Tag Archives: Weaving

Moving Yarn

Equipment, Kumihimo, Looms, Weaving, , ,

For those readers now looking for some deep and meaningful story, alas it is not to be! This is the story of moving yards of yarn from one format to another.

It is October and time to start the 2026 Christmas towels. The structure this year will be my favorite huck lace diamond design, with a solid white warp and then using up my odds and ends of greens and reds – a striped weft. These will be woven on ‘Big Mac’ as I need the full 8 shafts for the pattern. I normally wind enough warp on the loom for 28 towels which give me enough for the family and friends gifts with, one or two left over. This year I am trying more warp so that I can weave the required number of Christmas towels and have some left for a dozen in other colors (perhaps spring, summer, or fall combo’s).

As I have a sectional beam on ‘Big Mac’ I first wind the required number of bobbins with enough yarn to fill the 11 sections needed for a starting width of 22″. This year I am using a 6/2 combed cotton for the warp instead of the normal 8/2 open ended. There’s a slight difference in the weight (as the number goes down the weight goes up, but it won’t be a significant difference). It could result in the ‘diamonds’ not being as symmetrical, but I can likely adjust tension and beat to compensate. Time will tell.

The yarn comes from the cone to the fishing line counter under finger tension to ensure the counter doesn’t slip. In this configuration it is counting down from 999, but as I am winding on 1000 feet it’s just a matter of winding until I hit 999 again. The yarn then travels 25 feet down to a peg and back to the bobbin I’m winding. This length is critical to allow the yarn to naturally go from side to side on the bobbin and thus wind evenly. It’s still sometimes a little uneven but not enough to be a problem.

This is the 36 bobbins full. That’s 6.82 miles of yarn moved from the cone. Next steps will be to wind the sectional beam – a future posting.

Other work during the weekend, which was going to wet right through with the remnants of hurricane Isaias passing to the west of us. We mostly had inside work planned because of that but Sunday afternoon all rain was gone so we did manage to get outside.

Before that though I worked on my small kumihimo bobbins (tama). I have to add some weight to each so that there will be a natural tension between them and the weight bag (Tsuri-omori) as I braid. This is all an experiment to see if I can produce these for the potential class in beaded kumihimo.

Initially I bore out the center hole to make space for as much lead as possible. I then hammer in lead air rifle pellets to fill the hole. Finally to tidy up the ends and add just a little more weight I glue a nickel on either end. I need a set of eight before I can try braiding.

Anne didn’t waste any time either. She wound and then braided her second beaded kumihimo necklace with very little input from me this time.

Her new one has the Ravens purple and gold braid along with white and gold beads.

And as mention we did get outside to gather some firewood from the forest. The dampness is not a problem as I just gather limbs off fallen dogwood or in a lot of cases standing dead dogwood that absorbs very little water for years.

A relatively quick burn before a nice soak before dinner.

And the final news from the Oak & Fern… I saw what is likely to have been our last hummingbird for the season. Our regular ‘flock’ of 10+ left a week or so back but yesterday there was a lone hummingbird at the feeder. Very likely from north of here and heading south like the rest. We keep feeders up for a few more weeks just in case.

Sampling

Project, Weaving,

A little while back we received some new (Production Excess) yarns at R&M Yarns (rmyarns.com), where I work two days a week. They were 8/2 and 4/2 cottons in a number of colors. Whilst sorting them (for shelving and to put on the web) I noticed that of all the colors (and there were 20 plus) there was only one color that was in both sizes. That got me thinking if it would be possible to weave towels (face cloths, hand towels and larger) using both size yarns but alternating thick and thin.

I bought a cone of 8/2 and 4/2 in ‘sepia’, to try it out. I did a wraps per inch test winding thick then thin alternately and that indicated a 12 dent reed would be fairly close to OK for tabby weave. Rather than try and wind the warp with alternate thick then thin I went for wind half the required number of 8/2 and then the other half of 4/2. This required me having them either side of me when I dressed the loom (front to back). I’d take one , sley the reed then thread the appropriate heddle. Next would be the other side into the next dent and heddle. Then repeat.

