Weft Faced Wool Rug Following Class Notes From Years Ago

     

About fourteen years ago, I took a weekend rug weaving class from Jason Collingwood.I kept my woven sample and class notes, but never made a rug.

I would like to show in this post some of the things I learned and had to relearn from this class. There are techniques I could have done better and others that made me happy that I still remembered.

I used a wool area rug in my living room for inspiration. The dark green, navy, dark red and natural colors go well together.

One of the first things I learned was to not use waxed linen for the warp. I had a terrible time tying it onto the front rod. It was almost impossible to get the knots to stay tied. An 8/5 linen works well at 6 ends per inch. They should be doubled and put in the reed at 3 doubled ends per inch.

Jason Collingwood does not recommend the lashing method for starting a rug, but I think I will try it anyway for the next one to see if I can keep an overhand knot tied tightly.

I started the rug with some heavy unwaxed linen to get the warp spaced correctly and to give me a tiny bit of weaving for my temple to grip. It is recommended to use the temple almost from the first pick of weft, even if only a couple teeth grip the rug.

It is essential to get a straight edge before starting the rug. The weft tends to run downhill on each edge, so it is necessary to compensate for that by weaving small triangles at each edge, as seen right before the red twining starts.

I started the rug with a twined row of red linen, followed by a second row of natural linen twined in the opposite direction. The ends need to be within the row and not at the edge. It may take using a large needle to maneuver the threads. The tan ends in the photo are overlapped and left hanging until more weaving is completed.

Wool yarn was chosen. I used several strands, with the number depending on the thickness. Another thing learned: It may take a little experimenting to get the same thickness with each grouping. The woven rug thickness is about 1/4” or slightly more. The thickness didn’t end up consistent, so I will have to pay better attention to the number of strands used for each color.

Something to consider when choosing yarn is how many strands to use. The more that are used, the more hand threading individual ends into the rug will need to be done. I will show the method further on.

These are some of the shuttles I used. The long ones and the ski shuttles are good for full width weaving and the short ones worked well on the center diamond, where I was making short passes.

Starting a new color of yarn is not done like weaving with finer yarn and a closer sett. With several strands woven together, the thickness needs to be staggered. Leave about six to eight inches of tail at the edge. Pull half of the threads out between different warp threads and take the other half around the selvedge threads twice, as shown in the photo. The wrap at the selvedge prevents a gap from forming at the edge. Bring the edge ends into the shed and stagger them between the other tails.

Arch the weft. It may take some trial and error to get the right amount of extra yarn in the shed to prevent the edges from pulling in. Your temple will help maintain an even width.

Bubble the weft evenly before beating. With the beater brought forward, change to the next shed and beat again.

It will take quite a few woven rows before the weft will stay tightly in place.

Once the weft stays packed down, each one of the ends needs to be woven into the rug. I use a heavy packing needle with a curved end. The needle is threaded down in the channel made by the doubled warp threads next to the tail. An inch or a little more is enough. Thread the end and pull it into the channel.

This needs to be done after the weft is packed and before it rolls over the breast beam.

Once a group of ends has been threaded into the channels, pull the beater forward and hold tightly while tugging gently on each thread.

Release the beater and then trim off each thread at the surface of the rug.

My photo shows some looks that can be created with plain weave. The simplest is a solid color stripe. Vertical stripes are woven with two colors alternating. Checks are just a variation of vertical stripes. Weaving two rows of the dark color will change the placement of the dark and light check block.

Cross stripes can be quite attractive and vary by how many passes are made before changing colors. In this stripe, the narrow rows are two passes and the center darker stripe is four passes.

Note that this stripe is close to the beginning of the rug, so the needle is threaded away from me. Once I had a couple inches woven, I threaded the ends toward me.

The photo shows what the packing needle looks like. With the hook facing up, the eye goes side to side. If it is difficult to thread the needle eye, a thin plastic floss threaded loop works well.

This post has become quite long, so I am ending with the photo of the rug off the loom.

I will make another post soon about a better way to change colors, especially in the checked areas in order to eliminate the bulge at the selvedge and keep the height of the stripe even.

