Insanity Looms

Lots of pictures, and why my loom gets to be dismantled again.

2011-06-30T20:02:00.002+12:00

On the 13th of June, my nice new craft room went from looking like it did in this post, to looking like this:

(Okay, the photos aren't fabulous, but it's been tidied up somewhat now. It was kind of tricky to find an accessible place to get a decent shot from).

Our house is currently a little chilly:

All the broken windows except the bulging leadlight have been boarded up now, but we still have some nice cracks through the walls too:

(the edge of the carpet is where the window frame used to sit, and that really is a gap through to the outside world that you can see at the edge of the floor)

And this old chimney is of some concern safety-wise:

The wood panelling is split and bulging where the bricks have moved. That's not an entirely comfortable room to be in at the moment...

The end result is that we'll be moving in just over a week (and we're hoping that we're not going to be told we have to move out before then!). Still got lots of packing to do before then. I'm not sure how long it's going to take to get the loom set up again this time though. (I have at least been managing to get some knitting done - it's portable and good for relaxation)

Here we go again

2011-06-13T21:36:00.002+12:00

My craft room no longer looks nice and neat like it did in the previous post, courtesy of the magnitude 5.5 and 6 aftershocks we got today. The stick shuttle through the wardrobe door handles snapped, and the boxes are now strewn all over the floor. My loom backed itself over to the wall, and my (cast iron, weighs a ton) sewing machine fell off the desk.

Pretty much everything else in there seems to have fallen over too, and there is more plaster (chunks and dust) all over everything.

The rest of the house isn't really that much better either, so now the clean up starts all over again.

(Ridiculously, the picture we have in the lounge that has slowly been migrating along the wall since September has nearly reached the window now, and is still perfectly straight!)

I'm sure there will be some photos eventually, just not quite yet. One day at a time...

Loom!

2011-06-09T08:21:00.003+12:00

And it's (approximately) set up!

Next step is working out what's going on it first, and getting everything nicely aligned...

Nearly a loom!

2011-05-17T18:39:00.003+12:00

There really has been progress on the craft room front now. Still plenty more to do, but it has started to be functional.

The loom will be going in the nice open space next to where it's currently leaning against the wall.

And next to that is this:

The sewing desk, which actually got used today (albeit briefly), and the fabric wardrobe. (The ridiculously long stick shuttle is just to decrease the risk of boxes of fabric escaping if we get another decent sized aftershock. In normal circumstances the doors do actually stay closed by themselves.)

I'm not sure how long it's going to be before it all needs rearranging - the windows in the photos need work, and the room underneath needs some walls rebuilt. But until then I can at least pretend that I've nearly got a functional loom.

Belated shawl post

2011-04-28T11:21:00.002+12:00

I just realised that with the lead up to Christmas madness, I completely forgot to post this!

My first (complete) attempt at creating a knitting pattern.

This photos shows a bit more detail of the actual lace pattern, it also has a wonderful shot of our scruffy lawn at the time.

I used a 3.75mm needle, and the yarn is Baby 2 ply from The Wool Company at Utiku that I dyed. I had 6 grams left over from the 100g ball, which means it took about 560m. The pattern can be made in any size yarn, and the number of repeats can be modified to suit the yarn and desired shawl size. The pattern has both written instructions and charts.

And the link to download the pattern is here: download now (pdf, 716KB)

And the loom starts to make a comeback

2011-04-27T09:57:00.002+12:00

My loom now has somewhere to be set up, and all the bits are leaning against the wall waiting for me to do something with them. I also have the sewing desk in the same room, which is awfully convenient.

Next step is sorting through all the yarn and fabric and working out what the best storage method is going to be. I think that in the long term it would be nice to have shelves for yarn, but that will probably wait until after any repairs etc have happened. There are two wardrobes that will probably just get filled with stash boxes in the shorter term.

Photos to come eventually...

And there are pictures

2011-02-27T11:16:00.004+13:00

It's now time for a quick photo tour around our house.

We still have some lawn:

But not as much as we'd like:

More broken windows:

Exposed brickwork:

Less wine:

A larger house:
\

A now unjammed back door:

A new floor storage system:

And some bonus daylight:

We also have power and a road that hasn't been closed (yet). (This is the main road near our place, it's a bit worse further along). No water or sewers yet, don't know if we've managed to acquire any portaloos either. (Currently not home, heading back again tomorrow to see how things are).

We do still have jobs to go to, it's just a matter of getting there. The cat has been sighted and fed multiple times since Tuesday, but he's spending a lot of time in hiding. Really, we could be a lot worse off (but would have been quite happy without all this).

Oh dear.

2011-02-24T08:08:00.003+13:00

It's been a while since I last updated, hasn't it. Unfortunately, not much weaving has happened since then, and it's looking even more unlikely now.

I just moved the loom bits upstairs into the spare bedroom because I didn't expect to be able to put it back together where it was. And then we had another blow.

Tuesday 22nd of February, just before 1pm we had another big quake. Only a 6.3 this time, but very close to town and 5km deep. I won't go into too much detail, but here's a link to an article about it. The short version is that the damage here is much, much worse than back in September, and they're still trying to rescue people from rubble. Thankfully we're okay, but our area has been hit quite hard. (Photos to come eventually). Our garden is full of silt, up to a foot deep, and our house now has much worse cracking. (The previous broken wall now has a small gap that we can see daylight through). We managed to get our phone and power back last night, which was earlier than we were expecting, but there is still no water (and probably won't be for a while yet). The worst damage we've seen in our immediate area is down by the river where the road is now multi-level, with at least a metre in variation, and huge cracks. (And it's all dropped below the level it started at).

Much more excitement than I would like to have had, and I don't think I'm the only one. We're all hoping for the rest of the search and rescue operations to be as successful as possible.

I got there eventually, right?

2010-11-24T21:02:00.003+13:00

The towel is finally washed.

Still no word on when I can put the loom back together though. I'm managing to get some non-weaving stuff done though, so I guess that counts for something.

Starting to have plenty of ideas for what to weave when the loom is back together, I'm not yet sure which one is going to win.

And something on the weaving front

2010-10-25T13:35:00.003+13:00

My weaving is finally done!

No finished photos yet, I haven't washed it or anything.

My loom is now in pieces leaning against the lounge wall:

And the reason why:

And a close-up:

My timing appears to be good though - the deconstruction happened yesterday, and today the EQC inspectors turned up. And now to wait for the next part of the process...

More dyeing photos

2010-10-25T13:31:00.002+13:00

The new dyeing from the last post has turned into this

(Hint - it's a bag. It's not finished yet, still got lots of edging to go, and felting.)

And more dye has happened:

It is destined to be some sort of shawl, and I think I've worked out what I want to do with it.

More dye!

2010-10-01T13:24:00.002+13:00

Firstly, the shawl in the last post is finished

I had 0.8g of yarn left over(about 7m). I call that success.

And on Tuesday some more dyeing happened.

I intend to get better photos when it has finished drying, and after reskeining. In theory there are three skeins in each of those colours, which may or may not make things Interesting.

Fun with dye

2010-09-22T10:20:00.004+12:00

A while ago now I did some more dye experimenting.

The main target started out like this:

And turned into this:

(Pattern is Vernal Equinox (sorry, I could only find a Ravelry link) by Lankakomero)

The other part of the dye session was an experiment to try and create a gradient yarn. This was the result:

The reason I'm finally posting about it? I've started knitting it to test whether it actually works. Pattern is Echo Flower by Jenny Johnson Johnen.

