I Love My Studio

Bob and I worked on a couple big projects recently, making some changes in the studio.  The first one was giving the Weaver's Delight a permanent spot inside.  After I finished the first warp out in the garage, I knew I had to decide where it was going to go for the winter.  We moved three of the smaller looms out of the studio, which gave quite a bit more space.

After measuring the doorway to the studio, we knew we could get it inside without taking it apart if we stood it on one of the ends.  Now, this loom is HEAVY!  Even with the shafts and cams and top part of the beater taken off, I still can not lift it off the floor even a quarter of an inch.  So, how did we move it?  We used the Forearm Forklift.  It's the best investment we ever spent for moving heavy items.  It is just two straps that go under the item to be moved, and there are slots to slip the strap onto each forearm, up by the elbows.  Your hands have to brace on the item that is being moved in order for it to work. 

Bob and I were able to lift the loom and carry it across the two car garage, through a doorway and all the way across the studio.

We spent an evening getting it warped in the log cabin pattern, using the tension box that Bob made for me.  The warp is stripes of denim and tan, with small separator stripes of rust.  My first rug from this warp is going to be for me to put in front of the loom.  The room has a cement floor under the carpet, so I need a little padding under my feet.  I've started to cut some old denim jeans into strips for weaving.

My next project was to make the space under the stairway into functional storage for all my rug yarn.  It took about three trips to K-Mart to get the cupboard units that would work in the space.  I had to wait for Bob to get home from work before I could install them, because the 3-2-1 cubes had to be held up in place while I slip the closed cupboard units underneath. 

 This is my cutting area.  The bookshelf is under the stairs and I have a pin-board on the wall that I made from 1" thick Styrofoam insulating board.  I covered it with inexpensive fabric and nailed it to the wall.  The counter top is recycled from my aunt and uncle.  It's a yard wide, and cut at a 45 degree angle against the wall.  There are four double-door cupboard units supporting it, with a little knee room under the cutting board where I can sit on a stool to work on design.

Inside the front door, facing east and the house, I have an 8' table that I use for my two sergers, and the bobbin winder is at the end of the table (not seen in photo).  Under the left windows, which face north, I have my sewing machine table.  The looms are the Artisat on the right and Fanny with the blue striped warp.  Victoria is to the left of the wall furnace.  My favorite part of the room is my little reading and relaxing area, with rocker and table, right in the center.

In the back corner, facing north, is my ancient Singer industrial machine.  Next to it is my steam press, and above it is storage for dyeing supplies.  The big cupboards are full of yarn.  On the floor, in front of the stepladder, is a tool chest my dad made for me when I was in college.  He made it so I could keep all my upholstery tools in one spot.  It has a nifty covered tray inside for upholstery tacks, and hog rings, and other such supplies.

End of tour!  Come visit sometime!

Never So Thankful To See A Warp End!

This was one of my most hated warps!   I didn't have too much trouble with the paw fabrics or the first fabric, but this last fabric for T11 was nothing but trouble.  There were so many warp breaks, that I decided to measure another warp just in case I decided to throw in the towel with this one.  It sure was tempting, but I don't give up easily.  This was a very welcome sight, though, when I finally had enough woven.  Thankfully, the fabric is fulled and then fused with interfacing on the back, so it should be pretty stable when finished.

All these weights dangling off the back of the loom except for the two on the edges were weighting broken warps.  It's a good thing I had lots of hooks and fender washers.

The whole time I was weaving T-11, I was thinking I would use the side that I could see, but after finishing it and getting it off the loom, I decided the backside would be more suitable for a young man (my oldest grandson).  So here is what it looks like.  I was able to pull all the broken warps to the back, trim them fairly short, and then got the interfacing fused.  Marking, cutting, and sewing will come later this week.




 I dislike using table looms for anything but workshops, because they slow me down.  Someday, this little Glimakra Victoria will get a set of treadles, but for now, I'm doing what I can to make the weaving simpler.  Table looms have such a short area to actually weave, about an inch at best, that I was having to stop to release the ratchet too often.  Thank goodness I took a class from Kati Reeder Meek and learned about live weight tensioning.  It's such a sweet technique, especially for table looms.

