Weaving "Little Guys"

Since I have a fairly simple project on Daisy, I decided to do something a bit more challenging on rigid heddle, i.e., double the sett, and use both a pickup stick and a heddle rod. The draft I chose was a huck variation, something my mother called "little guys" for the floats with "legs" and narrow "waists." My mom wove exclusively on rigid heddle and inkle, and I was always surprised by the patterns and textures she could achieve using a single heddle and pickup sticks. She worked in heavier threads than I prefer, but I was sure I could adapt her instructions to a two-heddle loom so I could weave with my usual 8/2 cotton. There are 252 ends here, using two 10-dent heddles. The "up" sheds include either the pickup stick or the heddle rod to create the floats, and are a bit tricky to get a shuttle through, but I got roughly 9 inches done yesterday. I'm not sure I'll ever repeat this experiment because it is rather tedious to weave, but when I'm done, I should have two towels and possibly a washrag of "little guys."

2/1 Twill on Rigid Heddle

I was sure it could be done, but after one full day and a sleepless night, I could not visualize how to effect a twill weave structure on my two-heddle rigid heddle loom. Although I'm trying to limit my internet time (to preserve my mental well-being!), the first thing I did the next morning was hit YouTube. I found a clear and easy to follow video from "Rigid Heddle Weaving in Brisbane" which told me everything I needed to know. She suggested warping in colour bundles of six threads to make it easier to understand the threading process which, I must admit, sounds daunting but is actually quite simple, so I dragged out all my partial cones of ancient dye lots and went a little mad with stripes. This is a 2/1 twill, meaning that the weft thread goes under one and over two in a progressive diagonal over three repeating passes of the shuttle. It is delightfully easy to weave. My plain coloured warp was a bundle of 65" super-long thrums from a project I'd cut off the floor loom early for some reason, and were the perfect length for two towels, allowing for loom waste. As I understand it, a 2/2 twill cannot be woven without adding a third heddle or using a pickup stick. That's fine. I'm happy with 1/2.

Thrums Runner

Day 102: The "seed" of this project was a handful of 6-foot long thrums in light blue and lime green, enough to use (doubled) as warp for slightly more than half the width of the piece. I supplemented the warp with shuttle leftovers and end-of-cone/dye lot remains in lavender and white, and then threw in some darker blue for accents. In the end, I had enough to make either two placemats or one runner using shorter thrums for the weft, zanshiori-style. I opted for a runner or, if push comes to shove, a piece of fabric which could be used to make a shopping bag. The finished dimensions are 34.5" x 12" raw, which will shrink to roughly 30" x 11" after being brutalized in the washer and dryer. The zanshiori style really appeals to my thrifty nature, and while I was working on this piece, I finished up the warp on my floor loom, so now I have another batch of thrums to put on the rigid heddle. I call it "half-lifing," working with leftovers until they're too short to use for anything else.

Zanshiori

Day 92: Anyone who weaves a lot eventually winds up with a collection of thrums, i.e., those long bits of thread referred to as "loom waste." Since I am thrifty and can't bear to throw them away, they go through various stages as I put them to best use. If they're long enough, they go on a rigid heddle loom or an inkle loom as a short warp, or they can be card-woven. If they're short, they get tied together and rolled up in balls until I've accumulated a sufficient amount for a zanshiori project. What's zanshiori? Literally translated, it means "a weaving made from waste thread." That's pretty definitive! Similar in philopsophy to other Japanese "waste not, want not" methods like boro, the idea is to use what you have to make something useful or to extend its usable life. The flaws and imperfections in the resulting pieces add to their character.

I've been using a lot of blues and greens lately, and my thrums jar was getting full. Since Daisy has a bowed midsection in her warp beam, I have to leave the raddle in place after winding on. This means her "loom waste" is about a foot longer than usual. After taking my last project off, I was left with a handful of thrums two yards in length, ideal for making the center section of a runner. I doubled them for visual interest, and flanked them on either side with leftover end-of-cone, end-of-dye-lot bits for stripes, using shorter thrums knotted together as weft. The sticky-uppy knots will fuzz out over repeated washings to become cute, random textural nubbins of personality in the finished piece.

