Actually done something.

Finally got around to working on the blanket again. I think most of the mistakes have been fixed now, and I'm a quarter of the way through twisting the fringing. I appear to not be able to count though, so I had to rearrange the spacing a little bit.

Will check for mistakes again when the fringing is done, and if I don't find any then it might just about be washing time.

Oh dear...

I really have been very slack. Still nothing new on the loom, and I haven't even finished fixing up the mistakes in the blanket.

In my defence I have been kind of busy with other stuff - I've managed to come up with a few sewing (and embroidery) projects with deadlines. There may be some related weaving, but that will depend how the sewing goes, and what else crops up.

It seems a little sad having my loom sitting in the corner of the lounge all naked and unloved, but I really want to get some of the embroidery out of the way before I expand the project to include weaving.

Blanket!

Is off the loom. No accidental linking of layers, but there are at least a few mistakes/skips to fix up.

That is all. No idea what comes next.

Finally weaving again

After weaving a couple of inches I realised that I'd messed up the treadling order, so the loom got ignored for a while.

Tonight I undid my few inches, and have redone them plus a bit more. And as a bonus I modified the way the fold was sleyed (stretched out to half an inch wider). Looks like it's still pulling in a bit more than it technically should, but I'm not really too concerned about it.

I'm not in any particular hurry at the moment - I now need to refill my bobbin, but I'll soon be up to the next colour, and I don't have more bobbins yet (collecting them on Saturday).

Or not...

Monday night I dealt with the tie up. Last night I tied it all up and did 4 shots of waste yarn. And then I realised that I'd tied it up wrong. I'm aiming for double width huck lace, but I failed to tie every second treadle the "other" way. So I was basically getting a very dense 3-1 twill. Sigh.

And I think I may have already broken a warp thread (hit by the shuttle, I think).

I guess tonight I will be retying 4 treadles and trying again (maybe with slightly more shuttle control, and probably more care).

I have a funny feeling this may turn into a nightmare project, depending on how easily my warp breaks...

Progress! But no photographic evidence...

I managed to get the heddles all threaded by the end of Friday (Hurrah!). On Saturday I sleyed it, and yesterday I tied all the ends so all I need to do now is tie it onto the front beam. Maybe tonight... And then I'll have to start organising (and winding) shuttles. Oh, and I've just realised that I still need to sort out my tie up.

I have no photos though. I think I have taken some, but our home internet is currently down, so no uploading will be happening until Thursday night (at the earliest).

I have been slack.

I said in the last post that I hoped to have the loom threaded by the end of the week. It still isn't done. It took me a while to even get the warp wound on, and I broke half a dozen threads in the process.

I then had to actually work out what my threading was, which I did last night. And then I started threading. I got about 10% done, and it took me just over an hour (I think). Which isn't too bad, I guess. I'm aiming to get a bit more done tonight, and then I'm hoping that I will in fact be able to get it all done by the end of this Friday (another day off work).

And as a complete aside, Geodyne gave me this


Of course, this means I'm supposed to do things like nominating more people for it. Only problem is, I think most of the blogs I read have already seen it. So to anyone out there that hasn't, I'm sorry I missed you - you're welcome to take it.

Results of dyeing

Dyeing is all done now, and I (finally) have photos.

First attempt:


The pink on top is what the yarn started out as. It's a linen/synthetic blend (2 plies, the pink is synthetic, the linen is pale brown)

The one on the right was supposed to be much more purple - this was closer to the burgundy I wanted to make later (unfortunately I wanted a different quantity of that).

The not-really-purple was then overdyed with some more blue, and at the same time I dyed the burgundy:


The green is my favourite. And here is a closeup of it, to show how different the two plies are.


This photo shows the sheen on the linen to some extent, but it is actually even prettier.

And last night I got nearly half the warp wound. I'm hoping that I can get it all ready for weaving by the end of Friday.

More dyeing

Got another two batches of dyeing done tonight - purple and green. The green looks like it's pretty much exactly what I wanted, the purple may be a bit redder than I was aiming for. I'll have to see what they look like when they're dry (and take photos), but I may change my plans slightly. I had been planning to do the fourth colour as a burgundy, but if the purple is too red then I may pick something completely different.

Dyeing and ribbon

I managed to get some dyeing done this weekend. Wasn't sure how it would turn out, but it actually worked approximately how I had hoped. The yarn is a 2 ply, one ply is a pale brown linen, the other ply a dusty rose synthetic. I used Earth Palette reactive dye (blue), and as I had hoped the pink failed to take any of it. The blue is actually darker than I had thought it would be (I suspect because I used the weight of the yarn, rather than the weight of the linen for my calculations). I'm still trying to work out whether I want to do a purple batch too. I think I may have to dig out one of my other dye pots and do two batches at once next time.

The tablet weaving is progressing slowly - it works well when I can sit down and work on it uninterrupted, but it's not so good when I'm trying to do things like cooking dinner at the same time. It's about 50cm long so far. There are a few mistakes, and the tension is horribly uneven (both of these are at least partly because of not just working on it constantly). I still like the effect of the floats, and I definitely like my new cards (super-thin plywood, rather than playing cards). They're much easier to manipulate, and seem to tangle a lot less than the playing cards did.

I'm not sure how well the ribbon will photograph - I'll have to have a good play and see just how good my camera is at close-ups.