I used a small cotton cord (less than 1/4" diam.) from the hardware store and some barbell weights that were not being used.  The cord is wrapped three wraps around the backbeam with no overlaps.  The heavy weights are hung on one end of the rope and a lighter counter weight on the other end.

So, which end gets the heavy weight?  On my loom, the warp is winding off from the inside of the loom, so that end of the rope gets the heavy weights.  If the loom had the warp coming off the outside of the loom, the heavy weights would go on that end of the rope.

Here is a closer photo.  The beam has to have a clear space in order for this to work.  This warp, which is only about 12" wide, has one five pound weight, two three pounders, and one two pound weight on the heavy end, and one two pound weight for the counterweight.  I tried eight pounds at first, but it wasn't enough.  Once the weights are installed and dangling, then the back ratchet can be released.  Now when I need to move my warp forward, I just turn it from the front.  I don't have to release anything, and it stays a constant tension.  I love it!  Thanks Kati!

Since this was my first time using the loom, except for a doubleweave class, I looked through my book of eight shaft patterns and picked a dornick twill because I liked the looks of it, and because the treadling had leavers grouped together.  I figured that would help speed things up, and made for a logical progression of leaver pulls.

I am quite happy with the resulting fabric, and am probably destined to add another bear to the Griswold bear family. 

This photo is more accurate for the color.  For scale, the woven black area is only 1" deep.  The fine gray yarn came from my Alice Griswold collection, and the black is from my stash.  It is a 9/2 size wool and is a bit thicker than the gray wool warp.  I need to weave about 52" for a bear, not counting the paws, and so far, I have almost 18".

Next photos will probably be when I finish T10 and T11.  Hopefully soon!

Current Loom Projects

I recently finished a looper rug that was on Fanny, but I'm not happy with it.  I had trouble with the stretchiness of the loops and it affected the width of the rug.  Usually weaving tends to get narrower, but this rug grew in width.  Oh, well, live and learn.  I can still wipe dirty feet on it at the back door!  The color isn't the best in the photo.  It should have been taken in daylight instead of at night.  It really isn't this yellow.

Yesterday, I wound a warp of thick and thin yarn that my daughter Rachel dyed a while back when she came to visit.   It is a short warp, only 3 1/2 yards of thick and thin cotton.  I put it on Fanny, and is destined for towels.  A towel from the Handwoven publication, Winning Towels from the 21st century towel contest was the inspiration for the warp stripes.  I tend to like things symetrical, so I'm not sure how I will like these.  I wish I hadn't made the widest blue stripe quite that wide, and put part of it on the left half instead.  I still need to thread the heddles and reed.  I will be weaving it with white in plain weave.  I'm not sure if my weft will be the thick and thin yarn, or a smooth one.  I will decide after I sample.

The fabric with wool warp and rayon weft is on Arti, and is coming along nicely.  I can't sit very long at a time to weave, so it is a bit slow, especially with the color changes.  I've got about 30" done.  I really need to get a bench or chair that doesn't bother the backs of my legs so much, and is padded.

Since this project is just fabric, I'm not worrying about yarn ends hanging out at the selvedges, or being carried up the edges.  I'm not sure what this fabric will become, but it is helping to use up some of my stash. 

Victoria still has a narrow warp from a doubleweave class I took a while ago.  I'm not too motivated to finish this project, since it was just for sampling in the class.  It is only about 10" wide, so not very useful, and I don't care for weaving on table looms.  When I decide I need the 8 harnesses for a project, I will probably finish it, or just pull it off.  I'd really like to add some treadles to the loom stand, but need to get Bob willing to help.

Dorothy has a pretty towel started on her, with Atwater-Bronson lace pickup.  My daughter-in-law Rebecca has been up a couple times, and is interested in learning about weaving.  She did the first row of hemstitching on this towel, and did a beautiful job for her first time.  The patterns that will be woven are on the clipboard in the background.  The bottom three are done.

This is a combination of two projects.  Quite a while ago, I decided to weave a bag with green rug warp and old video tapes.  It was  designed as I wove, so I have some twill in different directions, plus some plain weave, or basket weave.  It didn't have straps, so I never finished the bag. 