The weft was easier – two shuttles one with 8/2 and the other with 4/2 and it was one shot with one shuttle, change the shed, then the other. This meant the shuttles followed each other from one side to the next, so I always put them down in the same order and picked them up in the same order to keep the selvedges consistent. I did use floating selvedges to keep everything neater.

I tried two different approaches. A portion was woven as originally planned with alternate thick and thin in both warp and weft and a portion with alternate warp and just thin in the weft.

At the top is the weft only using 8/2 and at the bottom is the alternating 8/2 then 4/2 warp and weft.

It did produce some ‘texture’ in the warp and weft alternating sample and it has in ‘interesting’ look to it. The selvedges came out very well as they compressed a little to produce a nice border. The only negative I felt was it seems a little more ‘open’ than I’d think ideal. So I’ll re-sley the remaining warp in to a 14 dent reed and try that. This sample was both sizes of yarn being the same color, but even more interesting effects could be achieved with different colors in the two sizes. That will be a sample after I’m happy with the ends per inch.

And the ‘coaster’ sampler for the Guild challenge is finished with the second half in just two colors making the pattern pop! The sample, above photo’s of front and back, has been fringed, trimmed, and wet finished. Just a light steam iron then it’s all ready for the meeting on the 19th.

Back to the blog

Project, Weaving,

I certainly has been a long time between posts and it’s NOT because I haven’t been doing fiber related activities! But first; to answer the question from the last post… The annual Guild Christmas party is now firmly fixed at the Oak & Fern – I don’t seem to have been given any choice! So, to restart the blogging I’ll bring in a small project, physically small but not in the work involved.

The annual Guild challenge this year was a type of random draw. Each participant had to draw 4 items, with each being a component of the final product. There was: fiber type, color, weave structure, and finishing. I drew 4 which could only be described as relatively easy in: cotton or cotton blend, red, twill, and fringe. Nothing I wasn’t fairly familiar with and I certainly had plenty of yarn to work with – I went with colors of 3/2 pearl cotton left over from weaving tartan throws.

But… this is always supposed to be a challenge so in looking into how I could make it more of a challenge with something I had not done before I thought of advanced twills. Knowing that advanced twills often relied on multi-shaft looms and I only have one 8 shaft loom and all the rest being just 4 I took a leap and decided to do a 16 shaft pattern. This, of course, relies entirely on hand manipulation. So the simple solution was to use NO heddles and effectively hand weave each weft shot! I set up ‘Dot’ (Leclerc Dorothy table loom) with 32 warp threads which will be two repeats of the 16 pattern.

The plan was to print out the draw down for the design which came from an on-line collection of ‘The Fanciest Twills of All” by Irene K. Wood. As each shot was made I crossed off that line with a highlighter as after a few shots I kept mixing up which shot I was on. By doing a shot at a time and leaving yarn out either side I’m able to build up a knotted fringe up the sides as well as the fringes at either end.

Following are some of the photo’s so far. It’s not finished yet but should be before the meeting in a couple of weeks. Photo 1 is the warp through the beater with spacing weft in place. Photo 2 is several weft shots in various bands of colors and photo 3 more of that. Photo 4 has the first 16 weft shots plus some fillers as it’s not perfectly balanced (warp and weft) and I want it to be a square. The second half will be just one color weft (white) vice the multi-color bands of the first half.

Tartans and more tartans

Looms, Project, Tartan, Weaving, , , , ,

The weaving of the Brown tartan finished a little while back, but I kept the finished throw on the loom as we were visited by my sister-in-law and her husband (the new owners of the throw) and I thought it might be nice for them to actually see it on the loom. They were very pleased with how it came out. We’ll now take it off the loom and finish tying up the fringes on either end then wet finish it. Delivery will be next time we visit their Lookout Mountain home some time soon.

Brown tartan on the loom with yarn for the next tartan.

To save just a little time I will cut of the current tartan and leave the remaining warp threaded through the heddles and reed. I am currently winding the warp for the next tartan – a custom design for Anne’s niece and her fiance as a wedding present in April. By tying on to the threaded warp I can slight speed up the process of threading through both the heddles and reed. I have done this before and while it seems like it would be a real time saver – by the time you tie on every warp thread (or almost all – this throw is slightly smaller) it is quicker but not hugely. I think it might be one or two less steps that could introduce threading errors, which is a good thing.

