Just Because You Can
Archive for the ‘weaving’ Category
I’ve got a couple weaving things going, here are some updates.
The log cabin fabric is done, although I haven’t gotten around to making the new purse of it that I wanted. I don’t have anything I like for the straps, so I’ll just have to weave something. But the fabric turned out nicely:
The carpet warp tracks heavily, I had to seriously iron the fabric to un-wrinkle. That means the yarn has overtwist in the ply. But it will wear forever. Take that, balanced yarn fetish people.
I finished measuring warp for some yardage that I’m still not entirely sure what I’ll do with. It’s green and brown, which means it will be for somebody else. I experimented with measuring with a warping paddle, which looks like a little section of rigid heddle. The idea is you wind many ends at once and then the paddle lets you keep them in order.
I can see how this would work great with a warping mill, but it’s a giant pain in the ass with a warping board. To go back and forth you have to turn the paddle at various points and the yarn gets twisted. Also I don’t have a tension box or even a decent spool rack. All told it didn’t end up taking any longer than without, but I’m going to wait until I have more appropriate equipment before I try this again.
I am, however, pleased that I managed to not end up with huge amounts of leftovers. I measured from five spools and the original cone and here was what remained:
I was going through the fiber closet and came out with a bag full of random cotton rug warp, originally from tablet and inkle projects. There wasn’t enough to do much, but I figured two mostly full spools of light and dark blue would work for a narrow fabric. I’ve been meaning to make another bag to hold my phone.
Narrow fabric on the big loom is a problem because my end feed and boat shuttles are longer than the warp is wide and don’t work well passed from hand to hand. So I dug out the table loom and emptied some stick shuttles.
I don’t really like the table loom, direct tie-up drives me nuts. Opening sheds one lever at a time is slooooow. Also this loom uses texsolv heddles, which refuse to move around easily. So I took out the other six harnesses and warped it for tabby.
I’m doing a very basic log cabin pattern, squares of stripes in alternating directions. The structure is plain weave but the pattern comes from the color arrangement. I’ve got enough for about 3m of finished fabric, 20cm wide. That’s fine for little bags and the yarn is indestructible.
Ok, here’s the picture:
I heard this was coming some time ago, and it finally arrived in my mailbox. For someone who is occasionally puzzled by the contents of Craft, I am amazed to see really good articles about looms and yarns. Some of the projects are done on very simple looms, like the cover pieces done on a backstrap rigid heddle type setup. There is an article about making and warping a frame loom, with a heddle bar and everything. Another than uses a standard rigid heddle loom. And then there is the confessions of a fabric addict by Susie Bright, not exactly somebody I expected to see. Here is the Table of Contents.
The Maker Fair people specifically asked for more traditional crafts at this year’s event, so I know there is interest out there. I hope there is a spinning issue in the works! I’d love to participate but oh boy am I lousy at coming up with exciting and accessible projects. I am the queen of the 5 year plan when it comes to textile projects.
This is basically everything I could ever hope for in a mashup: textiles, Anglo-Saxon history and computers. The office has been sending around LOLCAT demotivational poster images for weeks and I didn’t know about it.
Historic Tale Construction Kit
