Inkle Weave Pick-up

I recently ran across an article in Handwoven, J/F 1996, pg 50, showing the pick-up technique for weaving patterns on an inkle loom.  I liked the designs, so I got out my homemade inkle loom and warped it up after modifying the pattern a little bit.  I added four more pattern threads to make a slightly wider band.  I used a thick crochet yarn for the base and edge yarns, and a thicker, slubby rayon/cotton blend rainbow varigated yarn for the pattern warp.

This shows my modified design and the first six inches of the weave.  I can see that I need to work on getting the weft pulled tightly when I first start weaving.  The weft shouldn't be showing and the band shouldn't be getting narrower.   

The pick-up is easy, but time consuming.  I numbered the pattern squares.  One shed has the even numbered squares and the other shed has the odd numbered ones.  I used a  pick-up stick to lift or lower the appropriate pattern threads, so that all the red squares in one row are on the top, and all the others are on the lower part of the shed.  Then I use the pickup stick turned on its side to hold the shed open for weaving.

The thicker pattern threads create a raised design.  The weaving is done with the same yarn as the edge warp threads.

This will make a nice portable project.  I think I will take it to the Fiber Festival at the castle in Charlevoix, Michigan this Saturday and Sunday (July 23-24).  Hope to see some of you weavers and spinners there!  I will be there with all five of my granddaughters.  Bring your spinning for the spin-in!

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.

Lace Sampling Finished

I changed the linen warp on my sample loom from 18 epi to 24 epi to see which sett I liked best.  After this test, I think it was better at 18 than 24.  Maybe partway between at 20 would be better.  At 24 epi, the pattern is elongated but the plain weave is tighter.

Now I have to decide if I want to take the time to make some towels with this pick-up technique.  I was thinking about doing a gamp with it along with some people in the local weaving guild.  I figured I could use cotton instead of linen, and use three different colors for the warp and the same three for the warp.  Now that I know I can do this, I will have to get back the the planning stage. 

At one time, I did a summer and winter weaving with pink, yellow and lt. blue that looked like 6 colors, so I may do that.

My other idea was to use complimentary colors that can make the plain weave look irridescent.  That could be interesting too.  A lot depends on my yarn stash and whether I want to dye yarn.

 

 

Bronson Lace Pick-up Continued

The article I was referring to in my previous post was from the March/April 1992 issue of Handwoven, page 57.  It was an article written by Bob Owen, another Michigan weaver.  I don't know if he is still around, since he was retired when the article was written.  I learned a lot from the article about block weaves in relation to lace.

I drew up several designs, but chose to start with the one that was in the article.  A block means that each x on the graph represents a group of threads.  For this project, each block equals eight warp threads and eight weft threads.  The squares around the design are also blocks that will be the Bronson Lace weave, and the design will be plain weave. 

This particular design would require ten shafts without the pick-up method.  This method only requires three shafts. 

Here is my result of this design.

I wasn't real sure about the sett for this linen yarn.  This sample is sett at 18 epi, and it appears a little loose.  I decided to weave another design before cutting the samples off the loom and wet finishing them.  I knew they would look completely different once they were washed, with the floating yarns scooting together.

So, here is my next design.  It was a little harder to follow, with more skips and rows.  I kept getting a little mixed up because I kept wanting to make the blank spaces be the plain weave instead of the x's. 







This design turned out to be quite pretty.

 

While weaving this second motif, I snapped a few pictures of the pick-up process.

Raising shaft 3 raises groups of 3 warp threads.  I had 13 groups in my sample.  

A pick-up stick is used to pick up groups of 3 threads, according to the pattern.  This is the first row of the pattern A.

With the pick-up stick in place, shaft 2 is raised.

Since the shed is small, I used a stick shuttle to weave with.  This shows the pick-up stick against the reed and the stick shuttle weaving under the raised pattern threads and the threads on shaft 2.

The pick-up stick is then pulled out, and the pick is then beat into place.

Something else that I did with this pattern was to move some of my warp yarns that were supposed to be on shaft 1 onto shaft 4.  It was suggested in the article to do that to space out the heddles.  I moved every other one from the first shaft to the fourth shaft.  The tie-up had to change also (every time shaft one is lifted, four also has to be lifted).

I love the look of Atwater-Bronson lace.  This is the first sample after wet finishing.  Linen shouldn't be dried in the dryer because it can ruin the sheen of the threads.  I cold press mine with my marble rolling pin on my kitchen counter and just leave it there till it's dry.

My second sample, rolled and left to dry.  I'm happy with how both turned out, but I will experiment a bit more with the remainder of the warp.  I am going to resley the reed at 24 epi for the next samples to see which I like best.