Warp In Waiting

I always like to have a "warp in waiting" when I'm working on a floor loom project so that when I finish up, I can jump right into a new one. However, my stock of threads (well, of colour choices) was getting rather low because my supplier has been out of stock for some time. They are beginning to restock now, but it set me to thinking that I should use what I have, and then replace the colours I use most frequently. Another factor to consider was that a friend just bought me out of every single towel and placemat I had in my stash, excluding those I was reserving for gifts! With that to inspire me, I decided to make towels. I took inventory of what was in my stash, discovered that I had two cones of the same blue, so rather than using cream or white for plain-weave stripes, I decided to use the blue instead. It will really make the coloured texture stripes pop. I'm roughly a third done with the second iteration of "Cornerstones," and I think it's time to do something simpler than overshot.

Warping Into 2024

Day 78: As far as I'm concerned, Warp 10 isn't fast enough to get out of 2023. Of course there are no guarantees 2024 will be any better, but we can hope so. That said, I'm weaving my way toward the limits of several current warps, and have two measured and waiting in the wings to replace Pippin's band (top right, will be done by evening) and the King's Flower overshot (bottom left, still about three feet to go). Jutta's band (top left) is going much faster than anticipated, given the finer threads, and I'm enjoying weaving it so much that I really wished I'd hung a longer warp. The wildly colourful "log cabin" runner on the rigid heddle (lower right) is also nearly done, but I have nothing planned to replace it at the moment, so I'm dragging my feet a little until inspiration strikes me. Pippin's next project will be a real challenge because the pattern will be worked on a ground of sewing thread. While that's not the finest thread I've ever used in a weaving (I once wove fine linen napkins at 52 ends per inch), it will be the finest I've ever used for a band. With the projects I have lined up, I'm heading into 2024 at warp speed.

Working Up The Chain

Day 15: Yesterday was spent working my way up the chain, i.e., winding warp onto one of my rigid-heddle looms for a rather challenging project. I should explain that I live in a small house. While I have sometimes had several looms and a quilting frame set up in the living room (the Loom Room being almost fully occupied by the floor loom and storage cupboards), having multiple "portable" projects in my living space makes me feel a bit too squeezed. For that reason, I tend to cycle through the various types of weaving, albeit not in order, going from one band loom to another, to inkle to rigid-heddle to backstrap and so on. I just finished a band on my Leksand loom, so I decided she needed a rest. A particular pattern has been nagging me to try it, and since my floor loom is full of overshot and my table loom is full of false damask, the only feasible solution was to pull out the larger of my rigid-heddle looms (I'll be explaining the project in greater depth in an upcoming post). Just suffice to say that I measured warp from peg to beam ten feet away while navigating around a quilting frame, two warping boards, one band loom, a frame loom and a spinning wheel, plus various baskets of fiber and tools without tripping even once. Tippy, familiar with his mama's antics, prudently stayed in the chair.

How's It Hangin'?

Day 39: This was as far as I got with hanging a new warp on the floor loom last night. One of the drawbacks to having multiple projects going at once is having to find time to devote to one in particular, but on the other hand, it keeps me from getting bored. This will eventually turn into a waffle-weave lap throw, and is a fantastic solution for all those little balls of yarn we all save because there's too much to throw away. For each waffle repeat, I needed six strands 18' long of each colour, and where some colours had to be used two or three times, the repeats were kept separated, but still in random order. The weft will be black. Call it "Joseph's Coat," if you will, bright and cheerful in its chaos. I love doing tag-end projects whether as crazy-quilts or woven pieces. The challenge is to keep repetition to a minimum, i.e., if red occurs next to blue, it can only do so again if a different red or blue is used as one of the pairings. Chaos isn't as easy to create as you might imagine, although to look at my "loom room," you might think otherwise.

Weaving Terms

Day 110: Several of my loyal and faithful readers have remarked to me recently that they feel like they're reading a foreign language when I'm talking about weaving. I find it odd that this didn't surface as I rambled on about fungi, slime molds, lichens or some rare plant I'd stumbled across in the backcountry, but there ya go: no accounting for how a writer's efforts are received by their audience, and I'm just happy to know that my work is being read. All things considered (not the least of which might be the paucity of bloggable material during isolation), I have decided that over the next several days, I will present a few weaving terms with explanatory photographs which hopefully will help folks follow along.

Let's start at the very beginning (a very good place to start, do-re-mi). If you look at a piece of woven cloth, you will see that it is comprised of threads running both vertically and horizontally. Turn it so that the selvedges (edges) are on your left and right. The threads which run lengthwise are the warp threads (left), and those running across are the weft (a patterned weft is shown top right). The warp threads are held taut by the loom, tied down on either end. Today, we'll just concern ourselves with the weft (the "active" thread controlled by the weaver's shuttle) and how it passes through the warp.

