretch your warps. A registration mark was made approximately 11” back from beginning on each ikat warp.

Step 2: Tie and bind your warps by wrapping forward and then back over. Typically marks are measured on your warps, but my design was random.

Random Ikat Ties

54 end warp

5/2 cotton

Step 3: Scour (simmer) all cotton yarns using Synthrapol and Soda Ash for 45 minutes.

Step 4: Dye yarns using medium indigo Procion MX Dyes. Instructions from Pro-Chem. Rinse, rinse and rinse with Synthrapol.

Shifting the warp to produce the shimmer of ikat can happen two threads at a time while threading the loom but also by staggering cord ties! My middle section had 9 shifted bouts (staggered warps) of 6 ends for the 54 end center of the warp. The ikat warps (totaling 54 ends) on the sides had 3 shifted bouts of 18 ends each. The greatest shift occurred at the center as one would expect. Because the shift was not as great as I had hoped for on the sides, I used as additional dowel to produce additional shift in the areas.

20/2 silk by Red Fish 2012 Convergence in Long Beach was finally arrived at for weft. Ikat weaving weft yarns should be a finer weight than the warp to produce a warp-faced weave.

Staggered Bundles with additional shift from dowel

Close up view staggered bundles (18 ends)

Our three day conference and time with Mary was just fabulous with a great group of weavers. Although I only wove a sample at MAFA, I was eager to get home and weave my warp ikat and do more indigo palette icedyeing…

And now that I’m home, I’m already threading up another project! I didn’t have enough pre-dyed warps from my stash of natural dyed indigo and also an indigo ice-dye palette I created this past spring. A palette is defined as a group of colors that an artist might use. So in my ice-dye tub are shades of indigo, a touch of Wedgewood blue, bronze, and wand wood fiber reactive dies with small sections of tied resists. I did some color studies prior to MAFA and also on my return. I’ve also ordered some ikat tape from Maiwa. I can’t wait to weave more magical cloth! The images below show test samples on the left and natural dip-dyed indigo yarn on the left mixed with three different indigo palettes of fiber reactive dyes.

Top L: Indigo, Wandwood Sample

Right: Indigo, Sky, Midnight Blue Ikat

Ice Dyed Warp with Pleats

Mary shared an excellent resource called Mordant Mondays from Botanical Colors following the conference. To read, click the button below.

Jane Eisenstein, our fabulous workshop coordinator, used texsolve cords on her back rod to shift the yarns at different lengths. Following the workshop, she provided a link to a rod that fits the texsolve cords more easily on Amazon. The button below will take you there.