While my daughter-in-law was up at Easter, I showed her how to wind a warp and put it on the loom, thinking that it could be the straps, but I didn't like how it looked.  The warp was too narrow  for the heavy Fanny, so I scraped that project.  It did serve a good purpose, though, because Rebecca got a nice bit of experience on the loom with beaming the warp, threading, and weaving twill in two directions, and doing some basketweave.  Wish she could be around more.  I enjoy teaching her weaving.

I had a band of red and black that was done on my inkle loom quite a while ago when I was testing it after making the loom.  It has been hanging around, decorating my wall, but I've decided to use it for one of the bag straps, and I threaded another one.  Whenever I get that one completed, I will have a nifty conversation piece grocery bag.  I'm calling this  bag my Secret Message Bag, since the message is on the video tapes.

Enough projects and enough yacking for now, since I have to be to work early tomorrow.

Back to Weaving

After a bit of time off, I am back to my looms and it feels good!  On October 12, 13, and 14, I took a trip downstate to attend a doubleweave workshop with a weaving friend.  It was taught by Jennifer Moore.  I had more information crammed into my brain that I will ever be able to use!  It was a great class. 

The class was run in a round-robin style, with everyone bringing their loom warped with an assigned pattern.  There were close to 20 in the class, so most of the patterns were on two looms.  

Jennifer gave 2 short lectures per day, and the rest of the time was spent weaving on each others looms.  Since I wasn't a speedy weaver, I didn't get to all of the patterns, but I did weave on several that interested me.  

The pattern assigned to me was a 2 block doubleweave windows. Some of Jennifer's samples of that structure are shown above and below. 

My own weaving on the warp left over is going pretty slowly, since it is being done on my new table loom, an 8 shaft Glimakra Victoria.

I did a little weaving on it tonight after work and dinner.  As can be seen by the length of the sample, it is slow going!

I chose to not weave the squares in the order they were threaded because I didn't want a diagonal line of solid color squares.  They are a little more random, as can be seen if the photo is clicked to enlarge it.  They are the colors I dyed earlier in the month that I wrote about.

Another project that I was working on was a set of 6 placemats.  I finished with the weaving a couple days ago, and finished with the wet finishing and ironing yesterday.  I was going to hem them, but decided to do a simple fringe after they were washed.  I think hems would have been too bulky.

These placemats were part of my effort at stash reduction.  Unfortunately, they hardly put a dent in the stash!

The warp was from a very large cone of 4 ply varigated blue, and the weft was from many cones of yarn used to make chennile bedspreads.  The colors remind me of the old Fiesta dishes from years ago.

I have enough warp left on the loom for another set.  I will think about it a bit, before I start the next set, since I don't want to do the same thing again, and I don't want a lot of yarn color changes, because I hate starting and ending yarn. 

Preparing For a Doubleweave Class

After a long hiatus from weaving and writing, I have started preparing for a class I will be taking next week.  Michigan Weaver's Guild
http://www.michiganweaversguild.org/workshops.html
is offering the three daydoubleweave class with Jennifer Moore, author of a new book on doubleweave. 

A friend from downstate told me about it and invited me to stay with her and go to class together.  I'm really looking forward to the class and getting together with other weavers again. 

After checking out the class, I realized I needed a loom with more shafts, so I started looking online and a couple days later, found this sweet loom.

It is a Glimakra Victoria 8 shaft table loom on a stand.  This class is getting expensive already!  I haven't even tried it out yet.  One thing I would like to do with this loom is to convert it to treadles.  If any readers have one like it with treadles, I would value your input on how they are hooked up.  What little I have found about converting, is that the company only makes a kit for the 4 shaft table loom.  I just need to see how they are hooked up, and I think Bob and I could make our own kit.

The doubleweave class is set up as a round-robin, which means everyone weaves samples on other class member's looms.  I received my pattern draft last week, and since that didn't leave enough time to buy more yarn, I am using my stash. 
The pattern calls for seven colors, which I didn't have, so out came the dyes last night. 

Since the beautiful fall season is upon us, I chose a fall color theme. I took the few colors I had of a 6/2 weight cotton and overdyed them to get the colors I wanted.


I finished rinsing them out today after I got home from work, and they are out on the line drying right now.

As soon as they are dry, I will start winding my warp, maybe today, or possibly tomorrow after work.

I love working with color, and trying ones that aren't my favorites.  It keeps me out of a rut, and have actually gotten some new favorites through the dyeing process.