I think I've done nearly as many repeats of the main pattern as I can get away with, and will be starting the border pattern soon.

I've decided the yarn colour is Magnolia:

And to show how it's coming out so far:

I was a little disappointed by the first couple of colour changes, and then I got up to the pink section. It seemed to be going on for a long time until I noticed that it had sneakily changed colour while I wasn't looking...

A bit of excitement

2010-09-06T21:43:00.004+12:00

At 4.35 on Saturday morning we awoke to this:

Well, that's actually a lie. We awoke to darkness, and made a quick dash for the door. This is the aftermath - the chests of drawers fell after we reached the door. (Bedroom door is visible open at top left, the door on the right is the wardrobe).

Somehow our emergency torch had managed to stay on top of the kitchen bookshelf. Next stop was into the library:

We had guests there that needed rescuing:

(Okay, we should have had the shelves screwed to the wall. We hadn't quite got that far...)

A brief investigation into the dining room showed that wooden wall-fixed wine racks seem to work much better than metal free-standing ones:

Impressively, there were only 3 broken wine bottles and one broken whisky bottle (nearly empty anyway). There was also a wine bottle with a cracked lid, which was only discovered later.

The loom appears to be perfectly fine. I'm not particularly surprised though - I think it would have taken something big falling on it to even have a chance of denting it.

We then had a while of sitting around listening to the radio. The reports started with some helpful observations like 'Possibly an earthquake, maybe somewhere in the South Island'. There were also people phoning in with descriptions, and I think the most accurate (although possibly not very helpful) was that it was like the Napier earthquake simulator at Te Papa...

As the sky started to get lighter we managed to listen in surprise to the continuing lack of fatalities. I had been a bit worried about my workplace - playing with molten metal is a fairly important part of it, and that didn't seem like a good thing to be doing at the time. (Apparently they ran through it, and were not very badly affected at all).

After it was light we went and had a look outside. A bit of minor house damage, a few cracked windows etc. The houses on our street seem to look okay too, although the street has developed some terrain:

There is a quite impressive slump in the road (no actual cracking) a block further on than these photos too.

In conclusion: Wooden buildings are fabulous. Our Civil Defence and local authorities have been doing a Very Good Job. I prefer not to wake up before dawn. It's important to have an accessible emergency torch. It's surprising how quickly you can come to ignore tremors of around magnitude 4-5. It's not surprising how quickly you can get sick of said tremors. The weaving will probably be delayed a bit longer.

If you want more actual detail, try here

Excessive photography...

2010-08-24T21:14:00.003+12:00

Tea towel (unwashed)!

Shrinkage was negligible on the width - maybe a few mm, and 2cm over the length (65cm shrank to 63cm). I still need to hem, but I'll wait until I've finished the warp, then I'll use some of the loom waste as sewing thread.

And post-washing:

and the other side

Close ups on the brocade sections:
Castles

Flowers

Unfortunately the blue cotton shrank a bit, making the edges draw in on the bands (I'd hoped it wouldn't, being an embroidery thread). It's not much shrinkage, but enough that I now know to be more careful on the next one.

The awful lines I was getting with my too-coarse reed have mostly gone (thanks to the tedious on-loom manipulation I was doing that took twice as long as the actual weaving). And as of today I have a new 16dpi reed. I'm half way through re-sleying, and I'm changing it to 64 epi (down from 70). That way, even if I do get lines they'll at least be regularly spaced in terms of the pattern.

Something off the loom

2010-08-23T12:07:00.002+12:00

I finally finished up the tea towel that I've been working on for far too long. I then very cleverly failed to take photos.

Results:
I have a new tea towel. I also have a new reed on the way, and will be resleying at 64 epi when it arrives (was 70). I'm hoping that the 16 dpi reed will help a lot with the nightmares I was having with 8 or 9 ends per dent. And I've started charting up a new pattern for the decorative bands for the rest of the warp. I'm still deciding whether to make tea towels or one long runner/towel though.

I'm mostly happy with my edges, but the last brocade band I did pulled in a bit.

Embroidery photos!

2010-07-25T21:34:00.004+12:00

Well, it's taken me a while to get the photos of the finished cushion off the camera, but it's finally done. I finished the pillow on the Saturday morning at about 9.30, the wedding was midday. I had hoped to get it finished a bit earlier than that, but various unforeseen circumstances conspired against me.

The colours in this photo are not quite accurate - the ribbon and edging cord were a little closer in colour to the silk, but other than that the colours are pretty good.

I enjoyed making this pillow, although I was glad to take a break from satin stitch when I was done.

Embroidery progress

2010-07-01T12:23:00.002+12:00

I'm definitely making progress now - I feel like I'm about a third of the way through the M. I'm having to be a bit careful of wear and tear on the thread, but I do feel like I'm getting better at this satin stitch thing. (I'm not feeling inclined to do any more any time soon though).

I did manage to remember to take a photo when I stopped stitching last night, so here it is:

The bottom half of both legs on the M are done, the top of the right leg is padded. About half of the rest is outlined - and in this photo you can actually see my yellow guide stitches, and the long tails where I'm pulling them out as I go. There is a little bit of unevenness on some of the edges, but I'm planning to outline everything with couched gold anyway.

I love the way the satin stitch looks, which I guess is probably the redeeming feature of the stitch. I'll try and get a daylight photo in the weekend (here's hoping for some not-too-gloomy weather).

Ring-pillow - started stitching

2010-06-28T13:26:00.002+12:00

First step, and one that I find oddly satisfying - transferring the design to the fabric. If the fabric is pale I will sometimes just trace onto it using a pencil or water-disappearing pen (not sure what the proper name for those is). On dark fabric I will sometimes use a pale coloured pen (white, gold etc) - but I mostly use this (and pencil) for sewing and marking seams rather than embroidery where you run the risk of being able to see it on the finished product.

Tracing has the advantage of being fast, but it also has a chance of rubbing off before you finish the embroidery. My favourite reliable method of transferring embroidery is as follows:

Step One - trace the pattern onto tissue paper. (This is the first time I've used tissue - in the past I've just used lunch paper. The tissue paper is definitely easier to remove in the last step though).

Step Two - pin onto the fabric, ideally with it held taut. Tack along the lines with sewing cotton, using a colour you can see. On straight lines you can use long stitches, shorter on curves.

Step Three - when you're done tacking, tear the paper off. This is where tissue paper is great - I found that it tore along the stitch lines much more easily than the heavier lunch paper.

Here's a photo showing halfway through removing the paper. It's a little hard to see the stitching (yellow on blue), but that's mostly because it's winter and the lighting is terrible. (Maybe I'll try this again in summer...)

After removing the paper you're ready to stitch. I'm picking the tacking stitches out as I go, but this will depend what sort of stitches you're doing. Because this is fine, I didn't want to be trying to pick out stitches that I couldn't really see when I'd probably stitched through the thread a zillion times.

The petals and leaves are done in satin stitch. First step is outlining in split stitch, then filling the middle with some longitudinal stitches, then the final pass of satin stitching.

This photo shows the three stages:

The three petals on the right are complete. The top left is outlined and filled, ready for the satin stitch, and the bottom left is just outlined.

I found that with the red I could do the satin stitch on 3 petals before the thread started looking a bit fuzzy, but I could only do 2 leaves with the green. I'm not sure if this is related to the dye, the age of the thread (both unknown), or something else.

At this point I have done both flowers, and the 6 leaves on the G. Still 5 leaves on the M left to go.

