Category Archives: Weaving

Baby Blanket

Project, Weaving

I made a start on the baby blanket for Anne’s nephew – they are expecting in around 3 months. The yarn arrived and had to be wound into balls as it comes in hanks which don’t lend themselves to either winding bobbins or warping. I have a small tabletop umbrella swift which works fine unless the yarn catches at speed – the result is a flying swift. A project for later will be to find a better way of clamping it down as gravity alone isn’t enough!

Ball winding set-up

The project is 242 ends so didn’t take too long to warp. The design is technically a plaid with two repeats of the pattern across the width and three repeats for the length.

  • The 5 colors
  • Project warped

The forecast is for 2 or 3 rainy days so dressing the loom will be this week and hopefully finish weaving before the next weaving guild meeting so I can take it along for show and share.

Next Weaving Projects

Project, Uncategorized, Weaving

Planning for the next project is well advanced and in fact the yarn (Vintage DK from Yarn Barn of Kansas. http://www.yarnbarn-ks.com) is on its way as I type this. Another of Anne’s nephews is about to become a father. As we gave his brother a blanket when they had their baby recently we were pretty well obligated to follow suit. In fact, between these two we also wove a baby blanket for Anne’s younger brother. Yet another tradition is born!

The parents chose pink and grey as the main colors and we have added colors drawn from the Grand Teton Mountains – a place they spent some time in their earlier lives although they now live in North Carolina. The extra colors are white (snow), grey (mountains), and green (forests). The design is done and it will end up yet another tartan/plaid! I have a few months to get it done, but once on the loom it shouldn’t take too long. The fringe twisting is likely to take just as long as the weaving.

I have two other projects to contemplate. The first is a combination of two needs. I need to dress the HD 4 shaft traveling loom ready for the Fiber Festival in April as I will be on the porch demonstrating again. I also need to get something going for the guild challenge which is to create some form of 3 dimensional object using woven materials. I was considering weaving something similar to the wedding scarves as my demo project because of the distinctive colors (reminiscent of abalone shell). The guild challenge might become a wavy ‘ocean’ setting with some shell pieces perhaps? Needs more thought.

Finally; I have always wanted to weave some of the designs my Dad used in his place mats, so I have been looking carefully at some of the structures. One is an overshot trellis style which he used a lot. I should be able to find similar yarn, and it would be great to be able to duplicate some of his work.

Today though is out to the studio build as we have a fine day after a full day of rain yesterday. The weekend was good and we finally finished the garage end wall and have it all wrapped in tyvek. The old tarps have been retired from that area and hopefully we can move on to getting eaves and roof on down this end of the building.

Tartan Throw Finished

Project, Tartan, Weaving

We were away this weekend visiting long time friends of my wife Anne, in North Carolina. Along with a good amount of catching up, food, wine, etc we did get out to the Concord Alpaca Celebration (http://carolinaalpacacelebration.com/) and have a look around the various animal and vendor displays. The vendors had a fairly large amount of commercially produced product (largely from Peru), but there were some US home produced products to see/buy. I ended up spending quite a bit of time talking to the local guild who were there demonstrating spinning and weaving – a most interesting 30 minutes or so comparing our various guild, weaving, spinning backgrounds.

I had finished weaving the throw and we were in the process of untangling the fringe after the throw was wet finished, before our NC trip. As it turns out the light blue color perle cotton tended to ‘let go’ a whole lot more than the other colors and where that happened the ‘fuzz’ tied up other fringe yarn. It’s pretty straight forward to comb that out. The yarn drew in nicely and is now wonderfully soft. The last step is to wrap and post then time to move on to the next project

Finished tartan throw
The finished throw

Placemat Finishing

Project, Tartan, Weaving

Our custom tartan placemat and runner set is now finally nearing finished. It hasn’t been on the top of the priority list as the recipient of this housewarming gift has not been in great health so we have been delaying a trip down there. Not a great excuse really so now suitably guilty I’ve sewn, cut up, and added bias binding edges to two placemats and have the other two plus the runner to go.

The reason for the bias binding is to do with selvedges on this tartan. As noted previously the number of warp ends or weft picks of each color in the pattern is always even – which means the overall tartan pattern is ‘square’. This also means that the weft yarn changes are always on one side. This is typically taken care of by running the non-woven colors up the selvedge, collecting them when wrapping around the floating selvedge.

  • Left hand selvedge
  • Right hand selvedge

Needless to say the left hand selvedge would be fine to leave as is, the right hand less so. If this were weaving yardage for a kilt the left hand selvedge would go to the bottom where there is generally no seam. The right hand selvedge would be covered with the top band.

The solution this time is to add bias binding around all edges.

Finished placemat

Selvedge Fringe

Tartan, Weaving

The tartan throw is now half finished – this wet weather is certainly helping! Yesterday I had a trip up to Townsend to do some final measuring of spaces for the Fiber Arts Festival. All went well and we managed to squeeze in one more vendor making us full+. On return I checked the studio build for drips/leaks and as there was nothing significant, started on the weaving.