Serious Warp Chicken, Rigid Heddle Style

Day 362: I have played Warp Chicken on rigid heddle before, but never quite as narrowly as this. I did manage to get the full 280 throws on my last placemat, but it measures a full inch and then some shorter than the other five because I was overcompensating with the beat. Still, having the same number of throws as the others will go a long way in how it fulls in the wash. I've used the counted-throw method before, and after fulling, the difference in lengths was negligible even though it had been very noticeable in the raw. Now both rigid heddle looms are standing empty, as is my table loom. I'd like to start a new project, but what I want to make has to (HAS TO!) go on the floor loom, and that's currently occupied with a rather boring project. I've created a dilemma for myself!

Weaving a Tube

Day 297: Some time back, I received a mispicked order for cotton thread,  and was sent 3/2 instead of 5/2. I contacted the supplier who told me they'd ship out the correct product, and that I was free to keep the cone already in my possession. Never one to pass up free thread, I thought, "Well, I'll find someplace to use it even though it's heavy." I tried it in an overshot against 8/2, but after wet-finishing, it fulled up so much that the pattern was almost lost. The remainder went back on the "some day" shelf until recently when a friend picked up a partial cone of pink 3/2 and sent it to me, sparking an instinct which said loudly and clearly, "I have GOT to get rid of this!" (If you've missed the memo, I hate pink, absolutely loathe it.) I decided to make "bag bags" with it as an accent against the blue of the same weight. What's a "bag bag?" It's a long skinny tube, open at both ends, serving as a dispenser for the produce bags which inevitably follow you home from the grocery store and deserve at least one more use before going in the trash (don't get me started on single-use plastics, people! That's dangerous ground). Anyway, I decided to warp my small rigid heddle loom for weaving a tube, intending to cut in half to make two "bag bags." It hasn't been a project I particularly enjoyed, what with that pink staring at me, but at least I've put the thread to good use. I still have more of each colour left, so I'll have to come up with another project to use it up, just maybe not any time soon. I'm tired of 3/2, and I never want to see pink again.

Self-shading Warp

Day 292: Sometimes, you buy something on a whim and then have to ask yourself, "What in the world am I going to do with this?" That was the case when I ordered a cone of variegated thread, always a sucker for colour. I used a little of it as weft in some project, wasn't particularly impressed with how it turned out, and thus the cone migrated to the back of the storage cupboard. While I was working on the zanshiori placemats, my mind was on what to do next. I liked the way the doubled warp was working out to balance the changes in colour, and it occurred to me that warping with the variegated blues might be a way to use the cone to good advantage. I was not expecting it to "self-shade" like this, but I love the way it's working out to look almost like a hand-painted warp. Of course, I had to add a stripe for contrast, but I am using pale blue exclusively for the weft to create a "tidal" effect.

Rigid Heddle Warp Chicken

Day 288: This is about as close as I ever hope to come while playing warp chicken on a rigid heddle loom. Y'see, when I started this project of zanshiori placemats, I warped for four, adding "a little bit for the Pope" as I always do to be on the safe side. When I got the fourth one finished, it looked like I just might be able to squeeze a fifth one out of the remaining warp. Since I was counting throws (280 per placemat), I could get a pretty clear estimate of where I'd wind up, and...well, if I was 10 throws short, that placemat would be the one I kept, as opposed to those I intended to gift as pairs. As you see, I might have been able to squeeze another ten passes in, but when I took them off the loom and measured them, I discovered I'd over-compensated a bit with the beat. The fifth one has the requisite 280 throws, but it's about half an inch shorter than the others. That will level out somewhat once they're wet-finished, another advantage to counting the number of passes as opposed to measuring the length on the loom.