I intend to do the split stitch on the letters next, then see how I'm going for time. If I've got plenty of time then I'll satin stitch the letters too (and outline in gold), otherwise I'll leave them as a split stitch outline. The centre of the flowers, and the buds will be small pearls, and for the stems I intend to use gold thread couched with green.

Ring-pillow design details

2010-06-28T13:13:00.003+12:00

Over the weekend I got a pattern drawn up and transferred to the fabric.

The fabric is a medium blue dupion silk, which I've backed with calico. After messing around with colours a bit, I decided I had to options. One option was to make all the embroidery pale, which would look very pretty and delicate. The other option was to use the bold colours I had originally thought, and outline everything with metallic gold. I thought this was probably the better option for the recipient (the wedding dress is red, so the flowers match).

This meant that I chose to go with a cream for the letters, rather than gold - I didn't want to use both a yellow and a metallic gold, and I don't think my goldwork skills would be up to the delicacy of the letters.

Here is the pattern - both the original tracing, and the photocopy that I played around with colouring in.

I'm using DMC stranded cotton, mostly because of convenience. I only have two weeks, and I didn't want to lose time to waiting for silks I had ordered to arrive. (I may have been able to find the right colours locally, but I didn't want to rely on it).

I'm fairly sure the gold thread I have is Kreinik japan thread, but I've had it sitting around on an old sewing thread spool for a while so I can't be sure.

And the embroidery makes an entrance

2010-06-25T13:10:00.005+12:00

Okay, sometimes I do things that aren't weaving. I think this is the point at which I decide to give in and post a few of them, if I deem them to be worthy. (Also, if I'm doing something that means I'm not weaving, then I should still try to post occasionally).

I have a giant cross-stitch under way that I expect to take approximately forever. It doesn't actually eat weaving time, because I only work on it in my breaks at work. I started about 8 months ago, and I think I might be nearly 1/8th done.

The dotted lines mark the centre - as you can see there's still quite a lot left to do.

More importantly though, I've been asked to make a wedding ring cushion for a friend who is getting married in 2 weeks. I have been given some fabric, ribbon and thread, which I can use or not as I see fit. Beyond that, the specification is that it should be about 20cm square, it should have nice long ribbons on it, and it can have a 'G' and 'M' if I feel like it.

This is the drawing, fabric and thread I was given.

Because I've only got two weeks for this project from start to delivery, I need to try not to make it to complicated. There are some nice monogram patterns on Needle 'n Thread (M here and G here). I'll probably use these letters, although the G could do with some modification to make it look less like a C. I think the letters will be in gold, the leaves and vines in green, and the flowers red with a pearl in the middle.

At this point, though, everything could change. I'll see how I feel about it when I've drawn out a few designs, and played with colours (and then had another look in daylight).

And more progress - with photos

2010-06-25T11:54:00.002+12:00

I have weaving, but it's been a bit of a battle. I was pleasantly surprised to find that 70 epi wasn't completely and utterly wrong. I was less pleasantly surprised to find that I should, in fact, be using a reed finer than 8 dpi.

(Okay, there wasn't much surprise there. I've only got the one though - next thing on the loom-mod list will be getting a new one. It'll probably by 16 dpi, since that's the finest I've managed to find anywhere in this country, and I really don't want to know what overseas shipping would be on a 48" reed...)

It appears that sleying with 8 or 9 ends in each dent is suboptimal, and gives this effect:

See those stripes on the right? Yeah. Luckily I have found a way to redeem this (I can't imagine it would work on less sturdy threads though). It's very tedious and takes about twice as long as the actual weaving. What I have to do is take a pin, and stroke along the diagonals to move the threads to where they should be sitting.

So I spend about 45 minutes weaving 3 diamonds, and then the next hour and a half realigning all the warp threads. I'm nearly at the end of the first tea towel now, and I fully intend to get a new reed for the rest of the warp. (And while I'm about it I think I'll change to 64 epi - the diamonds could be quite happily be a little shorter. Also, making the towels wider can't possibly be a bad thing).

And because I actually managed to remember to take a photo before it disappeared underneath the loom entirely, here's the decorative bands:

They're entirely manual. (Also tedious, but at least I feel like I'm achieving something with this)

I think the positive outweighs the negative in this project. The negative is all the tedious things I've already mentioned. The positive is that I've discovered that I can work with fine threads, that I've set up the electric drill for winding bobbins, and that I love the way the sample feels - it has all the soft crispness that I love in linen. I think the finished cloth will be very good for drying dishes. Next project is probably something less fine though...

Slow, but it is progress

2010-06-12T19:59:00.002+12:00

Right. Threading is now all done, and I have a sample. (I wasn't sure I was going to do one, but I spotted a threading mistake after weaving about 3 inches).

There was a bit of a delay on the threading - I managed to get a bumblebee sting on my arm, which meant I couldn't do any threading for about a week. (It's a very silly story, but no sillier than things that happened to other people I know at around the same time. I think there was just something strange in the air that week...)

And now that I've worked out what I'm doing, and that it looks like it should work it might be time for some details.

The warp is 40/2 combed cotton, and the weft is a linen single (25 lea, from memory). It's a 6 shaft twill, and the sett is 70 epi. I wasn't sure if I was going mad with that calculation, but it appears to work. The sample has a nice soft-but-crisp feel. I think this is possibly the point where I should mention that I love the feel of linen...

The threading begins

2010-05-15T21:00:00.002+12:00

Started threading heddles now. I suspect this will take a while. (About 60 heddles threaded so far, was interrupted to eat cake).

Will post again when I'm done. I'm still vaguely optimistic about getting everything set up by the 26th (next meeting).

Cake eaten, time to go back to threading!

Progress

2010-05-09T17:36:00.003+12:00

Warp wound on now. Next marathon will be threading. I suspect I should set up all the right numbers of heddles before I start, to try and avoid at least one headache when I start.

Time to go and calculate heddle numbers!

2010-05-04T18:49:00.004+12:00

Warp is all wound now. It may be too fine for me to weave competently, I hope not. I guess getting it threaded up by the next weaving meeting will count for something...

And in other news, my arms are tired. The cotton feels lovely running through my hands though.

And now I just need to clear out the stuff that's managed to get stashed inside my loom. Maybe tomorrow.

Plotting

2010-05-02T16:19:00.005+12:00

Started calculating out the tea towels. I think I may possibly be a little mad, and I'm currently trying to work out how long a warp I want to make. I'm somewhat limited by the length I can wind on my inkle loom (one day I'll either make/buy a warping board/mill, or possibly just make some more inkle loom pegs).

I haven't worked out my maximum length yet, and I don't know how long I want to be stuck on a fine cotton warp for. I suspect I'll do it as long as I can.

(Just had a play, the maximum length I can work out at the moment is about 3.8m. I guess that'll do.)

And back to reality

2010-04-27T19:40:00.002+12:00

Just got a weaving meeting reminder today, apparently it's tomorrow and not last week like I had thought. Oops?

I guess I should start thinking about tea towels, since they seem to be my destiny.

Some Clarification

2010-02-24T08:16:00.007+13:00

Just to clarify my previous post. I didn't make everything in that photo. I didn't make the beaded lace, I'm just sewing it on.

I did do the lace shawl: (Pattern is Crown Prince shawl, from Knitted Lace of Estonia by Nancy Bush. I am in love.)

I tried sizing this to fit, but it didn't shrink well. Not well at all.