I decided to have a fringe on all 4 sides on this throw. Normal end fringes are taken care of with the loom waste and simple knotting will look fine on this project. To add the side fringes meant adding a floating selvedge beyond the last warp end at the distance to make an approximately 6″ fringe (a little less after knotting). The yarn for this needs to be reasonably slippery to allow the weft yarn to loop around and then slide towards the weaver as progressive picks are added. I used some very slippery nylon cord I had in the workshop, looped it onto the breast beam then through the reed, no heddles and weighted over the back beam. When ready to wind on I take some scissors, stretch the weft loops away from the floating selvedge and cut it in a group. Then working from the previously knotted edge take the appropriate number of weft picks and tie a simple overhead knot (I do groups of 4).

Depending where in the pattern I stop to wind on, this may leave either two or no ‘left over picks’. If two then they get knotted into the next batch by adding the first two of the new block to make up the 4. Overall this is a fairly tidy finish. There is no problem of the edge of the weaving drawing in unevenly as the edge is controlled by the knots.

  • Looped weft picks
  • Knotted fringe
  • Slippery floating selvedge

When winding on, once the cloth has wrapped around the cloth beam care should be taken so that the knots are flipped up before they go around the beam to ensure they don’t get under the cloth and start impacting the evenness of the tension. As they move around the beam they’ll drop down and eventually wrap (outside the edge of the cloth – so no impact on tension).

More rain today, but I do have to finish fitting the garage door so weaving will wait until tonight.

Sleying assist

Equipment, Weaving

As I’ve been threading heddles and sleying the reed for the throw I found that I could be easily distracted, although to be honest it’s probably just old age forgetfulness!!  The sett is 15 ends per inch and I have a 12 dent reed on the loom. I have a 15 dent reed but a) it’s not wide enough for this project and b) it need a really good clean!  To get 15 epi in a 12 dent reed the sleying is 1,1,1,2 but where the two ends that go through the same dent are the same color it’s not immediately obvious that is the doubled one.  Simple solution – using a thinned down bamboo skewer I slip that into the dent when I put the second end through.  Count from there and when I hit the next double – move the skewer.  Now I can happily be distracted (often) and get right back into the sleying (I’m 2/3rds finished)

Reed sleying
Sleying order reminder

Another annoyance I have is slipping the heddles past the heddle bar holder on this wide project (heddles are all pushed to the sides).  I think I have a solution, but will have to get out to the workshop for that. More later

Progress

Weaving

Tartan throw threading
Halfway through the threading

With an hour or two a day I have managed to get half of the warp through heddles and reed.  Working low at the front of the loom means about an hour is my limit before the back muscles start to complain – so rather than push it further I move on to other chores around the house or out in the studio build.

The former saw me baking bread yesterday – we’ve baked all our bread for the last 5+ years – this one was a Parmesan cheese loaf with the addition of some cassava flour for the B-complex vitamins.  Today I am baking some sourdough grain hotdog buns, ready for hotdogs during the Superbowl on Sunday.  Also, our early planted herbs have matured enough to be moved into pots ready to be hardened up in a few weeks, then eventually out into the front garden.

Parmesan cheese loaf
Fresh herbs

Out in the studio I did some work moving OSB sheathing that I wasn’t happy with.  My spacing wasn’t close enough so I’ve added a small section then can adjust all the other sheets.  It’s indoor/outdoor work so not bad in this colder weather.

Card Weaving

Equipment, Project, Tartan, Weaving

At the last Scenic Valley Handweavers Guild meeting one of the members returned my card weaving book which somehow ended up with me volunteering to lead an ‘introduction’ to card-weaving at the August meeting.  Given that my experience to date was to read said book and produce a band which was turned into a strap for my mandolin with the addition of some leather ends.  Hardly an expert!!

Nevertheless I do have plenty of time (I know, famous last words) to prepare, so to that end I have begun some background research into resources (lots and lots available via the Internet) and to start weaving some test bands which I will take along to meetings from now until then to drum up interest.

The first challenge was to find my set of cards in the weaving room – first fail.  They’re there somewhere, but under something and certainly not on the shelf where other related items are.  Plan ‘b’: produce my own…

I made a small set out of 100lb card stock – similar to playing card thickness – by drawing them on the computer 4 to a page then printing them out and punching holes and finally cutting out the individual cards.  This seems to work until a bit more tension appears when the twist builds up (more on that below).  I used a wooden ruler as a beater last time I wove this way which works but is not quite as ‘classy’ as a combo beater/stick-shuttle.  I had some seasoned white oak that I’d stored in the shed for a couple of years so quickly cut out, shaped, and sanded a test model.  Works fine!