A fairly simple tartan design but it does look good (on the software)

In between tartans I was working on the 2023 Scenic Valley Handweavers guild challenge which is to take analogous colors from a color wheel and also using black; highlight those colors. I was able to find three colors amongst my stash and decided not only to weave them somehow but also to, on the same warp, repeat the pattern three times using three different weaving techniques. A challenge on top of a challenge as it were!

The colors are from a very simple primary and secondary color wheel and are red, orange and yellow. The first technique was completely new to me and is called ‘skip plain weave’. Often seen in rugs (Central Asian), but also European and Southern American woven pieces. It is one sided as the ‘alternate’ colors float across the back behind the weft faced ‘front’. I have begun the second technique which is Turkish knot pile weaving. When I finish, the blocks will have the pile trimmed quite short. The final technique will be tapestry weaving. The warp is 8/2 cotton, the skip plain weave is 3/2 pearl cotton (left over from tartans) and the pile and tapestry are an acrylic knitting yarn left over from the ‘Four Horsemen’ blanket project. I will then mount and frame the whole thing, tentatively called ‘Blocks of Sunrise & Sunset’, before the deadline in June.

Dressing ‘Gypsey’
Skip plain weave
Starting the pile weaving

This project will take a pause while I push through the ‘Wedding Tartan’, but should be ready by the reveal date.

Two highlights

Studio, Tartan, Weaving,

After a week of winding warp (an hour or so a day – then on to studio build work) I had all the warp wound and all ready to go on the loom and there it sat, draped over the breast beam of ‘Big Mac’ waiting for action but I became fairly focused on getting the wiring in the studio ready for final inspection.

Nearly a month later I had everything done and arranged for the inspection which went perfectly smoothly, despite all my worries of tiny things that I thought might derail it! So now we have a fresh blue sticker on our meter box signing off the final inspection. Needless to say it has been a frustrating (at times) process and incurred some more expense (not on the wiring side) than planned, but regardless it is nice to see all the light fittings (bought at bargain prices from Lowes where Anne works) in place and working and being able to plug ‘things’ in wherever I like! We raised a glass of bubbly in celebration then I did an immediate pivot to get back to the tartan.

The dressing has been relatively quick and was threaded front to back. I now just have to tie on to the warp beam, wind it through and tie to the cloth beam – I hope to be weaving over the weekend.

Volunteer work

Uncategorized,

Three Scenic Valley Handweavers Guild members attended the Art for the Heart event at the Morningside of Cleveland, Assisted Living Center. We had been asked through my wife Anne who is the Food Services Manager there. She and the Activities Director were doing a combined event to both entertain the residents and also any other guests/potential residents from the community. We were happy to volunteer and also had the prospect of getting a little publicity for the Guild as there was likely to be newspaper coverage.

Spinning for the residents

We spent a couple of hours moving around and showing residents various aspects of spinning and weaving. Everyone appreciated the up close demonstrations and samples – everyone loved feeling how soft the alpaca roving was. Several residents had weaving or spinning connections with parents or grandparents.

An added bonus for the event was the custom snacks prepared by Anne and her staff. As something special for the residents (and me) Anne made vegemite sandwiches* and potato savories – both favorites from my childhood in New Zealand and something she quickly learned how to prepare when she worked at the early childhood center in Wellington when we lived there.

The Cleveland Banner turned up as promised and our photo’s appeared in the newspaper last night. The link is: http://clevelandbanner.com/stories/arts-for-your-heart,94835?fbclid=IwAR1_uw0J-5oNxLJq1cU3zvg2_o9E0Phm-NZ3m4EZ3GbRSZXFVExNKgS3Z_Q (I am the third photo) and along with the lead article on Anne’s cooking career a couple of days before, I think we helped Morningside of Cleveland marketing considerably.

*Almost certainly I ate the most!

2018 Christmas Towels

Uncategorized

Another rather long hiatus in blog entries, I’m afraid.  The good news however, is that there has been great progress on the studio build.  The second slab was poured and finished last week so the building there can commence (as soon as the rain stops:  while we are not suffering nearly as much as those to the north of us, we are currently already up 7.5 inches of rain for the year and have 5 days of rain due this week!!).

