Tippy Stakes A Claim

Day 97: I settled into the chair and began tying the fringe on the longer of two "Log Cabin Gone Mad" table scarves, and Tippy jumped into my lap and almost immediately began digging at the cloth. When he wants the chair to himself (it's his chair, mind you, not mine), he indicates that I should move out by digging beside me, but that wasn't what he was doing this time. He was digging at the weaving, specifically. When he had raised a fold of it, he burrowed in underneath, and after several more contortions, got himself comfortable and laid down. Why this particular weaving, and none before it? Was it the texture or the pattern? What was the appeal of this piece? I can't answer that, not being able to get inside the feline logic processes going on in that sweet little head. I just know that I may have to give up my "table runner" to a higher purpose.

Three-Shaft Stud Runner

Day 37: And here's the piece which just came off the floor loom. The weave is something I developed on the fly when I realized I'd miscounted warp threads and wound up with one extra between the yellows. I'm sure it's been published somewhere, but rather than searching through books for something which would use a 7-thread repeat, I "re-invented" it, and call it "Three-Shaft Stud." The fringe still needs to be trimmed and twisted, but this runner may get an additional treatment: embroidery on the ends. The catch is that the weave is not square like counted-thread fabrics, so although I think cross-stitch would work, I may play around with tvistsöm ("long-armed cross-stitch") as a means of adding decoration and weight to the end panels. It may be necessary to turn the tvistsöm so that the stitches run vertically, compensating for the wider-than-tall lay of the weft and warp. Tvistsöm is worked in one direction only (left to right if you're right-handed) and subsequent rows give a braided appearance as opposed to the familiar X of cross-stitch.

Three-Shaft Stud Table Runner

Day 1: As a general rule, weaving is a pretty straightforward process. You decide what you want to make, what fibers you want to use and which colours they should be, what draft you want to thread to give the weave you desire. It would end there if it was all about mechanics, but there is a human element involved in the process which sometimes sends a project off on a very different tangent from the one the weaver had in mind. Such was the case when I measured the warp for the October Weave-Along's waffle-weave towels. My brain slipped a cog and I counted out my warp strands with every seventh one being yellow when it should have been every sixth thread. I didn't realize it until I began threading the heddles on my floor loom, counting 1-2-3-4-3-2 and 1 again. The 1s should have been yellow, but because I had six threads of colours A and B in between them in my measured warp, the next sequence was off. The only reasonable solution was to wind a new warp and put it on the table loom since any other means of correction would have resulted in a heap of thread spaghetti. That done, I commenced weaving waffles per the Weave-Along project, but I was left with the dilemma of what to do with the warp on the floor loom. There aren't a lot of weaving drafts for patterns with repeats of 7, and while I could have woven it in a simple over-and-under tabby, I wanted something with a bit more visual texture. After all, that was why I'd put those yellow threads in there in the first place. I spent that evening and a large portion of the night weaving mentally, mulling over what you could do with seven threads and four shafts, and shortly before dawn, it occurred to me that I didn't need to use four shafts. Three would do nicely. By threading the A and B coloured threads alternately on shafts 1 and 2 and the yellows on shaft 3, I could create "studs" of yellow, identical front and back. The treadling sequence shifts: 1, 2, 1, 2, 1/3, 2/3, 1/3...2, 1, 2, 1, 2/3, 1/3, 2/3. This creates a tabby in the A/B with yellow floats. In the weft, I am weaving with mustard until there are 20 yellow floats, interspersed with 3-float bands of rust and mustard until there are three rust stripes, and then repeating from the start. I had thought I might make placemats in this manner, but I like the weave so well that I decided to make an autumn table runner instead. My invented weave has undoubtedly been published somewhere at some time, but I created it from scratch, and I'm calling it "Three-Shaft Stud."

Winding Up Projects

Day 27: I'm winding up several projects, both in the figurative and literal senses of the phrase. The blue and white shawl is done, right down to the last twisted fringe, ready to be sent off to the Nisqually Land Trust for auction at a later date. The black slub yardage is also done, although it will remain on the loom until I've finished the multicoloured table runner which uses most of the same warp threads. I wasn't sure how far the slub would extend, so I wound on extra warp, thinking I might make a couple of twill towels using cottons as the weft. As it turned out, I might have been able to squeeze two towels out of the remaining warp, but it would have been tight. I decided it was best to make a runner instead and...oh, hey, look at this! I have just enough of that "Mexicali" perle cotton left! I'd been wondering how I was going to use it up, and bingo, question answered. This is the benefit of isolation. It is compelling me to make use of what I have in my stash (and believe me, my stash is considerable!), so I'm trying to utilize the tag ends of weaving cones and yarn skeins without making it obvious that I've done so. Towels, runners, throw pillows, scarves and shawls are a good way to do that. A stripe here, a wide band there, and Bob's your uncle. It takes a bit more creativity and planning than simply winding a plain warp, but that's the fun of weaving.

Weaving With Tabby

Day 256: After finishing up the table runners which I'll be entering in the Washington State Fair, I decided that my next weaving project should be something more complex. I opted for a simple, reversible overshot pattern executed in three colours on a black ground. In this type of weaving, two shuttles are used. One carries the surface floats and the other the background. Each float throw is followed by one background throw, aka the "tabby." Consequently, an over-and-under weave results in the main colour spaces between the longer float threads of the weft. The treadle action is something of a dance: tabby left, pattern, tabby right, pattern, changing the pattern throws according to the design. Too complicated to write out fully in a weaving draft, this method is usually abbreviated with the notation, "use tabby" for a specified number of throws. The technique of overshot can be an exciting adventure for the patient and detail-conscious weaver. Unfortunately, I ran short of black, and instead of making a full tablecloth, this piece will be another runner.