This is the 15th year of continuous daily publication for 365Caws. All things considered, it's likely it will be the last year as it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to find interesting material. However, I hope that I may have inspired someone to a greater curiosity about the natural world with my natural history posts, or encouraged a novice weaver or needleworker. If so, I've done what I set out to do.
Friday, September 8, 2023
Spillway - The Teaser
Day 330: It's a dam spillway! This is the teaser. I recently found instructions for a weaving structure I had always thought was impossible to create on a four-shaft loom, i.e., that it had to be woven on a minimum of eight shafts or on a drawloom. I won't give it away just yet, but having done a small experiment with the leftover warp on the floor loom, I am reasonably certain that I understand the technique. In any event, I decided it was prudent to warp it onto my table loom so that there would be less wastage in case everything goes pear-shaped on me, and that's how I've spent the morning. I chose the metaphor of a spillway for good reason: although the threads are each drawn through individual heddles, they pass through "penstocks," four in a bunch in each dent, separated from one another by an empty dent. It makes for quite a cascade! I need to settle on a design before I can begin, but let me assure you, this is the most excited I've been about a weaving technique since I discovered the joys of overshot some fifty years ago.
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