Weaving With Fabric - again

Another project in the other studio is on my rigid heddle loom (mentioned in the previous studio post).  I thought I could use it to weave up the remaining fabric strips and make another tote, but so far, I'm wrong:-(  On this loom I'm not able to beat the fabric and yarn as hard as on the floor loom, and although it's still pretty, the fabric is sheer and not suitable for a bag of any kind.

This picture was taken a bit closer, and hopefully, you can see how open the fabric is (and this is with the warp tension released, so I don't think it will get any better).  Maybe this will be ok for a shawl or sheer curtain, but I've either got to learn how to make friends with this loom, or it may eitherbe  resigned to only weaving knitting yarns or on it's way out of the studio.  (If it was my only loom, and only creative outlet, I'm sure I'd spend more time experimenting, but I love my inkle and floor loom, and have the new tapestry loom to learn, while I've had this one for over a year, and still haven't fallen in love with it - maybe I'm just spoiled with the others???)

What was I thinking?

Actually, I do know what I was thinking, although when I planned this project, I didn't stop to figure out all the litle details such as how I would support the cross of both the main, hand-dyed warp and the stripes that would be inserted when warping the loom. Up until now, I've put all the warps on this loom from the back, because it has a built-in raddle along the top, that makes spreading the warp quite easy.

Lucky for me, I was taught to warp a table loom from the front, in the beginning weaving class that I took, and I purchased a 4-shaft weaving video, and both used some different techniques. So.... I've combined them. The cross in the main warp was held by my lease sticks, which I suspended between the castle and front beam, and the striped warp was held in my hand. At first, I threaded the first stripe repeat in the reed, and then couldn't see how I could keep it in my hand, and at the same time, work with the threads that were on the lease sticks. In the end, I secured them and finished threading the main warp, leaving spaces for the striped portion. It helped to have threaded one stripe, because I was able to count the number of reed slots needed as a sanity check, which was really helpful with a 1, 2 threading sequence!

Once the hand-dyed yarn was threaded in the reed, I went back and filled in with the stripes. I think the most difficult part was separating the strands of yarn at the cross, so that I could see what I was doing, because it was a bit stuck together from the dyeing process. Behind the reed, the yarn is tied into large groups with slip knots, so that I can take a break as I try to decide if it would be best to count and move heddles to the other side of the loom (I'll be threading the heddles from the back of the loom, instead of the front, as I usually do), but from the back, the heddles are on the wrong side. I guess I really know they need to be moved, but most of them are quite tight, so it will take some time to get it done, so I'm just procrastinating on what I need to do, as it took so long to get this far. I probably could have had the whole warp beamed and most of the threading done by now, if I was warping from the back, although I wouldn't have been able to insert the second warp, since I only have one warp beam.

At any rate, this is what it looks like now:

Color and Weave Pinwheels - warping

New year, new warp!

This is only my 5th project on this loom, with only a few projects made on my Ashford Knitter's loom and Schacht Inkle Loom last year, so I'm still a new weaver, learning as I go.....

Anyway, since I tend to just jump into learning new things, I have purchased some books and e-books with lots of projects that attracted me. Although some are well beyond my understanding right now, those that have projects that I'm able to follow are game for me. So here's the start of the new project Color and Weave Pinwheels from the an e-book, Winning Towels from Handwoven's 21st-Century Towel Contest. I figured I might as well start with a pattern that didn't take too many colors, but was calling to me (and now "jumping in" is more of an understatement).

The warp measurements and lengths are for 2 towels, and since I knew I'd need some practice space, and had purchased plenty of yarn, I made a 4-1/2 yard warp, the size of my warping board, hoping that I might get 4 towels, even if one is a bit smaller.


Front of the loom with yarn going over top, and spread in the built-in raddle on the back.



Back view of warp being wound on, with layers separated by heavy brown paper.



Close up of warp threads. The colors I'm using are cream, tan, rust, and a black accent.

Once the warp was wound onto the back beam, the texsolve heddles were threaded, and threads were temporarily secured with a little slipknot until they are threaded through the reed.