In order to make cloth, some sort of over-under pattern must be established. The simplest is tabby weave: one thread up, one down across the entire width of the cloth. The first looms were established to make this easier by raising or lowering every other thread simultaneously rather than picking them up one at a time by hand. On a floor loom, this is done by depressing a treadle which in turn operates a mechanical device in which that half of the threads are held. This device (harness and heddles) will be explained in a future post. When the alternate threads are raised or lowered and the developing cloth is viewed from the side, it will be seen that there is a triangular gap between the two layers of "up" and "down" threads. This is called the shed (lower right photo). Doesn't it remind you of a woodshed? See how the "roof" slopes down toward the front? The shuttle carrying the weaving thread (weft) is passed through the shed, and the "throw" is beaten into place. Then the weaver depresses a different treadle and the opposite threads are raised or lowered, forming the alternate shed. The shuttle goes through again, the thread is beaten into place, and the first two rows of cloth have been formed, interlaced over-and-under like weaving a basket. In the top right photo, the lavender threads are woven in that over-and-under (tabby) pattern. Indeed, much of the cloth on the market today as both yardage and finished goods is woven either as tabby or as twill (a sequence of four threads progressing on the diagonal), but as you can see in the dark blue pattern above, there are many other possibilities to be made by simply raising or lowering different threads. That's where heddles come in, and for that, you'll have to tune in tomorrow.

Virgin Warp

Day 105: Since the arrival of the 16" rigid heddle loom, I have been debating what to put on it as its inaugural project. It wasn't that I was short of ideas, but rather short of the fibers necessary to put any of them into action. I recently found a book I didn't know I had, and within its pages discovered the textural weave my mother frequently used for towels, a pickup pattern I had been trying to decipher for ages. However, part of the character of my mom's towels was dictated by her use of a cotton thread plied with a strand of a contrasting colour. It was something she had picked up at Mill Ends, a Portland outlet no longer in operation, and I have been unable to find anything which would be a suitable substitute (note to self: spin your own using 8/2 with a strand of sewing thread or Nomis). Surveying my fiber cupboard offered no compelling options, so the new rigid heddle stood empty until this morning. I finally settled on a quick-and-dirty worsted warp stripe scarf in colours called "soft purple" and "eggplant," but I am not yet sure if I'll weave it into checks or a surface-textured cloth. I'll play with a couple of ideas until I find something I like.

Tabula Rasa

Day 74: Tabula rasa, a clean slate. That's what you see here, or close. Having taken two projects off the floor loom on the day of Christmas Eve and with a measured warp waiting in the wings, I spent much of Christmas Day dressing the loom while a ham sizzled in the oven. My back gave out before I completed threading the warp, so I finished it up this morning. The potential here is enormous. First of all, it is hung for a traditional bird's-eye treadling, giving many options as far as loom-controlled patterns are concerned. Then, there's a cupboard full of cones of cotton in a wide assortment of colours. Just changing up patterns and colours, the combinations are myriad. However, I've been wanting to fiddle with hand-controlled weaves with these particular fibers, and because the bird's-eye threading also gives me a tabby (binder) shed, that option is open to me here. Looks pretty boring, that plain cream warp, but wait until you see how it livens up and dances when the colours are introduced!

Warping

Day 172: Any weaving project begins with visualization. Then comes the actual planning, based on the width and length of fabric required to complete it. Many things must be taken into account when weaving turns to math: the weight of thread governs the number of threads per inch, as do repeats of a colour pattern and/or type of weave. Once these things have been determined, the weaver then sets to measuring the warp, winding it over a series of pegs set into a rectangular frame, i.e., the "warping board" to the length desired. Wastage must be allowed for in measuring the warp. In this case, the rainbow check tablecloth in my imagination requires two 36"-wide lengths of 72" since I cannot weave the full two-yard width in twill on a 48" loom. At least five more feet of warp will be considered waste (a figure I know from experience), so I have measured out 525 ends plus two selvedge threads at six yards each which gives me five repeats of 7 colours, 15 warp threads per colour for the half-width warp, to be put on the loom at 15 dents per inch and woven at 15 throws per inch ("balanced weave").  While I would have preferred a brighter orange than the rust which follows red in the repeat, desperate times call for desperate measures. It took a stay-at-home order to inspire me to warp the big loom for this project, so I think I can make a few minor allowances.

Warp Measure

Day 28: The first step in any weaving project (that is, after the pattern has been selected and warp length has been calculated) is to measure the warp threads. I use a warping board for this purpose, first marking off the length of thread with a piece of string wound over the appropriate pegs. Following the progression, the threads are kept in the order in which they will be strung on the loom. At various points during the winding process, I tie off the threads in bunches of 25 or 50, but always at the halfway point so that I can identify the center. When the warp is completely wound onto the board, I tie off the cross (the point at which the threads make an X) and then remove the warp from the board by chaining it, essentially crocheting the massed threads with my hand and arm serving as the "crochet hook." This prevents the threads from tangling when the warp is transferred to the loom.