And the embroidery: (Pattern is from Needle 'N Thread - a great embroidery blog)

There's a weaving link here - the embroidery is sitting on my weaving stool/bench in this photo...

I also didn't make the chair that it's all draped over...

Excuses...

2010-02-22T19:04:00.003+13:00

Okay, here's my excuse for having done nothing for ages:

Still working on it, but getting there. Planning to be back to the loom in a couple of months (if not before)

Next project

2010-01-04T10:02:00.001+13:00

Looks like the next project might be some more tea towels. I was planning to make something bigger, but I'm going to need to make more heddles for that. Thus, I will do the sampler version first (which is probably a smart plan anyway).

And with any luck the thrums will be adequate for making new heddles with...

Finally...

2009-12-22T17:30:00.002+13:00

First of all, here's a photo of the blanket.

Still got a few small bits and pieces to tweak, but it's essentially done. (Has been for the last month, too slack to take photos until now).

Next project isn't going to be a bag after all. Instead, I think it's going to be some towels (or possibly tea towels). I'd like to make a start over the Christmas break, but I don't know if that will actually happen or not.

New project thoughts

2009-11-26T14:57:00.003+13:00

I think the next project is going to be a bag. Probably also a sampler, to make for a decent length warp, but I'll see what sort of threading ideas I come up with.

I think I want to use something like mercerised cotton, whatever size is easiest to get hold of. At least two colours, maybe only two.

Slack at posting

2009-11-25T18:41:00.002+13:00

The blanket has been basically finished for a month now. (There are a couple more mistakes to fix that I spotted after washing, but nothing too awful. Also, the fringing is not all the same length at the moment).

And I still haven't taken a photo of it. I'll get there eventually, but I'm really struggling to force myself to do it sooner rather than later.

I'm also not sure what the next project will be, although for various reasons I don't know that I'll manage to get much done over the next six months. (I'd like to, and I'm itching to get something new on the loom, but I've got a whole bunch of other non-weaving stuff that I actually have a deadline for.)

So, short version: Next post should be blanket photos, but may instead be optimistic dreaming about the next project.

I guess I'll have to wait and see...

Actually done something.

2009-10-18T21:13:00.002+13:00

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...

2009-07-17T12:02:00.003+12:00

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!

2009-05-24T21:56:00.001+12:00

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

2009-04-22T22:00:00.002+12:00

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...

2009-04-01T14:49:00.002+13:00

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...

2009-03-30T09:29:00.002+13:00

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.

2009-03-26T12:29:00.002+13:00

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

2009-03-02T09:53:00.002+13:00

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

2009-02-25T21:25:00.002+13:00

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

2009-02-23T13:49:00.005+13:00

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.

New weaving

2009-02-12T09:22:00.002+13:00

I haven't managed to get any dyeing done so far, but I did start a new piece of weaving. Tablet weaving this time, it's just a small green satin ribbon to use as a lacing cord. It's made to this design (Third pattern here). I'm only using 14 cards though - 2 on each side for the border. I wasn't sure it was working to start with, but it's now about 10cm long and I'm quite happy with how it's working.

I've planned for it to be about 1m long, and it's about 5mm wide. It may actually be a bit wider than I wanted, but I'll see what it's like to use when it's done.

Weekend progress

2009-02-09T16:57:00.002+13:00

This weekend I managed to get around to buying a notebook, with the theory that I'll use it for keeping track of weaving stuff. And it's kind of worked so far (admittedly I've only had it for two days).

Thus far I have done more planning for the next project than I had managed in the weeks of pondering that I've had until now. It's going to be a blanket with huck lace panels, woven double width. I managed a couple of pages of calculations, the result of which was me winding some skeins of yarn for dyeing. I'm hoping to get them washed tonight in preparation, and if I'm doing really well I'll be able to wind the warp in the weekend. If I'm not doing so well I may have to get some more (possibly different) dye.

And once I've done that I shall have to start collecting notes for the other things I want to try...

Photos (finally)

2009-02-04T09:37:00.002+13:00

I took these photos last week, but only got around to uploading them last night. The photos showing a lighter blue are closer to the actual colour.

First tea towel:
Whole thing

Close up on front

Close up on back

Second tea towel:
Whole thing

Close up on front

Close up on back

Third piece (face cloth perhaps?):

Last bit - just a sampler to see how close to the end of the warp I could comfortably get.

My favourite pieces are the white cloth and the second tea towel. And I now have a better feel for my loom, which was the real point of the exercise.

Done.

2009-01-26T21:28:00.002+13:00

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

2009-01-24T17:41:00.002+13:00

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!

2009-01-23T21:10:00.002+13:00

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)

2009-01-05T18:33:00.002+13:00

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...

2009-01-01T22:02:00.004+13:00

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)

2009-01-01T21:56:00.002+13:00

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.

New loom!

2008-12-31T20:56:00.003+13:00

After a nice Christmas break away, we picked up the new loom on the way home. It took a little bit more fiddling than I expected to fit it into the van, but that was mostly because we already had a wood lathe and workbench in there (yes, this was the Christmas of Large Toys). After clicking the 'Buy' button, I had had a few second thoughts - what if it turned out to be a mistake (for one reason or another). I spent the last couple of days clearing out the loom corner, and evicting the table, and stacks of fabric and junk. And then this evening I started to build the loom.

It is a 48" David Thorpe 8 shaft Countermarche loom with a second back beam, which looks like a much more serious piece of machinery than my mother's small jack loom. From a bit of hunting online I get the impression that it is very similar in design to a Glimakra, but built in NZ. The ad had said it was 6 years old (which I doubted even at the time), but I can categorically say that it is at least 20 years old, although probably not much more. There is a letter to the original owner from 1988 answering some setup questions, and the phone number on the plate on the side of the loom only has three digits...

From carrying the pieces in from the garage to getting everything attached that should be took about 4 hours (although there was a dinner break in the middle of that). It appears that it is possible to assemble the loom singlehanded, although it is a bit interesting to start with - trying to balance crossbeams on shoulders and things to get the second side on...

It's a very solid loom, and I mostly enjoyed the process of assembling it. It would have been a bit easier to do the first part with a bit of help (see previous paragraph), but I'm nothing if not stubborn. It would also have been more fun if it was a bit cooler (got up to 28°C today - probably not too hot by many standards, but still far too hot for me to be comfortable).

I still need to adjust all the lengths of everything, and really come to terms with how a countermarche works, but I got through far more of the building than I expected to (aided by finding some instructions, even if it was only a single A4 sheet). I'm guessing that the previous owner never actually used all the shafts, so the back four were missing some of the strings. I've replaced them with other bits, but I don't know what I'll run short of later... I think having to assemble the back four shafts was probably useful for getting a better idea of how it works.

And just as a bonus, with the way it's constructed it looks like it shouldn't be too hard to upgrade to having more shafts. Getting too many more pedals in could be interesting, but there is physically room in the frame for at least 8 more shafts should I decide I want to go that way.

The disadvantage of this whole floor loom thing is that I no longer have a table to store my boxes of yarn and dye stuff under, which means I'll probably have to keep them somewhere other than the lounge. I guess really I'm just lucky that our lounge is big enough to fit a (fairly large) loom in the corner without really noticing it too badly.

I have a zillion things to take photos of to post, so I will try to make tomorrow photography day so I can show off my new toy.

I am also planning a post on my warp weighted loom, since I've had a few questions, so I'll try and get that properly written up sometime in the next few days.

