Excessive photography...

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

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.

And more progress - with photos

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...

The threading begins

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!

Plotting

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.)