Custom cards
Custom beater
Trial band

The warp yarn was the 8/2 tencel I used in the recent scarves.  I was curious to see if the solid and variegated contrast would show up. It did.  I’ve initially used a thicker weft yard but will also weave some with the same yarn as the warp to shorten the pattern and tidy up the selvedges a little.  This pattern calls for just backward turning of the cards which leads to twist building up behind the cards and would normally shorten the amount of warp yarn available for weaving and as mentioned adds tension which my thin cards don’t handle well.  The solution was to attach the warp at the back to fishing spinners so that each 4 warp yarn ends that pass through a card, can be ‘unwound’ simply by letting the spinner spin.

warp spinnersIn this case I just attached the spinners to a rod held onto the table by small clamps.  When the tension builds (excess twist) it is simple to slide something from each card towards the spinner and at some stage it slips and releases all the spin.  This test band only has 10 cards;  with larger amounts of cards more spinners would obviously be needed and a more advanced approach to space them out in rows would be required.

I still have to add a coat of varnish to the beater so that color from the yarn doesn’t stain it and find a better front attachment – I’m currently using a mid-sized clamp that works fine but gets in the way when sitting at the table.

Other work for the day was some more threading heddles and sleying the reed for the tartan throw – slow but steady progress there.  I also sewed the bias binding edging onto the Florida tartan place-mat/table runner set.  It worked out well so now I’ll finish the rest so that this house-warming gift can be delivered.

Dressing the loom
Florida tartan place-mat

 

 

Weekend off

Project, Tartan, Weaving

We decided to head to Nashville for our anniversary break and are now back in the valley.  It was our first visit there and we certainly overdosed on the huge variety of music and entertainment.  Our downtown hotel allowed us to walk everywhere to sample food, entertainment, play pool, darts and try a few different drinks.  Sunday morning it was nice to go for a walk in the much quieter parts of the city, before heading home after lunch.

Clean loom
Warp on the angel wings
Warp spread through the raddle

Leading up to and on return from the trip I have been working on the tartan throw.  First job was to clean up after the Christmas towels and scarves.  30 cotton towels tends to shed a lot of dust and very fine cotton fluff.  I managed to burn out the vacuum cleaner rubber drive band as I didn’t notice that the upright vacuum was sitting on a rya rug while I was using the hose to get under the loom – until I smelt some very hot rubber/smoke!  I should have bought a model that automatically disables the spinning brushes when the vacuum tube is disconnected.  Anyway – the cleaning finished I was able to then start dressing the loom by putting the individual sections of warp (9) onto the angle wings and then spread them across the back beam via the raddle.  I couldn’t find my home made raddle for this loom so had to use the one that fits my upright loom.  It has 1/2″ spacing so I used 8 then 7 ends in each space across the width.  I still have to lash the rod onto the back apron and then with help, wind it on to the warp beam.

Custom Tartans

Project, Studio, Tartan, Weaving

An idea that is slowly coming together from the initial seed (from Anne) is that I create a business line that deals with tartans and specifically custom designed tartans.  Largely inspired by some previous and current efforts this would entail working with a customer who supplies color palette thoughts.  I would use weaving design software to work those colors into some tartan examples then work through the process of selecting appropriate yarn, adjusting colors appropriately, then finally weaving the selected cloth – for any purpose.

My first custom tartan was a ‘family tartan’ for Anne and I, combining colors from both of our family ancestral histories.

Tennessee Prentice Family Tartan
Handwoven Tartan

For this tartan I spun the wool and made a 3 ply yarn.  It was then dyed, with commercial dyes to get the bright colors, and finally woven in a traditional twill.  Given the time taken to spin and ply the wool this only made enough cloth for a small cushion! Definitely not the way to make material for a kilt!

The second custom design was for a housewarming gift for friends in Florida.  The red and white was from room colors in the house, while the blue, green and black were for the waters where Chris enjoys his hobby of diving.

Bond Florida tartan
Bond Tartan

This tartan was woven with 8/2 cotton in the chosen colors.  I began weaving this at the 2019 Smoky Mountain Fiber Arts Festival and even wore a kilt on the Saturday whilst doing so.

The current project is a tartan throw for another housewarming gift for a friend in Southern Virginia.  She gave us colors of the pokeweed bush and a belted kingfisher.  That gave me some fairly good contrasting colors to work with.

First design
Winding the warp

The computer design looks way better than the screen shot, but got the go-ahead from Terri.  Then finding yarns that would come close to those colors took a little while, but eventually everything needed was available in 3/2 mercerized cotton from the Yarn Barn.  I’m winding the warp in smaller groups (9 required) before dressing the loom).  I’ll update with a separate post on the progress.

The final tartan will be a baby blanket for a nephew. He and his wife are having their first child in a few months.  We have the colors but as yet I haven’t even started on the design.

Custom design and products is one part of the original idea.  There are also ideas for classes in designing, color choices, weaving, etc that might someday be taught in the Kiwiweave studio.