Results of the experiment

2008-12-19T21:54:00.000+13:00

Here is the post that I thought I'd lost, about the comparison between weaving from the warp weighted loom and the horizontal table loom. And there are now photos...

I know, the background colour isn't great for this...
Old:
Width - 85mm
ppi - approx 32/4"
stretch - 50cm unstretched to 57cm stretched

New:
Width - 82mm
ppi - approx 31/4"
stretch - 50cm unstretched to 56/57cm stretched

I think the conclusion I can reach here is that the wool itself is extremely stretchy. I could possibly do more experimenting and come up with slight differences, but given that there was a couple of years between the two pieces of weaving I don't think I can really conclude that there is any real difference between these pieces. The actual weaving process is quite different. To try and get the same weft density on the table loom I had to use a denser sett on the selvedges, and then I still had to beat very lightly. On the warp weighted piece the warp density is actually lower towards the edges - I suspect that this is mostly through inexperience with a warp weighted loom.

I think both looms have their particular advantages and quirks, depending on the project. The warp weighted loom has (in some ways) more flexibility than the horizontal loom. It theoretically has an unlimited number of shafts, and with a clever tie up can have warp threads attached to more than one heddle rod (this is one of those things that messed me up when I was trying to tie the heddles on the 2-2 twill currently on it - it took me a couple of attempts to work it out). I guess you could think of it as having an infinite number of shafts, with the heddle rods being a treadle equivalent. Too many will get confusing, but you can use as many as you like at one time. It's much harder to change the tie-up though.
Probably my favourite part is that you don't have to wind the warp onto anything, and tension is much less hassle. The downside is that you have to move the weights, which I think would get pretty annoying on a wide cloth.

The horizontal loom is a more sophisticated machine. It has a lot of added features that help to make a good, reliable end product. The reed helps to get a tighter beat, as well as holding your cloth at (or at least close to) a fixed width. (You can kind of do this on the warp weighted loom by fixing the spacing on the heddles, but it's not as neat). The threading is a lot faster, and I think it's also easier to fix mistakes. You are limited to however many shafts you have built in, but I guess you could add heddle bars to a horizontal loom too...
You have to wind the warp onto the back beam too, which is my least favourite part. The weaving is also a lot faster, which I think is the biggest advantage.

So overall, the same result appears to be achievable with both looms. The stretch in the original band appears to be entirely due to the elasticity of the yarn. Which I guess really means that I don't really need to build a full size warp weighted loom.

A saga of photos

2008-12-18T20:57:00.004+13:00

So, the napkins are now off the loom. I've just pulled a (rather large) batch of photos off my camera, so I can now show what I've been doing over the last month. (Yes, I just discovered that some of the photos on my camera had been there for just over a month. I really don't know what I was thinking.)

First of all, the loom modifications. My table loom now has aprons at both front and back, which is (I think) the biggest thing I had planned to do. I've also added another hundred heddles, but that's not very exciting at all in pictures.

Secondly, the napkins. These are what was keeping me too busy to transfer photos for the last couple of weeks. Not sure what my excuse was before that...

These are a Christmas present, but I don't expect to have them hemmed and completely finished until the end of the year. That's fine by me, it's when I'll be seeing the recipient anyway. I finished them off in a fit of staying-up-too-late on Tuesday night. Most of the last one was very smooth - I was finally at the point where I was comfortably able to throw the (too short) stick shuttles through the shed relatively reliably. The last few inches were rather interesting though - I only just managed to squeeze it in. I was working with a teeny tiny shed (and having to manually push the heddle bars down), and it was right up against the reed - the one time that I have felt particularly grateful for having stick shuttles.

I had meant to have a photo of the back of the loom showing just how much warp was left, but I managed to fail to upload it. Needless to say, I physically could not wind it on any further (and that wasn't because I'd made the aprons too short).

The napkins are a summer and winter design. The blue weft doesn't cover as well as it should because it's the same thickness as everything else. The original plan was something entirely different that would have worked just fine with these thicknesses, so I thought I'd see how it went. I think it came out okay, but I'd probably use thicker pattern weft next time. These photos are before washing. You can see the markers I put in on the middle section so that I never had to count any higher than 20.

The sizes were not identical, but they were all within a couple of cm in length. Width before washing was 54cm, length ranged from 58-60cm. After washing they look like they're about 50cm wide and 53cm long, which should make them roughly square once they're hemmed.

I still have to catch up on blogging - I've got exchange towels to write about, and I've just discovered that the post that I wrote and thought I'd lost (about the warp weighted loom comparison) is not in fact lost, so I'll have to sort out all the photos that go with that too.

No idea what the next weaving project will be. I've nearly finished the scarf I was making for Christmas, and I'm not sure what the next project there will be either. The new loom will be being picked up after Christmas, and then I can see how long that takes to get sorted out - might be a while before I need to have a project planned. And in the meantime, I can always resurrect my warp weighted loom if I need a quick(?) fix:

It's only about 60cm high, and this warp has been languishing for quite a while. I need to find the ball of indigo dyed wool I was using for weft, which I think is why I stopped. I also stopped because it's just an annoying height to work at - I think I'll have to try putting it on a coffee table or something. Oh, and the orange thing hanging off the corner of the loom? That was the first thing I wove on it, a 2-1 twill bit of cloth, madder dyed. It was supposed to be a little hat, but it ended up being to small. It's probably going to turn into a bag eventually, but until then it's a decoration.

And a gratuitous close up, showing that the weaving is in fact a twill:

That's all I've done, and the warp is (probably) around 6m long. The weaving takes about 3-4 times as long as the table loom. It was my first attempt at a 2-2 twill on this loom, and I have to admit that making the heddles took me about three attempts before I got it to work nicely (and without mistakes). I like the flexibility of this loom - you can have as many heddle bars as you like, although too many is likely to drive you mad. But my favourite part is that you don't have to beam the warp, the tension takes care of itself quite nicely. Of course, the downside is that you have to keep moving the weights which can also get a bit tedious.

Optimism and pretty tea towels

2008-12-15T19:32:00.003+13:00

Looks like I may not have been too optimistic after all. I've just finished the fourth napkin, which means only two more to go before the end of Saturday. I think I'll be pushing it to get them all hemmed before going away though, I'll probably do that on holiday.

The scarf is staying roughly on track, I'm hoping it'll be ready for blocking by Saturday afternoon at the very latest.

And on Friday I got home from work to discover a package on my doorstep. In it were two tea towels and a very nice calendar, thanks to Geodyne. (Also thanks to Meg for organising the festive towel exchange - it was good fun). I haven't taken any photos of the package yet because I'm slack (and I've been busy doing weaving and stuff), but there is information about them here. I think Autumn Leaves was my favourite of all the towels, so thank you Meg, you chose the swap well.

When I've actually taken some nice photos they'll get a post all of their own

Deluded

2008-12-11T10:21:00.002+13:00

Looks like I really was being extremely optimistic. The scarf is probably still a day away from being half done (according to the pattern, it looks awfully short at the moment though). The prototype sock is done once I graft the toe, I think I will put an order in for wool over the next couple of days. The sock pattern is remarkably quick to knit up (lace pattern, only 58 stitches around). Although I could just be confused about normal knitting times, since the last pair was done on 2mm needles, with 96 stitches.

