A Brilliant Invention

Day 279: I'd like to give a shout out to the unsung hero who invented the fringe twister. According to Google's AI, tools for twisting fringe date back to ancient China, and the modern versions (of which there are several different designs with varying numbers of clips) cannot be attributed to any one person. Okay, that will have to satisfy me, and suffice to say that in my opinion, this is the greatest thing since sliced bread. No, wait...that idiom doesn't apply in my case since I make my own. That said, of all the gadgets I own, this one gets five stars, an A-plus in the categories of Clever, Functional and Time-Saving. I already have one end of the shawl done, and that's 128 little twisted fringes. If I was doing this with the "lick your fingers, roll one group 20 times, lick your fingers, roll the second group 20 times" method, I'd be here until Christmas. Even so, it's a lengthy process, and not one you'd sit down and complete all in one go.

A Proud McLeod

Day 278: My mother would be proud of me. I just took my McLeod of Lewis tartan shawl off the loom. This was a "bucket list" project for me: my family tartan made with authentic tartan wool (16/2) from Scotland. The fringe still needs twisting, and that will take a few days, what with 1024 threads to twist on each end in groups of eight (at least I think that's how I want to do it), but I have already filled out the paperwork to put this one in the Washington State Fair. It measures 32" wide by 78" long, and if I decide to wet-finish and waulk it, there will be some small amount of shrinkage. That said, I don't plan to do either. I have enough left to make a long scarf if I use the thrums as warp and the remainder on the cones for weft, but that will be a project for another time.

Two Feet

Day 251: Two feet and about four inches. That represents roughly a third of the McLeod shawl done and dusted. My goal has been to weave at least one colour unit (defined as a full sequence of either black or yellow) and, Merry permitting, some days I've been getting through a full repeat of the two. This is definitely a labour of love. The width of the piece extends my reach to the maximum, and because my stick shuttles aren't as long as the warp is wide, I have to coax each pass through carefully, reaching into the warp to nudge the stick along until I can capture it on the other side. Even so, the work is progressing faster than I'd expected, but in between sessions, I like to sit down with a project which isn't quite so demanding. To that end, I have all three inkle looms loaded, and am also working on the zanshiori which is on the rigid heddle. Never a dull moment around here!

Progress!

 

Day 244: I feel justified in posting another photo of the progress I'm making on the McLeod shawl because it's been quite a struggle to get to this point. The weaving is going much better, with only one shed (1/4) giving me any trouble. I've also discovered that if I feed my Helper before allowing him into the Loom Room, he goes right to his little weaver's box and curls up for a post-prandial nap. When I'm done with my session at the loom, I say, "I'm going OUT. Are you coming with me? Come on, let's go have some sprinkles!" (In case you're wondering, sprinkles are a small, crunchy cat food...not a treat, mind you...which he just loves.) So, thus far, I have six inches done on the shawl. I have planned it to be 72" long, not counting fringe. It measures 32" wide under tension. My squares are a little taller than they are wide, but I think that will work out when I wet-finish it. Will I waulk it? Possibly, and yes, I heard that "WTF is waulking?" from the back row. Traditionally, tartan fabric is put through a process of pounding as the wet cloth is passed from hand to hand through a succession of people gathered around a long table. The task is generally accompanied by rhythmic singing of "waulking songs," and is a time of socializing. The beating of the fibers felts them together somewhat to form a firmer, warmer, and nearly water-resistant cloth.

McLeod of Lewis

Day 243: The weaving of my tartan shawl has finally begun. This is McLeod (MacLeod) of Lewis, aka "the loud McLeod," which I am entitled to wear only thanks to a bit of shady family history. There was a dalliance between my grandfather's mother and a passing McLeod, unearthed when Grandpa visited Scotland in search of his true lineage. He knew that his legal father was not his biological father, but as to how he discovered the link to the McLeods (as it is spelled in our line) is something I do not know. In any event, this is our tartan, and the shawl is something I have wanted to weave for a very long time. For that reason, I have been diligently working my way through a number of difficulties, notably having to change the sett from 36 to 30 in order to obtain a 50/50 weave. Even now, it's hard to get a clean shed because the wool is "grabby," and this is further complicated by the fact that my longest shuttles are only 24" and the piece is 30" wide. I keep reminding myself, "It's a shawl. It's six feet long. It's not like you're weaving eight yards of it. You can get through this if you're patient." That said, it's slow going, but I'm a McLeod, and am nothing if not determined. After all, that's our motto: "Hold fast."