I also want to show how to do the diamond and a few things I learned while weaving it.

Until then, enjoy your own pursuits.

Mitering Corners on Handwoven Lace

A weaver recently asked me how I miter corners.  Photos are so much better than words, or really help the words, and anyone that has read my blog knows that is what I do best.  It is a long post, but here is the end result, all ready for tea.

When I first started to weave, I took a nine month long class called Weaver's Boot Camp.  This particular class assignment was to design a two-block lace pattern and weave 4 place-mats. Woven lace is a loom generated fabric that has holes in it. I chose Swedish Lace with lattice hem-stitching and made table napkins, instead of place-mats because my yarn was pretty fine. I have included my finishing technique for mitering corners with these step-by-step instructions and photos.  Feel free to borrow, but please include a link back to this post.  Thank you.

Wet finish the piece and steam press before starting so the weaving yarn is set.  Turn edge in 1/4" and press.

A chalk line is marked diagonally on the corner from hem crease line to crease line.  

If you are trying this without the hem-stitching, you will need to determine how deep your hem will be.  From the finished photo above, you can see that mine is a fairly deep hem, folding up to the first edge of the first hem-stitching row.  You may want to chalk mark that also.

Fold corner, hems and right sides together. Stitch on chalk line, from hem fold (not the edge) to diagonal fold. Use a fairly small stitch. Back stitch both ends.

Note that the stitching only goes to the hem fold, not the edge.  Trim the seam to 1/4". The hem is not turned down while trimming.

At this point, if your fabric ravels easily, you could carefully treat the cut edge with Dritz Fray Check.  It is a permanent treatment, and is a bit stiff, so make sure it doesn't  soak through to any area that will be on the outside.

Turn the pressed 1/4" edge hem on both sides.

Dampen corner and finger press diagonal seam open.  Raveling can be a problem, so use care.

Carefully turn the corner, gently working the point out with a blunt object.  I used a medium sized crochet hook.  

Fold hem and pin in place. Repeat for the other 3 corners.

Hand or machine stitch hem. I like to finish mine on the sewing machine. I set the zigzag so it will catch one thread of the hem...

and then one stitch into the hemstitching space.  Adjust the stitch length to try and avoid hitting the hem-stitching threads.  If your thread matches the fabric, you will be unable to tell that it is machine stitched unless you examine it very closely.

If you are doing mitered hems without the hemstitching, the machine stitching can be a straight stitch.

Done and ready for pressing!

Linen Huck Towels Completed

I think I mentioned before that I purchased a couple linen warps last summer at an estate sale.  At the time, I didn't realize they were cut off a loom without preserving the cross.  A few weeks ago, I took the four yard warp and picked the two ply linen out of the bundle and got my loom threaded with a huck pattern.  I finally finished all four towels today.

  I found the directions for these towels in a Handwoven magazine.  I don't recall the issue right now, but I did mention it in a previous post after finishing the lattice design.

After wet finishing the lattice towel, I decided the floats on the back were a bit long, so I only wove one more from that article, since some of the patterns had even longer floats.










The huck spots towel turned out very nicely.  I'm glad I took the time to do the ladder hemstitching.  It really sets the towels off.  And yes, all the hemming is done by machine.

This one, with the horizontal stripes, was not in the article.  All I did was weave a row of spots followed by four tabby rows.  The weave is not as dense as the other towels.

 With the final bit of warp, I combined the horizontal stripes and the huck spots to make a fingertip towel.  The hemming and stripes actually run  down the sides of the towel.

All of the towels were woven with pieces of one ply linen that I pulled from the twenty yard warp.  I think I accomplished enough with those two warps, so I will put the remainders away for a while.

I'm tired of no color, so my next project will probably have some.  I finished winding my green rug warp today.  I'd like to get Bob to help my make a trapeze before I wind that warp on to the beam.  It goes on so much nicer that way, especially with long warps.

I will close with one of my colors of April pictures.  I don't remember planting it, and I don't know what it is, but it has the prettiest blue flowers.  Maybe someone can let me know what it is.

