Hand purled plaid

[AKScott]

Is there anything "incorrect" or less desirable about having tassels with more than two colors?

mookien

I do not know.

Looking carefully at the available pics online I am guessing a lot of commercially purled stuff is just 3+3+3+3+3+3+3+ to the other end of the workpiece and the colors fall where they may.

For the small pieces having two colors twisted to the right just doesn't look good, to my eye. For the larger twisted to the left I personally like either monochorome or two tone. So that is how I made mine look.

If I do another one someday in clan Scott I will probably make all the purls monochrome. It looked sort of elementary to my eye when I experimented with it, so I took those back out. Someday I will have one of each.

When I am done tying knots I am going to message BarbT. I think I'll have it drycleaned, then check the tension on all the knots and then trim off my fuzzy tips.

I want to check with her before I do that and have bolded your question above for her future convenience.

[mookien]

AKScott,

Thank you for responding to my question. Hopefully, Barb T. can shed light on the difference between purling and braiding, assuming there actually is one.

Using your notation my commercial plaid is more like 3 + 0 + 3 ... + 0 +3, where the zeros represent stretches of plaid in which there are no braids (or purls, whichever term is correct), ie the threads are simply not braided. The distance between each braid is about 1", but there is about 1/2" of space between each braid where the threads simply run to the edge of the tartan, as they would in an unfringed scarf. I don't know how they do that, but the net effect is that only about half the total length of the plaid is braided. I assume it requires much less handwork that way, and thus is less expensive.

In any case the purling on your plaid is a lot more delicate and refined than that on mine, and shows considerably more craftsmanship. I think my plaid is beautiful, but yours is going to be stunning. I suspect the price of mine would have more than doubled, if whoever made it spent as much time and care as you are doing on yours. Post a picture, so we can all admire it, when you are finished. :-)

mookien

[AKScott]

27.5 hours to do all four sides of a half meter of double wide. It will be a while before I take that on again, this one is done:

[mookien]

Spectacular! And stunning. Congratulations! You've created an heirloom.

mookien

[piperdbh]

Hopefully, Barb T. can shed light on the difference between purling and braiding, assuming there actually is one.

I'm not Barb, and won't presume to speak for her, but purling (in this sense) is the art of twisting a group of a few strands of thread in one direction, then twisting the groups together in the opposite direction, like AKScott has done here. Braiding (or plaiting, as the old folks call it) is the art of taking 3 or more strands and passing them over and under and around each other, like "pigtails" which little girls used to wear in the hair.


Beautiful work, by the way, AKScott. You've almost inspired me to purl my half-plaid. It's a 54" square. Think I'll have it done by Christmas?

[AKScott]

Beautiful work, by the way, AKScott. You've almost inspired me to purl my half-plaid. It's a 54" square. Think I'll have it done by Christmas?

Depends on how stubborn you are. Not to diminish the kind words about virtuous patience already in this thread; I am patient and relatively virtuous, but really I am stubborn like a red headed stepchild on a sugar high.

I agree about the difference between braiding and purling. I spent a little google time on the question, I came up with nothing for braided tartan, braided plaid, braided fringe, I got nothing.

The piece of tartan I worked was not plain weave, but rather more like a sateen sheet. On the piece I have the shuttle thread went over two and under one, over two and under one. The next shuttle pass skips a warp thread, then over two and under one, over two and under one. Grouping three three-sies into a single braid would be quite sound from an engineering perspective, I think. Not sure about the aesthetics.

I did arrange the finished scarf into the obvious major pleating styles:

Pleated to the "un stripe" or lawn chair effect as Rocky calls it:



Pleated to the wide green stripe:



Pleated to the nemesis stripe:



Edit: pleated to first white stripe only:



And finally, if I order a second tank I think I'll have it in red pleated to the double white:

[mookien]

dbh: I still don't know the correct terminology, but your description seems to accurately differentiate between my plaid's "coarser" tassels and AKScott's more refined ones.

Looking closely (through a magnifying glass) at the "tassels" on my plaid and gently tweaking the threads apart so that I could count them, I determined that it is made as follows:

Each tassel is formed from 30 - 40 threads. That's why the tassels are relatively widely space. These threads are separated into smaller groups so that each group is the same color, ie if the color changes in the tartan, a new smaller group begins. The threads in each monochromatic group are then twisted together, as is done in the purling.

Next, about 3 or 4 of these twisted groups are braided together (as you describe) and knotted at the end. From this I conclude that AKScott's plaid is purled and knotted and my plaid is braided and knotted. I hope that's right.

Thanks for your help.

-mookien

[AKScott]

30-40 threads. Seriously? Wow, I bet your individual fringes are much longer than mine. I pulled thread until I had between 2 1/8 and 2 1/4 inches of fringe (5.4 to 5.8 cm of fringe), and then ended up with purls 1 1/4 inches (3.2cm) max. Many are shorter because of my big fat fingers.

2.54cm = 1.00 inches. Pleated to single white stripe added to post above.

[mookien]

AKScott: Each braided and knotted fringe on my plaid is 3" long. They are separated by about 1". I suspect my plaid is coarser than yours, because you expended a lot more time and effort purling, instead of braiding. I will try to post a picture as soon as I can find a web server for my .jpg images.

As you may have surmised, I was wrong in my previous posting writing that some threads were not included. They are all twisted into a nearby braid.

[AKScott]

I will try to post a picture as soon as I can find a web server for my .jpg images.

photobucket.com. Use the "direct link" button surrounded by img tags.

As you may have surmised, I was wrong in my previous posting that some threads were not included. They are all twisted into a nearby braid.

Sumrise suggests an appalling amount of intuition for a dude to posess. I am a dude, I merely suspected ;-)