A Weave Of A Few Firsts

I have been weaving for about a year but haven't done a lot of 'different' weaving.  I seem to get comfortable doing a certain type of weave and stick to it.

For this scarf I decided to try a couple of different things.  First, I chose 5 different shades of a green 8/2 Orlec with 4 designated for the warp and one for the weft.  I took a deep breath, tied the 4 warp threads together, and started winding out my warp.  I have never wound more then one thread before and any colour changes were done by breaking the yarn and tying the new colour on.  For this scarf I wanted the colour order to be random so there was not a definite colour change.  As I was winding the warp I didn't end up with a lot of tangles or twisted yarns which I had thought might happen.

After getting all the winding done I started to thread the heddles and just grabbed what ever thread felt like it was next in the bunch.  I did like the way there was the occasional stripe when 2 warp threads of the same colour ended up being threaded side by side.

So, next comes the tension sticks and winding onto the back beam - all done without a problem.  I also decided to try a different method of tying onto the front beam.  I am in the process of watching Laura Fry's video - "The Efficient Weaver" - and she dresses that loom with such speed and finesse that it makes my head spin.  Laura uses the lash on method and I had never tried it before.  I usually tie directly onto the front rod and have to untie, tighten, retie a number of times.  A little trick from the video (and what prompted me to try this method) is to tie your warp into bouts, tie the lashing cord onto the front rod and then thread it through the bouts in an over and under method using a fair amount of tension.  After you tie the end of the lashing cord into place release the back brake just slightly and then tighten the tension at the front of the loom.  The lashing cord magically adjusts itself through the bouts and you have even tension.  Love it!

The lashing cord was a bit of a problem for me this first time round.  I wasn't sure what to use and had some waste 8 ply cotton.  I was half way done threading it through the bouts and ran out.  Not knowing how much lashing cord I needed I ended up trying 3 different lengths of 8/4 cotton to get an estimate of what would be enough.  Once that was figured out I doubled the 8/4 and away I went.  Even tension was achieved, the warp was spread out using some thick yarn, the lightest colour Orlec was wound onto the stick, and I started to weave.

I got about 3 inches of the scarf done and decided that the lightest colour looked horrible.  The warp was threaded in a simple straight twill - 1, 2, 3, 4.  The tie-up also a straight twill - 1/2, 2/3, 3/4, 1/4.  The weaving sequence was a broken twill so treadles 1, 3, 2 then 4.  For some reason the light colour Orlec just kind of clashed with the warp threads in this broken twill pattern.  It really dominated the weaving and blocked out any subtle colour changes in the warp so, as in the knitting world, it was frogged.  I settled on using the darkest green as the weft and love the way the colours all work together.

I now have my table stacked with a few different colour combinations in the same palette.  Blues, tans, reds - I can hardly wait to see how they turn out!

Plaited Twill on 4 Shafts

Yay...my scarf is finally done.  I warped my loom probably about a month ago but I have been caught up in knitting lately and just did not pay attention to my weaving.  After a couple of hours of steady weaving it is finally done.

I have a really bad habit of collecting drafts I see on the internet and saving them in my weaving folder on the computer with the hopes of trying them out some day.  This draft is one of them.  I just did a quick search on the internet and I think I originally found the draft on Pinterest. Upon 'visiting the page' the link just takes me back to a Google search so I have no idea who first posted the draft out there in cyber space.  Thank you to who ever did that!

I used a pale turquoise for the warp and a dark grey for the weft.  Both yarns are 8/2 Orlec, which is an acrylic.  160 ends at 20 epi gave it a decent width and I wove to about 78 inches in length.

For the last few times I have wound out a warp I have done a double crossed warp.  I combined a couple of different warping techniques from a couple of different sources and it has worked out so far - well, except this time.

