Done.

Finished the weaving yesterday evening, the fabric strip has now been zigzagged and washed. Just need to hem and take photos now.

I had planned to make two tea towels, and see how much loom waste I ended up with. I got the tea towels, and a square face cloth, plus a smaller sampler (all up I think I had enough for three tea towels). I got within 40cm of the end of the warp, and had about 10cm lost for the tie on to start with. All in all I'm quite impressed - I expected to have more loom waste than that. I do plan to try and avoid working quite so close to the end of the warp again, it was rather awkward. But I know I can do it if I need to.

Next project is possibly a lightweight blanket. I have to do lots of planning first though, including counting heddles to see how many I have.

I'm aiming to get photos of the weaving I've just done sometime in the next few days.

Hin und wieder details

Here is the draft for the second tea towel:


Both warp and weft on these are cottolin - the warp is mostly natural, weft mostly blue. I used both these yarns in the summer and winter napkins, but the napkins had a cream cotton warp, the natural cottolin was the tabby weft and the blue was the pattern.

I'm starting to try and think about the next weaving project now - only problem is, I don't know what I want to make next.

And it's going!

The loom is now officially happy. I got it threaded up and started weaving a little while ago now, but have only just gotten around to collecting evidence.

The loom:


And the weaving:
First, just to prove that it's on the loom and looks happy.


This warp is supposed to be two tea towels. It's partly a trial run of the loom to get used to how it feels before doing anything more major. It's also a check to see how much loom waste and stuff I end up with.

So far I've woven one and a half. The patterns are hin und wieder, the first one was a draft I got from handweaving.net. The second one was a tie-up that I designed.

First one:


And the second one, which I like better:


I'm hoping to get the warp finished in time to have the tea towels washed, and possibly hemmed, by Tuesday evening...

The Loom appears to be happy (fingers crossed)

After a few days of confusion, I think I've just fixed up the last few things on the loom set up. I had been having problems with the warp beam tension - I couldn't get it to wind forwards, no matter how hard I tried. Meg (MegWeaves) was helping me work through issues that I might have, and after a flash of inspiration I realised my brake cable was twisted on the drum. After a bit of fiddling, it's all straightened out, and seems to work much more happily now.

Fingers crossed that I won't run into too many more problems in weaving...

And some photos...

First of all a couple of napkin pictures:





I'm reasonably happy with how these came out. Next time I try summer and winter I'll have to actually use a finer tabby weft...

And now for the loom pictures. First of all, the table loom shoved ignominiously out of the way in the library. (Yes we have a library, or at least a room where all the bookshelves live. And yes, that is a soft toy lobster on one of those shelves...)


And the replacement model. It's distinctly bigger than the table loom...


I think I may have to move the loom a bit further out from the wall, but I'm hoping not.

I managed to get the rest of the setup done today, and have done a tie up for my first pattern attempt (a Hin und Wieder pattern). I haven't wound the warp yet, but I'm planning to make a couple of tea towels, probably changing the tie up for each one. I think it's even vaguely possible that I may manage to start weaving before I have to go back to work on Monday.

Festive towel photo (finally)

And here is the long awaited photo. I really haven't managed to do them justice, I think I really need to work on taking artistic photos rather than just utilitarian ones. I have no photos of the calendar because it managed to get tidied away while I was away for Christmas, and I haven't sorted through the tidied stuff yet.



Needless to say, I really like these towels. I haven't managed to bring myself to use them yet - I think they may end up being used as hand towels (I would keep them for using on good china or silverware, but we don't have any...)

All in all a fun exchange.