Hemstitching a Tube

Day 264: If anyone knows how to hemstitch a tube or double-wide cloth on the loom, I would appreciate a detailed description of the procedure. I always hemstitch both ends of my pieces, and it's a right pain when the fabric is not under tension (i.e., off the loom). To hemstitch on the loom if you're using a floor loom, there seems to be no way to do the bottom layer at the beginning unless you want to lay on your back underneath the fabric. In this case, I'm working on a rigid heddle, so I flipped the loom over. Even so, it was awkward working in amongst the brace pieces. This is a "stash-busting" project. I'm trying to use up some 3/2 cotton I was sent by mistake. It's substantially heavier than anything I would normally weave, so I'm making seamless bags with it.

Rob Learns To Weave

Day 258: When Rob told me that he'd hoped to have a weaving lesson while he was here visiting from New Zealand, I could hardly believe I'd heard him correctly, and of course I was overjoyed to have the opportunity to teach. The only unoccupied loom at the moment was my 10" rigid heddle, so I set it up at full width with a little over a yard of "Sugar'n Cream"cotton (a heavy crochet cotton which is perfect for a beginner's first project). After dinner, we settled in for the lesson. I explained briefly what I had done to thread the loom, showed him how I had woven and hemstitched the first few rows, handed him a loaded shuttle and turned him loose after emphasizing the importance of tidy selvedges. "Sometimes it takes new weavers years to be able to make good selvedges," I said. "Don't expect them to be perfect on your first piece." And then he proceeded to weave a washcloth with the best selvedges I have ever seen a beginner make! Several hours later, he was ready to learn how to hemstitch, and when that task was done, we cut the piece off the loom. Today, he'll finish it up by twisting the fringes, and I think he is entirely justified in being proud of his first weaving.

Zanshiori - Weaving Leftovers

Day 249: In weaving, "right" and "wrong" are subjective. As long as the end product pleases the weaver and serves the intended function (even "just because" is a viable function), the Weaving Police should just keep their mouths shut. It's a little different when you're entering a competition. There, you have to abide by certain strictures or you will find yourself subject to criticism. However, the individual weaver is a creative artist, and in no place is that quite so apparent as in zanshiori. The term translates directly from Japanese as "leftover threads" ("zanshi-", i.e., thrums and tag ends of cones/spools) and "weaving" ("ori"), and the most important thing to know about this type of weaving is that there are no rules. In fact, it is the flaws and imperfections which give zanshiori its character. It can be done within guidelines such as the way I am working it here with bits of 8/2 cotton, or it can be entirely random, materials drawn from a basket or box at the weaver's side, using whatever comes to hand. I spent the better part of a week tying together four ounces of thrums in two balls (one mostly browns and black, the other mixed colours), planning to use them as weft in a rigid-heddle project. I had seen a video of zanshiori-made shopping bags, and took one suggestion to heart: double the warp threads so that two pass through each slot and each hole. It made warping a breeze, and for the most part, Merry let me do my work without interfering (well, I did have to tell him "No!" a few times). The dominance of the warp helps blend the weft colour changes visually. Already, I am enjoying the character imparted by the knots as I put into action one of my grandmother's best pieces of advice: Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.

Cats, Next Level

Day 197: Having worn through the callus on my needle-poking finger, I need to take a short break from quilting until I can use it again without perforating the tender skin. I decided to have another go at weaving Siamese cats on the rigid heddle loom. It's not that the design is hard to adapt. It's actually quite easy. It's selecting colours which will allow the ears and tails to show up against the background. Even my darkest grey tended to be reduced to the point that it didn't really stand out against red (it faded right into blue), so I opted for black. The dyes my primary supplier's mill uses are not particularly vivid in any event, which has been frustrating for me on other projects as well. The trade-off is that compared to other brands of weaving thread, these are more affordable. On my budget, I can live with "muted," even though I long for a true Christmas red or a bright royal blue.

Little White Cats

Day 195: In this second version of cats for the rigid heddle loom, I played around with mirroring the direction of heads and tails to provide more visual interest in each row rather than making two rows of identical cats. The technique is a simple pickup using only one heddle. Each pattern throw (white in this case) is followed by a tabby thread to secure it in place, much like overshot. The pattern thread is carried out to the edges where it passes over/under a floating selvedge thread. I had hoped to be able to make tails and ears either brown or grey to match a friend's "little white cat," but didn't feel any of the options showed up well enough against the teal blue, and using a lighter blue didn't work with the cream-coloured bodies. I may give it another go with a different background colour, although my options are somewhat limited.