Setback And Revision

Day 238: Even when you're prepared for the possibility, it's disheartening when you have to rethink a weaving project. Despite using my table loom for some careful testing of the wool in order to establish the proper thread count necessary to achieve perfect squares in tartan, the floor loom had different ideas. I had woven 12 throws when it became obvious that my "square" was taller than it was wide. No amount of beating would cram 16 passes into the same space, and that meant my sett was too close together at 36 epi. In fact, it was so far off that I am acting on the assumption that my original "guesstimate" of 30 epi would have been correct, and that's what I'm engaged in presently: pulling all the threads out of the reed, changing to a different one, and rethreading. Note: this does not mean I had to re-thread the heddles! I've had to do this on a few other projects over the course of my weaving career, but never with 1024 ends to wrestle! And that said, if an epi of 30 doesn't work, I'll be repeating this process until I get it right. This is going to be an "heirloom" piece, so it has to be perfect.

Weaver's Worst Nightmare

Day 229: For the last several days, I have been living one of a weaver's worst nightmares. When I went to mount a new warp of expensive, fine (16/2) Scottish wool on the loom, I dropped half the cross.

For those of you who don't know, the cross is what keeps the threads in order. It is established when measuring a warp onto a warping board, and before the warp can be removed, the cross must be secured with ties or separators of some kind. I generally use little pieces of cardboard, inserting one on each side of the cross, then tying the ends together. In this particular case, I had wound the warp in two pieces (one on each of two warping boards). During the transfer process, one of the ties came loose, and one piece of cardboard slid out. Luckily, the second one remained in place. Even so, the cross had been free to "travel" down into the remaining warp, but fortunately, the wool was fairly "grabby," keeping it more or less in order. The operative words in that last sentence are "more or less." I still had to re-establish the cross without further tangling the threads. For obvious reasons, Merry was banished from the Loom Room for the duration. It took many hours to complete the job to my satisfaction.

The "grabbiness" of the wool worked both for and against me. It had kept the cross from becoming too tangled, but at the same time, it had a tendency to snarl at the lease sticks as I tried to wind on, especially in the section where I had manipulated it. An inch at a time, I coaxed the warp through the lease and onto the roller. The last photo in the series shows a perfect cross. It wasn't easy getting to that point, but patience prevailed. I'm still threading heddles (1024 of them!), but when I'm finished weaving it, this piece will be a shawl in my family tartan, McLeod of Lewis...a "bucket list" project which would make my mother proud.

Tartan Project

Day 193: Another of my "bucket list" weaving projects is in its initial phase. I have always wanted to weave my family tartan (McLeod of Lewis), and although I made a shawl using commercial knitting worsted, it was far from the vision in my mind. A friend gifted me with enough 16/2 (fine) Scottish wool thread for a shawl last Christmas, and after making a small test piece, I determined that it would have to be sett at 36 ends per inch to achieve a balanced weave. For the width I wanted, that meant 1024 ends in total. Obviously, winding it on the warping board was going to take a while, but even more critical to the project was tying an additional 600 string heddles. I figured I had plenty of time to do both because I had just loaded Max (my Bergman floor loom) with an overshot project which I wasn't likely to finish for at least two months. Well, I've made progress. The overshot is nearing completion, and I only have 50 heddles left to tie. It was time to start winding the warp. Merry has been a bit too helpful at times, but I think we have at last come to an understanding regarding teeth, toenails and tempting strings, although I have to hide the warping board between sessions. I'm halfway there.

Determining Sett

Day 157: When you're planning a weaving project with an unfamiliar thread/yarn, you need to determine the proper sett if you want to achive a balanced weave. For a tartan to be authentic, it must adhere to the proportions described in the Scottish Register of Tartans. It should be a 50/50 weave, which is to say that it should have the same number of warp threads and weft passes in an inch. Given the variation between yarns, how do you figure out the correct sett? A good starting point is by ascertaining the number of wraps per inch (WPI). Wind the thread around a ruler with each wrap taken as close to the previous one without compacting them. Cover an inch on the ruler and count the number of wraps. Divide the WPI in half if you plan to weave tabby, or by 2/3 for twill. And I cannot emphasize this strongly enough: this is only a guideline! You may have to adjust, as I did for my 16/2 Scottish wool. It wrapped the ruler at 40 per inch. This suggested at 30 warp ends per inch (EPI) would be a good sett. However, because this wool was very expensive and I only have enough to weave a shawl in my McLeod tartan, I decided to make a sample to confirm the sett. At 30 EPI, I made 40 weft passes to the inch ("picks per inch" or PPI), obviously not a 50/50 weave! Yes, I could still weave perfect squares, but my goal was to weave my official tartan, not just a plaid in McLeod colours. Therefore, I had to make some adjustments. By changing the sett to 36 EPI (tighter), the weft picks didn't pack as firmly. I'd found the sweet spot, although it will still take some careful attention to beating to keep consistent throughout the piece. I think my mother would be proud. (Footnote: the McLeod of Lewis tartan is mostly yellow and black with a fine red line, so I wove this sample using red because I knew I'd have more than enough. The yellow in the photo is not wool. It's a piece of nylon cord I used as a separator.)