Huck Lattice Towels

The rug warp and the Atwater-Bronson lace warp are at a standstill, with half wound for each of them.  I got a little sidetracked with a linen  warp that I had.  This warp is only about 3 1/2 to 4 yards long, and like the 20 yard warp, it had no cross.  It was a mix of a two ply approximately 20/2 size warp and a tow linen singles.  I laid it out on my carpet with a weight on one end, and pulled out the plyed yarn 10 strands at a time.  Because there was no cross, I threaded the loom front to back.  Once I got it threaded through the heddles and tied onto the back, I draped it over the counterbalance bar on the loom behind  this one and added weight to it.  Once it had the weight added, I was able to treadle two plain weave sheds and add lease sticks.

My chosen pattern came from the Handwoven magazine, March/April of 2002, page 44.  (Check Interweave Press for back-issues.)  The article was for weaving 5 towels, all different weaves.  I started with treadling #5, a huck lattice.


 This design calls for ladder hemstitching and the magazine had the instructions on page 14.  The hemstitching is started from the right (right-handed) and groups 5 warp threads at a time.

This is a close-up of the second half of the hemstitching.  It wraps around the same same threads.  The loop of heavy yarn seen in the photo keeps a gap between the two rows and will be pulled out later.

I got a start on the weaving, completing about 6" of the first towel.  I like the lattice look, and once the towel is wet finished, it will be more prominent.

Now to bed.

Linen Class Samples Complete

I had my linen samples from Kati Meek's class done last week, but still needed to get them labeled before sending them out.  I finished that last night, so hopefully I will get a chance to mail them this week.

We were each assigned a pattern for the class.  I was given the one at right.  Kati had a large sample of it, done in a very fine linen, which was appropriate for this pattern, since the floats are over several threads.

As I mentioned before, I wasn't happy with the loose look to my original samples sett at 28 epi, so I followed Kati's advise and resleyed the reed to 32 epi.  It made quite a bit of difference in the finished cloth. 

This is how the samples sett at 28 epi looked after wet finishing.

This is a sample sett at 32 epi after wet finishing.  I couldn't decide which side should be right or wrong. 

Here are a couple photos of my longer sample that I'm holding so the light will reflect on the floats.  It really makes the pattern show nicely.

Now all of my looms are empty, and I still haven't decided what to make next.  My daughter Becky is going to come over on Wednesday, and I'm going to help her warp my small loom so she can make some leg bands (costuming for Viking men) for a group she belongs to.  They won't be very wide, so the tiny loom will be just right for her to use, and with the live weight tensioning, it will be even easier for weaving.

Atwater Bronson Lace

I have a towel woven in linen, that a friend made, that I have always loved.  It has a dogwood pattern in plain weave, with the rest of the towel in Atwater-Bronson lace. It requires more than 4 shafts, or so I thought, until I came across an article about pick-up in an old Handwoven magazine.  It was worth trying, so I warped my sample loom last night while watching sappy Hallmark movies.

I'm ready to try the technique.  If it works, I may try a sampler of some designs I made. 

Dishes are done, now onto laundry and vacuuming.  Then I will allow myself to weave.  Hooray for a day off during the week.

Photo Albums Started

It has been too cold to get the garage warm enough for weaving yesterday or today, since the temperature has been below 10 degrees up here in Charlevoix.  Instead of weaving, I have been working on adding my weaving pictures onto my Facebook.  I started with my photos of Weaver's Boot Camp, a 9 month class that I took back in 2005.  I worry about our computer crashing again, so I'm gradually making some albums of my work.  Until I figure out how to put picture albums on this blog, I will just have to put a public link to them here.  

The latest album that I finished has my instructions for mitering corners on a Swedish Lace table napkin.  Try this link to view:  http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=36614&id=1626469236&l=199d5ee7fe

I haven't tested the link.  If that one works, I hope someone lets me know.  I will add the others later.  I made albums of twill variations, color gamp, shadow weave, overshot, summer and winter, doubleweave, linen and lace, and weaving with fine threads.