Weaving Honeycomb

Day 172: With both shafted looms currently loaded with projects, I decided to do the April Weave-Along on my 16-inch rigid heddle. I suppose I could have set it up with two heddles, one functioning as one of the pickup sticks, but it was too much to think about, so I opted for using a heddle rod instead. To weave this particular pattern (cells of five up, five down), the pickup stick or the heddle rod are used with the main heddle in the up position, one row of cell sbeing formed with the pickup stick, and the staggered row of cells with the heddle rod. Each sequence is eight throws of the main colour, followed by a simple up/down made with the heavier dark blue thread. The sequence is as follows: *heddle in the up position with the pickup stick, heddle down* repeated four times; heddle up with heavy thread, heddle down with heavy thread; *heddle in the up position with the heddle rod lifted, heddle down* repeated four times; heddle up with heavy thread, heddle down with heavy thread. Honeycomb does not come into its own right until the tension is let down, and preferably, the piece has been given a good wash. Then the cells will be in greater relief. If desired, cells can be made narrower, wider, taller, shorter or in combination depending on the texture desired. It's a fun little weave!

Ready, Sett...Weave!

Day 166: Ready, sett...weave! I've missed the last several Weave-Alongs because my looms were all occupied with projects. Currently, both Max and Schacht are tied up (oops...accidental word-play there) with Friend Evelyn and Norse Kitchen respectively, but my 16" rigid heddle just happened to be empty. I'll be making a runner five feet long on 215 threads plus two floating selvedges using 8/2 cotton supplemented with 3/2 with a 15-dent reed. The draft is from Betty Linn Davenport's "Textures and Patterns for Rigid Heddle Looms." I dithered back and forth with the colour scheme, and right up to the last minute, I still wasn't settled. I picked up the nautical blue I had out and said, "Nope, that's just not what I want to do with this green." I had to choose between two aquas and went for the brighter one. I'm a little ahead of the game because we start on April 1, but since this is a fill-in project while I work on the overshots and finish binding a quilt I want to ship in the next two weeks, I decided to get warping out of the way. I won't start weaving the honeycomb until April. Promise!

Inventive Solution

Day 160: Halfway through the complicated threading of "Norse Kitchen," I became aware that something was grievously wrong. I had counted heddles carefully, but I was coming up short for those on two shafts. I looked at the draft I'd printed out, and compared it to my calculations. They did not agree on the number of repeats in the center section. After much study, I discovered a second mistake. It was time for a major rewrite, and it had to be one which would allow me to use the warp I had already measured and rolled onto the loom. I took a "sanity break" before sitting down with the calculator, and once I'd made the adjustments, I saw that I was going to have to add nine more warp threads on each side. Now how was I going to do that? It meant I'd have to pull the four-yard warp off the loom, and I certainly didn't want to leave it in a pile on the floor, so I wound it onto my 16-inch rigid heddle loom. Merry got a little too helpful during the next phase and had to be locked in the bathroom for the duration, but by dinnertime, I had the warp wound back onto Schacht. If the Gods of Weaving are benevolent, they will reward me for my diligence today with a smooth and error-free threading process.

Rigid Heddle Cats

Day 155: Between the linen cupboard and the door into the bathroom, there is a six-inch wide bit of wall which hosts an assortment of changeable bell-pull style fiberarts acknowledging the changing of the seasons. Aside from Christmas, it's the only seasonal decorating I do. Not all the pieces match to a specific holiday, but examples of those which do would include krokbragd sheep for spring, tvistsöm or woven birds for summer, satin stitch/hardanger acorns for autumn, and hardanger poinsettias for winter. Having developed a rigid-heddle pattern for cats, I thought it might be nice to acknowledge Merry's birthday with a cat panel. That said, the grey cats in this little design have tails. Merry only has a stub. Working at 15 epi using 8/2 cotton, the piece was woven with a pickup stick on alternate rows to provide the cat pattern. In between, I wove white tabby (over and under), using floating selvedge threads. The pattern threads must also be taken out to the edges, passing over or under the floating selvedges as appropriate. I had to place dividers between the cats to keep floats on the reverse from being too long. I found that taking both floating selvedge threads either "up" or "down" on each pick worked best for this design. Given the nature of the weave, sometimes a grey thread would get trapped under the tabby pass as they occasionally do in any overshot, but these were easily brought to the surface with a yarn needle and should not be problematic once the fibers have been fulled by washing (not yet done in the image). 