The napkins could be a problem though. I overlooked one vital thing in the planning stages - my shuttles are not long enough. At the moment I only have stick shuttles, and they're only 40cm long. I managed to get 1/3rd of a napkin done last night. I'm not as happy with the result as I could be - I think it would have been better with a looser sett, and the pattern weft is the same thickness as both the warp and tabby weft so the coverage is fairly meagre. That aside, the pattern does show up nicely, and I think washing will help. I suppose it's vaguely possible that I could get the rest of the napkin done tonight, since I don't have to spend time tying up, or working out what the hem is going to do, or finalising the pattern...

The new loom comes with shuttles though, so I'm hoping I'll get something decent there (and if not I guess I'll have more incentive to go out and buy some).

Making of Christmas stuff

2008-12-10T12:16:00.006+13:00

For some reason I find myself trying to make a set of six napkins for Christmas, as well as knitting a scarf and possibly a pair of socks. The knitting is not implausible, since it's nice and portable. I hope to be nearly half done with the scarf by the end of today, and I only started it on Sunday night. The socks are still debatable, although I'll have to decide soon so I can buy the wool I want...

The napkins will be interesting though. I'm going away for Christmas - leaving home on the 21st, so that's my self imposed deadline. (I say self imposed because I don't think it will matter if I don't get them finished before New Years...). I just finished threading the loom last night, just needs tying to the front beam. I hope to get at least half a napkin woven tonight. I have a feeling I may be deluded in thinking I have any hope of doing this.

Project details:
420 ends, 18epi
Fairly plain summer and winter design, just with patterned borders. I'm vaguely considering doing a pickup motif in one corner on each napkin.
Warp is the same cotton I used to do the tea towels, wefts will be blue and natural cottolin. I'm not sure whether the pattern weft will be blue in all of them, or if I want to do some with the natural weft. I'm going to start with pattern weft blue, tabby weft natural though, and take it from there.

I think the (almost) 60cm width of these napkins is pretty close to the limit of what my table loom can handle. Luckily I've just bought a floor loom. I don't get to pick it up until Christmas though, and then I'll get to have fun working out what makes it tick. It's a 48" 8 shaft countermarche, and I've only seen one picture. It looked like what I was wanting though, so I gave into temptation.

And on the theme of looms, the aprons were attached before I started setting up for napkins. They're just stitched onto the beams through the holes that were already there, and are possibly not quite perfectly straight. I'll have to see how they behave when actually weaving, but tying onto the back beam was definitely more pleasant than without the apron.

I should have photos of various things, but they're still sitting on the camera. I expect I may not have time to do anything with them until holiday time, when there will be no loomy distraction...

Towels sent, loom mods under way

2008-12-06T20:06:00.002+13:00

Towels got sent off on Thursday. I missed the cut-off date for overseas Christmas shipping, but I'm hoping it'll still get there in time anyway. I took more photos of them after I'd rewashed (to try to remove all traces of cat hair), but they're still on my camera.

I am making cloth aprons for my loom - the string was starting to drive me mad. So far I have canvas cut out, and the cut edge zigzagged. I've got some aluminium bar (which I also plan to make some warp sticks, and new lease sticks from), and have two pieces cut and drilled. Next I just need to put the canvas, bars and loom together in a way that actually works...

And just to make it all interesting I appear to be making a set of 6 napkins for Christmas presents, theoretically finishing within two weeks because that's when I'll be going away for Christmas. I think I've also managed to talk myself into knitting a lace scarf and quite possibly a pair of socks within the next two weeks too. Could be interesting.

Festive exchange towels

2008-11-27T21:06:00.005+13:00

Sorry Meg, I said I was going to post this yesterday...

I have two tea towels to enter into this exchange. I've posted about them both previously, so nothing new and exciting here.

They're both a cream cotton (not sure of size, maybe a little thicker than the 22/2 cottolin that I have). The colour is a fairly dark cream, but isn't "dirty" looking at all. They can either be a pair or separate - they're the same colour but not the same design or size.

The patterning on both is Swedish Lace. "Chantilly Cream" is 32cm x 55cm, and is an allover lace pattern (blocks of varying sizes).

"Devonshire Cream" is slightly larger, 32.5cm x 63cm. It was done on the same threading, but I did a pickup pattern to make a plain diamond in the middle.

I've already been told quite a few times that the second one would make a nice table mat, so I guess there's that option too. The pictures don't really show the lace patterning too well, but my photography skills could do with a bit of work.

Wickelbander off the loom

2008-11-25T09:30:00.002+13:00

During the weekend I decided that I wouldn't get my weaving finished by Tuesday morning, so I didn't put too much effort in. Last night I decided that maybe I could do it... Four hours later I was cutting the 6-ish metres off the loom and giving it a bath. And now I am trying to drape it over things at work to get it dry without making it dirty (not so easy when you work in an office attached to a foundry...)

Using an eyeometer it looks like a fairly good replication. The new version feels stretchy, but possibly not as stretchy as the old version. This may just be wishful thinking though, since it's the result I was hoping for. When it's dry and I have space (and a tape measure on hand) I will test stretchiness, take photos, and compare weave density more closely. If they really are different then I might have to think about incarnation three - warp weighted horizontal loom. I'm not sure how well that will work with a table loom though, it seems like it would be a lot easier to set up on a floor loom.

Next table loom project is making a cloth apron for the back beam, my (somewhat bendy) stick tied on with string is starting to drive me batty...

First differences

2008-11-20T17:54:00.003+13:00

I've found the first differences already. When I wove the first set of wickelbander I beat them as hard as I could. With these ones I found that I had to resley the outside threads to try and keep the number of picks per inch down - and I'm still beating very lightly.

I'm assuming the difference is a combination of different tensions (beating harder on the WW Loom just lifts the weaving because the ends are not fixed - maybe heavier weights would allow for tighter weaving?) and the different method of beating. The warp weighted loom is beaten with a 'sword' (or a ruler) across the weaving. I can see how that might behave differently to being beaten with a reed.

I only managed a couple of inches on it last night, after fiddling with threading and tension. With any luck the set-up will be good enough now (I think it's still not quite as loose as the first pair, but I don't think I can do much about that easily).

Let the experiment begin

2008-11-17T20:44:00.006+13:00

And the experiment starts... A couple of years ago I wove some wickelbander (leg wraps) on my baby warp-weighted loom. The bands were coarser than they should historically be (12 epi), but as they were my first real project on that loom I was more interested in getting a feel for the loom. The wool was a DK semi-worsted wool (Ashford Tekapo), in natural grey/brown (warp) and dark madder-ish orange (weft). The weave was a 2-1 herringbone twill, 8 ends in each section (48 ends total). The end result was an amazingly stretchy strip of cloth (each one is around 2.4m long unstretched, and stretches to around 2.8m (I think, I'm pulling numbers off the top of my head - I'll actually measure it at some point)).

Anyway, the short version is that I now want to see how much of that stretchiness is related to the wool, and how much is the weaving method. I have wound a white warp onto my table loom, which will be woven with a blue (indigo-ish) weft.

I expect there to be some difference between the two methods of weaving, but I'm not sure how much it will be because the wool is a fairly stretchy knitting wool.

I still need to finish threading, but I'm hoping it should be a fairly quick weave, even if it is around 6m long.

Tea towels

2008-11-02T13:06:00.005+13:00

Tea towel 2: Before washing - 34 x 66.5 cm, after washing - 32.5 x 63 cm

This one was an experiment with warp manipulation

Tea towel 3: Before washing - 34 x 62 cm, after washing - 32 x 59 cm

This one was going to be simpler, with some colour experimenting and a combination of warp and weft lace spots. But then the middle section looked like it needed some warp manipulation too, which also had to contain warp and weft spots...