Warp Solo

Day 75: The rose-path scarf/table runner is off the loom, although I still have the fringes to tie, so today I started warping for another throw-rug project. I measured the warp yesterday, left it on the board to stretch overnight, and this afternoon, I mounted it preparatory to winding it onto the back beam. This is the part where I always wish for an assistant. It was so much easier when my husband was around to handle the chain, shaking out any tangles which might have been created in the process of transferring it. The job of the assistant is to maintain uniform tension on the warp as the weaver winds it onto the warp beam, a task better suited to an octopus. When done solo, the challenge is even greater. "Uniform tension," I say to myself. "What have I got six or eight of around here?" I've used an assortment of things over the years, but today all I had on hand were six bottles of Gatorade. Since only about a foot of warp can be wound before the weights hit the front beam, this requires being able to move the weights down the length of warp easily. I am tempted here to use that well-known "double positive" which becomes a negative: Yeah, right. Two hours later, I was done with the full twelve feet, although the ends still have to be drawn through the heddles and the reed before I can begin weaving.

12 Dents Per Inch

Day 59: So long ago now that I can't recall when it was, an internet acquaintance who was giving up weaving sent me a boxful of spooled thread remnants. I put them away, thinking that some day I'd incorporate them into a project, but I always seemed to favour buying new threads instead. Then my best weaving supply store closed its doors suddenly and I found myself without a source. Although I have some large cones still in my stash, I took this as a message from the weaving gods: "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." Yesterday, I decided to warp a new project at 12 dents per inch. I usually like to weave at least three items from any one warping, but in this case, I was simply hoping there would be enough thread for two scarves. Halfway into measuring the warp, I realized I was going to fall short. I pulled the thread off the warping board and started over. In doing so, I created a major mess despite my best efforts to prevent it. This silky rayon thread was unpredictably self-attracted, leaving me to waste the better part of two hours undoing tangles. Getting it on the loom offered a few issues as well, but those bridges have been crossed and I am now ready to tie it to the front apron, one step away from making the first throw on somebody's 2018 Christmas gift.

Rugs In The Raw

Day 88: With my last project fresh off the loom, I was anxious to get started on another one, but when I dove into my weaving supplies, I discovered that I was short on cotton warp by about half. I contacted my supplier to order more, and was delightfully surprised when they shipped it to me with two-day delivery at no extra cost. One craftsperson to another, I'm sure they understood my desire to get started right away.

Setting up a loom to weave is a multi-phase endeavour, beginning with selecting a pattern and determining the number of ends (threads) and length of warp required. When you are making small projects, it is more economic to warp for several items at once, otherwise there is too much wastage. I decided I wanted to make five rugs approximately 22" x 30", so I measured off six yards of warp per 288 ends to be sleyed at 12 dents per inch. Once the warp was measured out, I removed it from the warping board and "chained" it over my hands to prevent tangles. The next step will be mounting it on the loom. Small bundles of warp will be weighted so they can be evenly wound onto the back beam, and when that is done, each end will be brought first through the eye of a heddle and then through a slot in the reed. The heddles must be threaded in the sequence specified by the draw-down (pattern) in order to create a design. I will be using traditional birdseye in this case. Once threaded through heddles and reed, the warp bundles will be tied to the cloth beam and the actual weaving may be begun.

Weaving itself is a repetitive and rhythmic action. The shuttle flies back and forth as the weaver's feet dance on the treadles which raise and lower the heddles in their harnesses. The clatter of the loom is a soothing sound, metal heddles rustling, wood clapping against wood, the shuttle whisking through the opened shed of fibers. It is easy to get lost in the harmonies of weaving, easy to lose sight of time and cares. The loom is an instrument, and the weaver a musician, playing a score of cloth into existence beneath gifted hands. These are not rugs I weave; they are the songs of fibers set in motion by the magical loom.

Warped

Day 71: The project currently on my loom has been there since Christmas 2013, and I have no excuse for having largely ignored it for the better part of the last year. I would occasionally sit down at the bench and make a few nominal throws, once even completing six inches in a half-hour marathon of weaving, then again letting the shuttles go idle for another two or three months. I enjoy weaving, and perhaps my flagging energies in that direction were due to the project being a simple over-and-under tabby. I had warped for a birds-eye design, but the weft should have been heavier to do it justice; in lieu of making another trip to Seattle, I reverted to the simpler weave.

Recently, I sent my piano to a new home with the thought of moving the loom into the living room. Although I don't think that's actually going to happen, it was sufficient motivation to set the shuttles flying once again. As I considered the logistics of moving the loom, I realized I'd have to get the project off the beams in order to dismantle it so it would pass through the doorway. In two days' time, I've woven three towels/placemats and only have one to go (I'd warped for seven).

Weaving in and of itself is repetitive work. You raise a shed, pass the shuttle through, then change sheds and pass the shuttle the opposite direction. The pattern is determined beforehand as the threads are sequenced through the heddles. The weaver's art lies in the accurate threading of hundreds of "eyes." Any error will be apparent when the weaving is begun and will require some very tedious undoing to set to rights.