A Timely Gift

Day 114: Imported from Scotland via Canada, a much-anticipated Christmas gift was delivered to me a few days ago by a weaving friend, timely in that it barely escaped falling under the ludicrous Trump Tariff on Canadian goods. This fine 16/2 wool will be woven into a light summer shawl of my tartan, McLeod of Lewis, also sometimes laughingly referred to as the "loud McLeod." I will be weaving it to spec, as it were, because true tartans must conform to how they are registered with the Scottish Registry of Tartans. In this case, that means a repeat of 16 black, 2 yellow, 16 black, 2 yellow, 16 black, 24 yellow, 2 red, 24 yellow on a twill threading. Because I plan to weave it on my floor loom at 30 inches wide (to shrink down to roughly 27 inches), it will require 900+ string heddles for a sett of 30 ends per inch. Max currently has about 500, so there's a lot of knot-tying in my future. I may have to adjust the sett somewhat in order to obtain a 50/50 weave (i.e., one with as many weft passes as there are warp threads in an inch). The wool is not the thinnest fiber I have ever woven by any means, but it will take extra care to be sure I don't break threads. However, first I have to finish weaving "Friend Evelyn." I have 8 feet done, and about 15 to go.

Fair Time

Day 309: After two years' absence due to the pandemic, I will be submitting two pieces to the Puyallup Fair (Washington State Fair) in Home Arts: a crocheted maid's apron made from a 1940s-era pattern and a shawl woven in my family tartan (McLeod of Lewis). That said, I will not be attending the Fair due to risk of covid, so if any of my readers happen to spot my work on display, I hope you'll send me photos.

My husband was always after me to put my crafts in the Fair, and I always resisted, feeling that my skills were not good enough for competition at the State level. It didn't help that the submission process was rather complicated (this was before internet, you see), and I didn't understand terms like "division" and "class" in the show context. Admittedly, when I finally broke down and decided to enter my works the first time, I had to have some guidance in order to classify the pieces I intended to submit. Even now, it can be a little daunting. Is an apron a garment or an accessory? I have also discovered that selecting the best option when a piece fits into one or more categories can help bring home a ribbon. So far, none of the pieces I've submitted over the last seven or eight years has failed to win a prize. I have to think Bruce would be proud.

The Loud McLeod

Day 201: I finished twisting the fringe on the loud McLeod shawl yesterday morning, completing what was one of the fastest weaving projects I've ever done. As I was nearing the end of the work at the loom, a friend said, "Whoa! Slow down!" so I took a day off to pull weeds in the garden and catch up on a few other outdoor tasks. Even so, it was only five days from measuring warp to ready-to-wear, and then I found myself again looking at a naked loom. My stock of fibers is by no means low, but not necessarily in colours or quantities which work together. Dithering over a new project, I went for a walk to clear my head and by the time I'd covered a mile, I'd solved the problem. Now exactly what the new project is, I can't say because it's destined to be gifted come Christmas. That said, the table loom is also empty. I think I need to take another "planning" walk, but not in my McLeod shawl. It'd hold up traffic for sure!

The McLeod Project

Day 197: They call it the "loud MacLeod." The tartan of MacLeod/McLeod of Lewis is even more recognizable than Royal Stewart, being one of very few "plaids" with a yellow ground (a "plaid," incidentally, is a garment rather than a pattern). It also happens to be my family's tartan by way of an indiscretion committed by my grandfather's mother with a man of the clan, a dalliance which, according to his personal research, led to my grandfather's birth. My grandfather went to Skye in the early 1900s to speak with people who had known his family and found enough support for the story to convince him of his right to the tartan. Although that bloodline is somewhat diluted in its present incarnation (me), I am proud to be a McLeod (the spelling used in our line), if from the "wrong side of the blanket."

The necessity for sticking close to home has found me digging into my stash of fibers with a critical eye to potential projects. I had on hand a good supply of Caron "Simply Soft" worsted in gold, harvest red and black, having used the colours previously to make ladybug and bee hats for Joppa Flats. Those, or as close as makes no nevermind, are the colours of Clan McLeod. Obviously quite a bit heavier than I would have liked, availability suggested a project to follow the tablecloth: a McLeod shawl. I was able to find the exact sett written in the code unique to tartan weaving, and reinterpreted it to proportions reasonable for the yarn. Admittedly, the width of a shawl only allows for one full repeat flanked by a half-repeat to either side, but at approximately six feet in length, there will be five red intersections. The worsted-weight fiber makes the weaving move very quickly. By yesterday evening, I had woven over two feet even though I had spent very little time at the loom. I suspect the McLeod Project will be done by Tuesday.