A saga of photos

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...