Leftovers With Variables

Day 107: A quarter cone of the crimped yellow thread has been sitting in my weaving stash for about forty years, waiting for me to figure out what to do with it. It was something I picked up at a marvelous store in Portland (Oregon) called "Mill Ends" which went out of business shortly thereafter, and I'd used most of the thread to make placemats. There was too much left for my conscience to allow me to throw it out, but I was having difficulty finding an inspiration which would include it, given the limited amount. This morning as I was threading the table loom with warp for rag rugs, it struck me: break out the variable-dent reed for the rigid heddle and use it in combination with some of the leftover 3/2 cotton I'd used as weft in the King's Flower coverlet. The two yarns were close to the same size, so I arranged the sections of the variable-dent reed to have the 3/2 at the edges and in the center section at 10 epi, spaced apart by two inches of 8/2 (aqua) at 15 epi. I'll be working three towels in plain weave and 8/2, but the different weights of thread will give them texture and visual interest.

Weaving Fusion

Day 272: I recently saw a demonstration of a weaving technique which coupled loom weaving with tablet weaving to produce a cloth with at least one ornamental band in a specific position. Rather than setting up a test on a longer warp, I decided to use thrums from previous projects since I only needed to weave a small piece to see how it worked. I installed a variable-dent reed (sectional reed) in my rigid heddle loom so that there was a gap in the center, threading both side sections in the usual way. The warp for the center band was put on eight cards, just enough to make a cute little diamond pattern. With each change of the rigid heddle reed, the tablets are turned according to the draft and the shuttle passes through both the shed controlled by the reed and that created by the cards. I found that beating was best done with the shuttle. The process has its quirks and requires a bit more effort on the weaver's part to achieve uniform thread spacing, but it is entirely workable and interesting to weave. A sectional reed is not required for this technique. If using a standard rigid heddle reed, simply pass two tablet threads through each slot, skipping the eyes in the banded section. On a regular loom, leave the tablet threads unheddled and thread them through the reed in the normal manner. I see lots of possibilities here!