Ways To Weave

Day 36: A weaving group I participate in on line is celebrating their anniversary today, and we were asked to take pictures of our various looms. This is my collection. From top left, they are Max (Bergman countermarch floor loom), Pippin (a "Weave Ahoy" 2-shaft) ... and Merry helping; Schacht table loom; Jutta (Leksand made by my weaving partner Ed) and Nelda (Glimakra band loom); two rigid heddles and a frame loom; inkle looms big and small; assorted manual looms, including three pin looms, a backstrap, a bandgrind and two types of tablet weaving cards. I usually have at least one of the two rigid heddles loaded, but since I direct-warp them (which is to say I stretch the threads from one end of the living room to the other) and have a Small Helper who loves to play with/eat strings, I haven't set either one up. Inky-Dinky Inkle's band was finished before bedtime last night, and I'll be putting a new warp on it today. Max's project is nearing completion, as are the bands on Jutta and Nelda. Time to reload!

Log Cabin Gone Mad

Day 68: I'd bet good money that at least 90% of all veteran rigid-heddle users have at some point in their weaving careers woven Log Cabin. It is certainly one of the most well-known patterns for rigid heddle loom, to such an extent that it could be called "traditional." The mysterious stacking of the "logs," vertical and horizontal, is purely an effect of colour. The weaving itself is simple over-and-under tabby. That said, the creator of this design set it on a much larger scale than is most often employed, and used a warping system which was unlike anything I'd seen before. Her instructions confused me. The math for the doubled threads didn't tally, no matter how I tried to add them up. I kept saying, "Two times any digit is an even number. How the bloody hell did she figure this at 213 ends?" The problem was that she was considering some doubled threads as a single thread because they came through their appointed slot/hole together. Others...those which would be threaded double and later divided to fill two separate holes/slots...she counted as two. Since I wanted to cut the pattern down to fit my 16" loom, I needed the math to work. After struggling with numbers for several days, I finally asked another rigid-heddle weaver for advice. It took several messages to sort out what I was misinterpreting, i.e., that there would be empty slots and holes when the threading was complete. Once the light dawned, the instructions made better sense, although I'm still of the mind that they could have been written much more clearly. Even so, I miscalculated how many ends I'd have if I removed one repeat from each block. That's why there are a few more empty slots/holes on the right end of the heddle than on the left. Because both the warp and weft in this pattern are doubled, this piece is working up very quickly, and I have to admit that the unusual warping system for this piece made the task much easier. Despite having been so frustrated at times that I was tempted to throw the instructions away, in the end, I learned something new...and now I understand how to interpret her overly complicated directions.

Eight-Throw Pinwheels

Day 16: You might recall my use of the word "challenging" in yesterday's post. This is it. I am weaving a pattern designed for an eight-harness loom on a rigid heddle. That means that out of the eight sheds required, only two are loom-generated. The other six have to be manually picked up with a pickup stick. One pinwheel (eight passes of the shuttle) takes about ten minutes to create. It's easier to see the design from the side like this. Looking straight down on it (the weaver's perspective), your eyes tend to go all M.-C.-Escher-ish, only allowing you to see either green whirligigs or blue ones. However, at this stage of the game, the weaver is focused on individual threads: lift two, push one down, lift one, push another one down, lift one, push two down, repeating the sequence for that throw across each colour. The six pickup rows are all different, three starting with "lift," three with "push down." It's amazing how many times your mouth can say "lift" even as your fingers push down the threads. Which was correct? Pause, regroup, begin again. Focus is mandatory here. Destined to be a runner for the harpsichord, the spring colours are apropos. It may take me until April to finish it!