Oops fixed: I found a single long strand slipped out as I was beaming the warp, but couldn't tell where it came from. When I spread the yarn in the raddle, everything looked ok, so I can only assume that when I tied the end of one yarn to the beginning of another when winding the warp, it was not a good join. Anyways, I had purchased a couple large bobbins for lacemaking, and one came to the rescue, allowing me to wind the warp thread and keeping it from tangling (of course, I'm going to need to remember to lengthen it every once in a while).

Bamboo on Spring loom

The bad news is that I forgot to take pictures of my weaving progress, but the good news is that I was so excited I kept weaving in between all the other things one does preparing for Christmas and finished weaving the whole warp. I haven't measured it, guess I should before washing, but I wove as much as I could of the 4-1/2 yard warp (assumption of length because I used every post on my 4-1/2 yard warping board).



Even though I'm a beginner, first warp on a loom, other than a rigid heddle or inkle loom, I had to try out a design and threaded this 8-shaft design which looks similar to a tiny braid, and would probably show up better with thicker, and more contrasting thread.

Along the way I learned many things, and will need to learn how to add plain weave selvedges, as I found that when I wove this pattern edge-to-edge, I had a loose thread along the outer edges that wasn't caught (maybe it would have been caught if I had started the shuttle on the opposite side?), so I only used it here and there, and played with using just two treadles at a time, creating a design that did catch the edges.

Once I used up all the bamboo weft thread I had, I wove the rest with a matching cottolin, which actually wove up without drawing in as much, and that area of the fabric is almost as soft as the all bamboo part.

Of course as soon as I removed this project from the loom, it was immediately warped again with another project.

spring warping part 1

A little while ago I saw an article with a projet for using Aunt Lydia's bamboo yarn (of course I can't find that inspirational article now), and happened to see the yarn in a local shop and purchased some (no, of course I didn't have any idea how much to buy, just guessed). I planned this pattern in my journal, and started to wind the warp for a multiple heddle test project on my Knitter's Loom, only to find out that I did not have enough of the correct colors, so just made do with what I had (I did reserve some for warp, and only time will tell if there is enough for all the warp).



Since it was wound and ready to go, and already planned as a test project, I decided it would now be the first warp on my Spring loom, and began to follow Jane Stafford's directions to warp the Spring loom from the Louet video. So far, I'm finding the only trouble I'm having is user error with the warping board (yeah, it's the first warp I've tried on it too:-) with a few ends that I tied to the post at the cross end, instead of tying to the next thread - oops! I did manage to figure out their positions and other than my errors, the warping is going along well. So far, I have the warp spread in the raddle, and hopefully I'll get it beamed later today (would love to continue now, but need to get some other things done first).

Lessons learned:

1. Always tie one end to another when changing colors, and if possible have it be at the opposite end of warp than the cross.

2. Put more ties on the warp before removing from the warping board (I only tied the cross around the X and through the loops, and had some twisting going on when I started putting it on the lease sticks, so had to fix one section twice (once to pick up threads I missed on one stick, and second time to untwist the end loop).

3. Post-it notes work very well for marking the center of the loom and the first raddle notch for spreading the warp.

Christmas came early

and guess what I got:




I had started out looking at table looms so that I could weave faster, and better than on my little rigid heddle loom, but in researching, thought a floor loom would be too large, too expensive, etc. I had looked at one used loom, but decided not to get it, as it needed work. My husband started a secret search, and found this Louet Spring loom. We went to see it last night, and were able to bring it home with us!

The partially woven warp is the same one that had been on it when the original owner purchased it, and although there are broken and loose warps, and I have no idea what the threading pattern was, I've found a simple treadling pattern that catches all the threads, and looks a bit like a crepe texture. I figured that I might as well weave off the remaining warp and work on my selvedges, as it feels like cotton, or cotton / linen that might be usable as a dish towel (or something).

The treadles and shafts are a bit sticky, so once I take the fabric and remaining warp off the loom it will be getting a thorough cleaning, as well as whatever else it needs to run smoothly.