Ashford looms has put out a great video on winding a warp using 2 crosses.  One end of your warp is crossed at every thread and is used for threading your heddles.  The other cross, at the other end of the warp, is crossed at the same intervals as your ends per inch.  So, if you have 20 ends per inch you only cross your warp every 20 passes of the yarn.  You end up with small crossed bunches of yarn that are in inch's worth of ends.  This makes for easy counting and making sure you have the correct number of ends and for tensioning the warp as it is wound onto the loom.  Joyce, a member of some weaving Facebook groups, posted a method of using dowels which are interlaced in the warp, to add tension as you are winding onto the loom.  It is a similar method that utilizes Angel Wings.  I interlace four dowels through the 'inch' intervals, tie the dowels together, and then as I wind on, the yarn is pulled through these dowels.  I do the standard 'tug and pull' once in a while and make sure that all the threads are getting the same amount of tension.  It is a much nicer system to work with instead of tying on weights at the one end of the warp.

This time, however, I somehow managed to twist the crosses as I passed the looped end onto the back beam.  I always warp btf and use a raddle to space out my warp so I don't know how I managed to do that.  As I got closer to the end of the warp in weaving I was worried that the twist would give me an uneven tension in the warp but it didn't affect it too much and I managed to keep an even fell line.

So here is the draft but since I can't remember where I got it from I have done it up in Fiberworks and just printed out the image....it is a simple 8 thread repeat on the warp and a 12 pick repeat for treadling.  I used my Rasmussen table loom and the treadling is nice that you are only changing one lever for each pick - made it easy to catch any treadling errors.  Once I went through the repeat a couple of times I more or less had it memorized and just kept a copy of the sequence handy to have a peek at once in a while.

When ever I do some weaving I tend to put the draft into Fiberworks and then copy different parts of the image - for example, using the snipping tool I would just select one repeat of the threading sequence, enlarge it, print it out and then use that as my guide for when I am actually threading the heddles.  I find that breaking up the draft makes it easier for me to read and to keep track of where I am.  Same goes for the tie-up and the treadling.

While I was weaving this scarf I didn't pound the weft into place and I could really see the difference in my beat as I progressed.  I guess the way the colours intermingled really contributed to showing that.  Once I washed and dried the scarf most of that colour distortion did disappear but you can still see some slight variations.  It doesn't seem to be too garish or distract from the scarf so I am happy the way it turned out.  My selvedges are good and I only had to load my shuttle once so there was only one place I had to tuck in an end....overall pretty satisfied with it.

And the final product....

My camera on my tablet does not do the colour justice.  The actual colour is way closer to the print of the draft then what you can see above.

You can see a faint difference in the colour tone on the right side - that is where there was a difference in the beat.

Front and back views - again you can see where I beat just a little bit harder.  The boxes are a little more condensed.  I don't think a non-weaver would really notice the difference though.

Finally, I just have to figure out how to take some "artistic" pictures!

Knitting Speed

As a relatively new knitter I am still fascinated by how others get the job done.  I just received a link from Craftsy today - here is the link knit faster - and there are some great tips listed.  I do knit continental so I have a bit of an advantage there.  I still find that I am a bit slow and often make mistakes.  

One of my goals this year is to learn how to correct stitching mistakes without having to frog a bunch of rows.  I signed up for the Brioche Knitting course on Craftsy and Nancy Marchant has some great advice on how to correct mistakes for this particular stitch.  I haven't completed this class yet and haven't started any of the projects.  I did do a plain brioche stitch scarf though and it is so soft and cuddly.

Too many projects I want to get done and not enough time!!

Introductions...

A little over 2 years ago I taught myself how to knit.  I had visions of being able to sell some of my finished goods with the hopes of raising some money for the charities I support.  Any guess to the ones I support??  I am, first and foremost, an animal lover and support a few rescue charities.  I would love to be able to support them all but have decided to whole hardily support a few locals ones.

Last year I discovered weaving.  Four looms and stack of weaving yarn later I am slowly, but surely, learning different techniques and styles of the craft. Watching a piece of cloth develop with each pick I throw still gives me a feeling of awe and at times I often just stop weaving to look at the emerging pattern. I am not a production weaver and only weave in my spare time - sometimes it takes me a month to get a scarf off of the loom so have a bit of patience with me.

I am going to try and post about what I learn as I progress in my weaving adventures so I hope you enjoy the journey with me!


Take care, Dianne