Apparently they're too pretty to use...

Tea towel 3...

2008-10-31T21:01:00.003+13:00

Oops. I thought that this one was going to be a simpler pattern, and just be interesting because it has colour. Instead it's turning out to be even fiddlier than the second one.

I think the moral of the story is that I can't cope with doing plain things, at least when I have no set plan. I just have too much fun thinking "I wonder if this will work..."

The other moral of the story is that Swedish Lace appears to be even more fun with a bit of manual manipulation thrown in. I just hope it looks as interesting as it is to make.

Tea towel 2

2008-10-31T08:37:00.003+13:00

Is woven. Still on the loom though - I was happy enough with how the first one washed up that I will finish the warp off before cutting it off. Second tea towel is similar to the first one, but should be a bit longer, and was a bit fiddlier to do some of the patterning on.

Planning is now happening on the third one, I think it's going to have some blue stripes at the ends, but I'll see what I think of that once I've actually tried it.

Photos will probably happen sometime after they're off the loom, which I'm hoping will be this weekend.

Photos...

2008-10-24T20:45:00.003+13:00

I managed to organise myself enough to take photos after work today. The sun was a bit bright, so I have a bunch of wonderfully washed out pictures, but they give the general idea

First - the tea towel.
The colour is actually somewhere between a light butter yellow and a heavy cream, definitely not the off-white type of cream.
It has Swedish lace patterning:

And the cat seems fairly happy with it (or at least is willing to claim it as his:

There are also some photos of bits of the mystery stole.
It's large and pink (and yes, I'm aware that the deck needs painting):

And this seems like a better choice than the tea towel:

Tea towel 1

2008-10-22T21:43:00.002+13:00

Just cut the first tea towel off and hemmed it. It's a bit smaller than I would have liked, but still quite usable - 33.5cm x 59cm before washing.

From a quick measure while damp after washing it looks like the finished dimensions are 32 x 55. It may end up turning into a hand towel or something, if it doesn't seem big enough to be useful.

I'll have a look at it tomorrow, but I'm thinking it's likely that I'll be resleying - it doesn't actually look too tight, but I think it could possibly get away with being a bit looser anyway.

Slack about updating.

2008-10-20T17:26:00.003+13:00

I've been pretty slack about updating over the last couple of weeks. What have I been doing?

I wound a cotton warp for making some Swedish Lace tea towels, which then magically got itself onto the loom somehow. The first tea towel is now 2/3rds woven, and I'm procrastinating on rewinding the shuttle. Because I really am that lazy. I think the sett is slightly too tight, so I'm probably going to cut the first one off when it's done and wash it to see how it comes up. I should take a photo of it sometime, but there's procrastination blocking that too...

I've also been knitting a "mystery stole" over the last six weeks. It's large and lacy, and I'm glad it's done. There's nothing wrong with the pattern, it just didn't really click for me. It's currently a fairly drab pink, but I'd always planned to overdye it once it was done (and once I'd seen what colour it looked like it wanted to be). Currently I'm thinking I'll overdye it blue, but I want to let it sit and think about it for a while.

And now that I've gotten the stole off the needles I feel justified in making socks again. I bought a few skeins of Vintage Purls sock wool, and am now working on two pairs of socks (and planning a third)...

Bad waffle photos

2008-10-05T20:03:00.002+13:00

I took photos of the scarf this afternoon, but it was very sunny and they're not very good. Here they are anyway...

Here's the whole scarf

Only one end is fringed and had the ends sewn in (and I noticed one fringe that still needed finishing).

And a photo just showing the (mostly) finished end. The fringing still needs to be cut to the right length.

I had fun playing with interlacing the fringe in an attempt to effectively add scarf length. When I tie it around my neck the point of the interlacing almost reaches my waist...

And after that, I wound a cotton warp for some tea towels (otherwise known as an excuse to try Swedish lace...) I probably won't get it on the loom until next weekend though.

Yet another scarf

2008-10-04T22:27:00.003+13:00

The wool/rayon warp is now done. After the green scarf I decided to rethread because I was quite keen on trying a waffle weave. The weft is a pale blue 4 ply baby wool (left over from a pair of socks), with a couple of stripes of a grey/purple sock yarn. Total woven length is only 115cm (and I had a whole 60cm of yarn left over). One end is now fringed, but the ends still need to be woven back in, and the fringing needs to be trimmed to length.

It's very soft and squooshy, it's a shame it's so short though. That being said though, it is long enough to tie around my neck once with fancy fringed dangly bits showing.

Photos tomorrow sometime.

Not quite sure what comes next. I'm thinking I'll have to try something texturally interesting, I'm just not quite sure what. Here's hoping that I don't have any sett issues on whatever-it-is...

Oops

2008-09-26T16:40:00.002+12:00

I thought I'd posted that last post, but apparently I saved it as a draft instead.

Long story short, I did rethread for a waffle, but I don't really like it. I'm going to try resleying, and if that doesn't help I'll pick some other threading to try. Maybe this weekend...

Two scarves done, madness following

2008-09-21T19:26:00.004+12:00

The two scarves are now off the loom and washed. The brown one is 140 cm long. The only thing I don't like about it is the breaks between the patterns. I'm also not quite sure how I want to do the fringing, but that can at least wait until it's dry...

The green one is only 115 cm long, but I am rather enamoured of the effects (particularly on the centre pattern):

And the other side is interesting too:

The only repeats in the pattern are a couple of sections of zigzags, and the mirror image on the second half. It was a little firm before washing, but it seems to have softened up nicely with washing.

And now that they've been cut off I'm planning to re-thread the rest of the warp to make a waffle scarf. I suspect I'm at least a little mad (it's only 105 ends though, so not really too bad).

Second scarf started

2008-09-18T08:30:00.003+12:00

I'm about a third of the way through the second scarf. It's going a bit slower than the first one - partly because I haven't even finished drafting up the pattern, but mostly because the weft is finer.

The weft is a white 2-ply tabby and a variegated turquoise 2-ply pattern weft. I'm really enjoying weaving the two colours (now that I've gotten into a rhythm with it) - I'm foreseeing some overshot planning in my future.

I'm quite happy with how the patterns are weaving up too. And now it is time for gratuitous photos of the first 20cm (I've done about 50cm so far).

It looks kind of wonky in this picture because it's not under tension:

Close up on the first part of the pattern:

Close up on the second part of the pattern:

The cloth beam tension issues seemed to settle down after the first little bit of winding on. Either I was being a bit to finicky or I got used to it (I'm not entirely sure which).

Not entirely sure what I want to do with the rest of this warp after I finish the green scarf. I'll see how much I have left when I get that far. I'm currently being very tempted to try re-threading for a waffle weave, but then I don't know what I want in the weft. Maybe I'll get some bamboo, or some of the "weaving silk" from the (semi)local craft shop. Decisions, decisions...

One scarf done

2008-09-15T09:49:00.004+12:00

The first rosepath scarf is now woven. Second one is still in the planning stage (worked out the first 8" or so so far).

One day I might manage to take photos during the day, when I have real light.

The beginning...

And a bit further on...

I know they're horrible photos but I didn't want to wait until I had real light for them, because that would have meant having to stop weaving. The colour seems to be fairly accurate, at least. There will be more photos when it's off the loom and finished.

The next scarf is going to have a turquoise and white weft in more complicated patterns. Unless something goes wrong with that plan, I haven't tested it at all yet...