Anyway, this Christmas, like previous, I made Christmas dish towels for all the family which now includes siblings and their kids, plus a growing list of friends who have ended up on ‘the list.’  It meant this year I had to weave 27 for presents, so I increased the yardage a little and completed 35.  Needless to say I used the section beam to warp direct (as last year).  My original plan for the 2018 design was a Fibonacci sequence in green and red across the whole width and white weft with a plain twill weave structure.  As my sectional beam has 2 inch sections the original idea had to be re-thought to allow me to use the 48 spools in my rack to fill the 2 inch sections so the compromise was a smaller section of the Fibonacci sequence which lasted 48 threads. I filled every other section, reversed the rack (flipping the order) and then filled in the gaps.  Overall this gave a repeat pattern at 96 threads.

Winding the spools went smoothly and winding onto the back beam through the Leclerc Tension Box (with an added counter) was fast.  Dressing the rest of the loom took a couple of days but with a simple twill threading it wasn’t too hard.

Using the large boat shuttle and not having to change for stripes (as I had done in the previous 4 years) meant fairly quick weaving.  I wove the first 7 towels then cut them off.  They were the ones I had to package and send to NZ.  They made it in plenty of time.  The rest were in one single length – zig zag stitched at either end and wet finished before ironing, cutting and machine hemming.

The towels were then packed up with about 6 being mailed to various family spread around the U.S and all the rest hand delivered as we had a family Christmas gathering this year in Knoxville so most could be given out personally.

I already have ideas for the 2019 Christmas towel and rather like the idea of not having to change weft colors (stripes) as much.  I have used huck lace in the past and just might use that again in the next design, although one never knows.  The good thing will be that the looms will all be set up in the new studio well before I have to start, so it won’t involve moving a loom into our spare room to complete the project.

Weaving of a kind

Weaving

I’ve ended up distracted from fiber work over the last week.  Partly weather and partly a few more urgent chores, and then there was a brief trip to Atlanta to catch up with family.

We did, however, have our first crop of onions this year.  Not huge, but not too bad for a first real attempt at growing them.  After digging up, drying in the sun and trimming we had the challenge of ‘weaving’ them into ropes.

Onion Rope

Needless to say, having never done this before, it only took a quick Google Search to find a ‘how to’ video.  These two ropes are the larger onions and they are now hanging behind the door in our back room.  There were a few smaller ones which are currently awaiting a purpose!

As it rained all afternoon yesterday – I did do some weaving on the woolen scarf!

 

Broken Floating Selvedges

Weaving, ,

After being driven inside by the high humidity/heat (heat index of 100+) of late afternoon I decide to do some more scarf weaving on Dot, the Leclerc Dorothy table loom.  This is the very fine wool test scarf and it has been a while since I have worked on it.

All was going well until the right hand floating selvedge broke.  Broken warp threads or in this case a floating selvedge thread are relatively easy to fix with a pin to anchor the thread into the woven cloth below the fell line, then carry on weaving until there is enough to grip the thread and remove the pin.

IMG_9355

All was going well and then the left hand selvedge thread broke!!  Too much of a coincidence so I’ve had to look at what caused this.  Previously I had woven several feet of cloth without any breakages so it wasn’t anything obvious.  I had woven several inches yesterday when the breakages happened and hadn’t really been paying attention to the draw in which had mostly been minimal.  If the draw in becomes too severe it means more wear and tear from the beater to the outside warp yarn and in particular the floating selvedges.  It doesn’t appear much in the photo, but given the yarn is rather thin I suspect I was beating a little harder than previously and combined with the small draw in was enough to ‘wear out’ the floating selvedge threads.

I’ll remedy this by paying more attention to beating (a little less firm), and also reduce the weight on the floating selvedge threads to lower the tension slightly.  Lower tension can increase the draw in, but I will take care to place the weft yarn without too much tension to avoid this.

In other work yesterday (during cooler hours) I finished the two old saws that I had bought.  Despite some decades of neglect they cleaned up pretty well, and will eventually have some sharpening done to bring them back completely.

IMG_9357