A Good Day for Teaching Weaving

Our son David and his family came for a short visit last night on their way to the UP to go camping.  This morning, while everyone was getting ready to go, I had an opportunity for another teachable moment with granddaughter Morgan.  She got to help me with finishing my last rug on the Weaver's Delight.  When we ran out of fabric for the tubes, I made some more strips and she helped me prepare them into a long strip to load into the tubes.

Here she is on the pink pony, finishing loading a tube.  I think she thought it was a pretty neat tool.

After finishing that project, we heard a commotion outside and walked out to the road to see a car burning a few doors down.  Just a little bit of excitement to start the day!  I have no idea whose car it was or the cause of the fire.  We watched (from a distance) as the fire spread more and more and eventually blew out three of the tires.

 I have had my sister-in-law Mary's Leicester Dryad countermarche loom for several years.  It was the first loom for me to ever use.  She was over recently and I asked her if she was ready to learn to weave.  Since I'm home all the time now, it is easier to fit into our schedules.  After everyone left for camping, we got to business winding a warp for a rayon chenille scarf.

Mary is a great student and grasped the warping concept right away.  I was able to go about my business doing other weaving things while she wound her two bouts of warp.

After we had lunch, we brought the warp to the loom and got it wound on the the back.  Having an assistant certainly makes the warping and winding go faster.  I showed her the back to front method.  We used the lease stick holding device and a 1/2" spacing raddle to spread the warp.

That was about all I was able to do in one day.  I was happy everything went so smoothly.  On Mary's next visit, we will tackle threading and sleying the reed and running a small sample of both plain weave and twill.  I am going to try 20 ends per inch, but think it may be a little too much at least for the plain weave. After doing a little sampling, we may end up resleying the reed to spread it out a little.  I'm looking forward to having someone come weave with me.  My project is on the loom next to hers on the left side of the photo.

If you think this loom looks a little odd, you are right.  It is only good for short warps because the front and back beams are also the cloth beams.  It is not a good loom for long warps because of the thickness that builds up on the beams.  It also doesn't have a brake release, so I will be showing her how live weight tensioning will solve that problem and make the loom very easy to use.

Now I am tired and it is nap time!  All in all, a great day!

Weaver's Delight "Pink Pony" Stuffing Machine and Rigby Cutter

I finally got motivated to get back to my blog today.  I was given a "pink pony" stuffing machine by our friend Lou down in Missouri when Bob and I were on vacation in April.  I haven't been feeling well since then, so have only been doing dibs and dabs with weaving lately.  I finally took enough photos to show how I prepare denim strips and load them in the tubes for weaving.

Preparing denim jeans for rugs is labor intensive.  They are plentiful at the resale shops and from friends, so I don't make any effort to open seams, remove pockets, or take out hems.  I trim around all those areas and then make one fairly straight edge on one side.

I purchased a strip cutter on eBay because my hand can't take the heavy cutting for any length of time with the rotary cutter any more.  This particular cutter is a Rigby Cutter.  It is pretty old, but it has been working pretty well for me.  I would have preferred a Fraser Cutter, since there are more options for parts.  They cost more than I was able to spend though.

The red cutter is adjusted away from the cutter blade for the strip width I want.  I use strips that are about 3/4" - 7/8" wide for a twill weave rug.  I would probably cut them 1/2" for plain weave rug.  Anything wider than that and it is almost impossible to get the strips tightly packed. 

Turn the crank and it cuts the strip.

When I get enough strips cut with various colors, I take a bundle of them and sit with them on my lap and cut a 45 degree angle at each end.  I usually do all one end, then flip them around and do the other end.  The angle must be in the same direction at both ends.

Here is a bundle that is probably enough to stuff 2-3 tubes for the shuttles.

I overlap them about 1/4" and triple-stitch zig-zag the ends together.

The strips feed through the shuttle better this way, and I have fewer hang-ups then if I use a 45 degree seam.

I sew them in a continuous strip until it is hard to sew any more.  They loop around in front of the machine and eventually there isn't any more space to sew.

I clip my threads when I'm done sewing and pull them out from under the presser foot.  They will curl into a spiral and that needs to be straightened out before running the strip through the stuffing machine.

The fabric strip is threaded through the eyelet guide in front of the left concave roller, then brought over the top of the roller and drops into the funnel below.  The convex roller is brought forward against the fabric strip. 

As seen in this photo, I straightened my strip into a container on the floor.  While turning the large wheel with the leather belt, the pole is used to poke the strip down into the tube and pack it tight.

Here is a tube loaded into a shuttle.

This rug is getting close to being complete.  Three more tubes will probably be enough. 

I am using a twill tape to keep track of the rug length and the temple that came with the loom to help keep a consistent width to the rug.

Sett Solutions and Binding a Denim Rag Rug

After correcting the two threading errors on my second warp on the Weaver's Delight, I planned on weaving a denim rug next.

The loom was warped at 12 epi and set up to weave plain weave.  That was no problem at all with the rug at the left.  The fabric used for the weft was a polyester double-knit, so I didn't have any problems with the weft packing in tightly.

It took several attempts with the denim to get an acceptable rug.  Twelve ends per inch would not work with denim, or at least not with the plain weave I was attempting.  I had done a sample before on the tail end of a previous warp with strips cut 3/4" wide. It worked out great, so I wasn't anticipating problems. 

I could not get the denim to pack in tightly.  Then I remembered that my sample was set at 12 ends per inch, but it was a twill variation (Chicken Tracks), which essentially changes the ends per inch on each pick to six instead of twelve.  That allowed a nice tight weave.

Rather than re-thread, I changed the cams on the loom to the twill set-up.  It is just a simple 2-2 twill, and it made all the difference to how the denim packs down.  The 3/4" wide strips were just right.  An alternative could have been woven with plain weave with doubled ends set at six ends per inch.  I wouldn't attempt a rug with regular rug warp at only 6 epi.  It needs to be doubled to be strong enough for a sturdy rug.

Because I started over so many times before getting something that I liked, I neglected to start over again to give a proper header for a hem at the beginning.  To solve that problem, I looked in my Rag Rug Handbook for instructions for binding a rug.

I tied off my warp before removing it from the loom.  This photo is the start of the rug.  If I had been thinking ahead, I would have just glued the header and let it dry, thus avoiding the need for all the knots.  That is what I did at the end of the rug.

On the cutting table, I trimmed the warp close to the knots.

I used denim for the binding at both ends of the rug.  I wanted the binding to be about 1" wide when finished, so I cut two strips about 3 3/4" wide and a little longer than the width of the rug.

With the right side of the binding against the rug and even with the edge, I stitch through the two layers at the first denim pick.

This is not a project for an ordinary home sewing machine.  I am using my industrial upholstery machine.

Fold the hem ends as shown in the photo and stitch the ends even with the edge of the rug.

I didn't like how the hard warp knots felt under my feet, so I put some glue on the header, let it dry, and then cut through the knots to remove them. 

The hem ends were trimmed to reduce the bulk and then turned right side out.

The hem is turned up to the first line of stitching and then top-stitched.  I am sewing through four layers of denim on the main part of the binding plus the rug, and on the ends, eight layers of denim.

I don't think this would be my first choice for a hem, but I was glad I had the option.

I wish I had taken a better photo of the finished rug, but it's gone now, with no chance for a do-over. I gave it to our daughter Carolyn and her husband Eric for a Christmas gift.  The finished size is approximately 30" x 50".