More rosepath

2008-09-13T21:19:00.002+12:00

Started the second piece of weaving on this warp yesterday. It is going to be a scarf in fairly simple patterns (including the one I liked so much from the last piece). The weft is a pale brown merino.

I have about 40cm so far and have taken a couple of photos, but they're still on the camera. Will probably attempt to download them tomorrow.

I think I need to do some tweaking on the cloth beam on my loom. The last piece I had no problems because it was so short, but this piece doesn't seem to be winding on quite as nicely as I would like. I'll see how it goes when I've done a bit more, it may just be that I've tied something slightly wonky.

Rosepath, sample one

2008-09-09T21:25:00.004+12:00

Just done the second half of the first sample and cut it off the loom. I'm fairly happy with the patterns, and particularly like the small flowery one in the second photo.

It appears to have washed up quite nicely too - the tabby section is fairly firm, but not too stiff.

I think the next thing on this warp may be a scarf with a pale brown wool weft. Still deciding on the pattern though. And then I might have to order some more of the wool/rayon so I can see how fabulous it is in both the warp and weft.

Progress (and photos)

2008-09-02T09:49:00.003+12:00

It turned out that my cold was actually a sinus infection (and probably caused by some sort of allergy that I never knew I had...). The result of all this was two weeks of being sick and not getting enough sleep, and therefore not getting much done. I've finally managed to get under way with not-quite-so-mindless stuff again, which is nice.

The madder dyeing was finally finished last Sunday. I'm not sure how much it was affected by the big delays between mordanting and batches of dyeing, but there is definitely some colour difference. In all three batches the first few are clearly lighter and then it gets rather hard to pick the order.

I think more time may have made more difference at the higher percentages of mordant, or possibly more madder (only used 50% of the dry wool weight).

I will get better photos when I have actually sorted them and twisted them into neat little skeinlets again.

I made the first modification to my loom in the weekend - I added a quick release cord so I can wind it on without having to get up. (It also means I can actually wind it on by just winding the cloth beam rather than having to unwind the warp beam by some arbitrary amount first).

It's the cord travelling from the back, and up to the top of the castle to avoid the beater. I did put an eye on the front too, but then I had to take it out again when I warped the loom (the raddle fits over the front of the loom). It seems to work reasonably well - it's an improvement on not having it, at least.

And I got a warp set up again. This time it's a wool/rayon blend (2 ply, one of each), set up in a rosepath pattern so I can just do pattern samples. I was foolish though, and went from memory in working out the width and sett and originally had it at 12 epi. After getting it all tied on and doing a bit of weaving I decided that it really was too loose. I then rechecked the wpi of the yarn, and discovered that I should have done it at 15 epi (which would have been easier to start with, since I have a 7.5 dpi reed). I resleyed, which took it down to around 7" wide, which I think is still wide enough for a couple of scarves although not as wide as I wanted it. And because I can't count I have one floating selvedge wound with the rest of the warp and the other one hanging off the back of the loom (conveniently tied to one of the weights from my warp weighted loom)

And here's a picture with it sett at 12 epi (just to prove that I really have done something)

I've now woven about 20cm of the first sampler - some of the patterns I made up didn't work so well, but it's all a learning experience (I think they really need a tabby to help them hold their shape)

The other problem I had with my entirely slapdash method of loom dressing was that I didn't actually measure the length, I just guessed that crossing the warping board once was close enough to a metre (it's a sampler, I didn't need a specific length). This has turned around to bite me in that I used up nearly all of the yarn I had (about 20m left), so I will need to order more if I want to use any as weft. And since I had planned to dye some with various types of dye to see what effects I could get from the wool/rayon difference I guess I will be getting more (maybe I'll do some small experiments first though). It's not really a problem, I think I wanted more anyway, and I have been very tempted by some of the other yarns from the same place...

The long overdue madder experiments

2008-08-20T13:24:00.006+12:00

On Saturday I started the mordanting marathon. I'd hoped to get it all done then, but no such luck. About eight of the eleven batches were done on Saturday, the rest were finished on Sunday morning.

Of course I then managed to come down with a nasty cold and spent the rest of the day in bed with a fever, so no madder for me. So all I could hope for was that I'd be feeling better enough sometime during the week to spend a few hours dyeing after work - before the damp, mordanted wool had been sitting around for too long.

Today, I had a stroke of luck (if you could call it that...). I'd had basically no sleep the night before from being sick, so was not awake enough to go to work. Really, this meant a day of sitting around not doing much - but sticking a pot on the stove and vaguely poking at it every now and then isn't too energetic, is it?

And so the actual step of making things change colour begins...

First madder bath has taken place. I managed to pick the correct order of increasing mordant for the first six by eye, the last six (10% up) all looked much the same.

Pictures this weekend I guess, by which time the other baths should also have happened.

I apologise for any incoherence, my brain is full of cold and sleep deprivation.

Rough outline of experiment:
Wind many many (36) little skeins of wool (15m of lace weight wool each, approx 1.6g)
Organise into bundles of 3 (5g each) for mordanting
Mordant with the following percentages of potassium alum sulphate (by weight) for half an hour:
0%, 1%, 2.5%, 5%, 7.5%, 10%, 12.5%, 15%, 20%, 25%, 30%, 50%

Reorganise into 3 sets of skeins, one of each mordant batch in each set.
Put water, 1/2C of vinegar in pot, heat to 70 degrees C
Put in 10g of madder, hold at temp for 10 minutes.
Add one set of skeins, hold at temp for 45 minutes
Remove skeins, top up water lost through evaporation and reheat to 70 degrees C
Add second set of skeins for 45 minutes
Repeat with third set.

In theory, there should now be lots of skeins in varying shades of pink/orange

Napkin photos!

2008-08-16T20:40:00.004+12:00

I spent this morning hanging out at the local guild meeting, hemming napkins. I have now hemmed 3.5 of 6, and hope to finish the rest off tonight.

And then, when I got home I remembered I was supposed to take photos. And so, without any further ado, here they are:

The "right" side:

Close up showing the diamonds in a (possibly) slightly less eye-watering way:

And with a folded corner to show the pattern on the back:

Not sure what the next project is - I've got too many things I want to try, choosing one is kind of tricky. (Actually, I think my next project might be to build a warping board - there's a limit to how much I can do on my inkle loom...)

Napkins

2008-08-13T09:02:00.003+12:00

Napkin weaving was completed on Monday. There are six napkins, four of which are exactly the same size, one slightly shorter and one slightly longer. I think for a first attempt on this loom (and first attempt at all for a while) I didn't do too badly, especially since I was beating entirely by eye/feel rather than measuring.

They have been washed and are currently drying, then they just need to be hemmed.

Will make sure I get photos in the weekend (when I have actual daylight).

Inaugural posting

2008-08-08T14:07:00.007+12:00

I decided I wanted somewhere specifically for keeping track of textile stuff. Thus, Insanity Looms was born.

Textile projects currently being worked on:

On the loom I have a set of four napkins. The first four are woven, I just need to do the hemstitching on the last end. I appear to have plenty of warp left, so I think it may turn into a set of five - after all, you can never have too many napkins...

I haven't taken any photos since I was about half way through the first one, so here is a gratuitous partially woven napkin.

On the knitting front I'm working on a pair of socks (no pictures of these at all, they'll probably be finished by the time I get that far)

And on the dyeing scene I've got a zillion little skeinlets wound up to do some samples with, but that won't be getting done until next weekend.