New Canaan Check Sample After Wet-Finishing

Here are the two halves of the sample.  On the left, obviously, is the unwashed half, and on the right, the washed and pressed wet- finished half.  Quite a bit of shrinkage.  I soaked it in hot water with Dawn dish soap to release any spinning oils, or natural oils.  I agitated it just a little after it soaked a bit, then rinsed in warm water, rolled it in a towel and hung it to air dry.

Just a comparison of the pressed sample and the unfinished half.  It passed the properly finished test--I couldn't poke my fingernail between the weave.

I actually like the backside, too.  It looks more plaid than the front.

From this view, it looks sort of three dimensional, almost like waves.  I like it!  Now, to get the rest of the 7 yards woven.  I'm going, I'm going!

Wool/Rayon Sample Done

The cough I have had for almost four weeks is really getting me down.  After a much needed three hour nap after church, I did get out to the studio and wove a sample on my wool warp. 

Here is the warp spread on the loom and ready to go.  It is 28” wide, with 1” stripes.

The weft is a chained rayon that I have had for quite a while, but just couldn’t decide what to use it for.  There are four colors, plum, burgundy, rust, and a rosy tan.  This photo is a pretty good representation of the colors.

I have more plum color than the other three colors, so my plan is to weave the plum after both of the other dark colors, and use the tan as an accent between pattern sections.

Well, here is how the sample turned out on the loom.  I need to work on my beat, to make the stripes end up the same width.  Right now, each color stripe is about three cm. wide.  I'm waiting for some glue to dry, and then I'll go back out and cut the sample off the loom.  I will cut it in half, keeping one half as is, and will wash the other half to see how the wool fulls.  After checking that, I will decide whether to beat harder, softer, or as I was doing.

Here is a close-up.  So far, I am happy with how it is turning out.  I’ll see if I am still happy after the wet finishing.

Wool and Rayon Project Started

My favored yarns are washable, so mainly I weave with cotton, rayon chenille and other types of rayon.  I have had a large quantity of 9/2 wool in my stash (that needs reducing!), so a few days ago, I finished winding a warp of that wool.  My vague goal is to weave some fabric to eventually make into a jacket. 

The warp was wound in 1" stripes at 16 epi.  It is sett at 2 ends per inch in an eight dent reed, measuring 28" wide.

I wound it onto my Leclerc Artisat 36" loom last night, using my trapeze.  It was a nice tight winding, and went on very smoothly, with no glitches.

Here is another view of the trapeze.  It keeps the warp taut with the milk jugs about one fifth full of water and hung on the ends.  The best part of this way to warp, is that I can put a warp on the loom without help is most cases. 

After I got the warp on the backbeam, I took some time to reconsider the twill I was planning to weave.  Looking through Marguerite Davison's Handweaver's Pattern Book, I found New Canaan Check on page 118.  It has a 16 thread repeat, so I played around with it a bit on Fiberworks on my computer.  I ended up choosing version XI, which is showing on my monitor (a bit stretched out for ease of reading while threading).

It was getting late, so I only threaded three of the stripes and then headed for bed.  I will get going on it again this afternoon.

Is our work really work, or is it play?

I ran across this on another weaver's blog, http://laurasloom.blogspot.com/2011/02/working-or-playing.html
I liked it so well, I am borrowing it, as she did, from James Mitchener.

Master in the Art of Living


As a master in the art of living
you draw no distinction between
your work and your play,
your labour and your leisure,
your mind and your body,
your education and your recreation,
your love and your religion.

You hardly know which is which.

You simply pursue your vision of
excellence through whatever you
are doing and leave it to others
to determine if you are working
or playing - to yourself
you are always doing both.

James Michener

I think anyone doing creative work, whether weaving, writing, drawing, painting, quilting, designing, or any other multitude of creative endevors would agree.

I've started on a more intricate pick-up design for lace. I'm still working on it, but you can see what it looks like partially finished.  I'll keep tweeking it, till I'm happy with it. Many of my designs only make it as far as paper.  We'll see if this one ever gets on a loom!
This one requires an odd number of blocks in order to center the design.  I'm figuring on 39 blocks, with 8 warp ends in each block.  I'm thinking of rethreading the loom with the remainder of my warp from my other projects, after a make a couple more towels.

I finished another towel with the pick-up technique.  Here is a close-up of one of the three stripes, the very simple design, and a look at the zig-zag or trellis hemstitching.  There are three stripes of lace, each 10 blocks wide, separated by an inch of plain weave.

Have a creative day!



Green Rag Rug is Hemmed

The rag rug with all kinds of prints with green is complete.  I finished the hems last night, brought it in, dampened it on both sides, stomped on it a bit to set everything and left it to dry.  I still need to work on a tiny bit of waviness on the edges, which I suppose just requires a bit more weight on the edge threads.  I thought I had enough, but apparently not.

Here is a close up.  Since the strips were only one inch, doubled, there are four raw edges on the strips, and therefore, more lose threads.  Also, the way I joined the strips cause little tags of the ends to poke out between the warps.  If you don't like that in a rug, don't use my techniques!  I think it adds to the charm of a rag rug though.

Atwater-Bronson Lace Pick-up

Along with finishing weaving the rag rug last night, I also finished the hems (by machine) on the Atwater-Bronson lace towel I was working on.  This towel is a sampler of designs I drew on graph paper, when I was playing around with the possibilities for this lace pick-up technique.  There are twelve squares, each with a different design.  Each square consists of 10 x 10 lace blocks.  Each lace block consists of eight warp threads and eight weft picks.

I divided the designs into groups depending on how many blocks each required.  I just kept drawing until I had enough designs for what I wanted to do.  Since my squares were 10 x 10 blocks, I needed to use an even number design, or the design wouldn't be centered.  If I used the designs that are 7 or 9 blocks wide, I would thread an uneven number of lace blocks.  The x part of the design turns out as plain weave when woven.

This is one half of the towel.  The designs from my graph are:
Top row: 8-G, 6-E, 8-F
Bottom row: 6-I, 8-E, 6-B

This is the other end of the towel.  The patterns are:   Top row:  6-A, 8-H, 6-B (minus 4 x's).  Bottom row:  8-L (minus 4 x's), 6-C, 8-I

This is a very easy weave structure, and the treadling sequence is very easy to memorize.  My grandson Davey (age 8) was over last weekend, and he was able to weave some of it, and understood the pickup on this simple pattern, which is only 4 blocks wide by 3 blocks high:

As I mentioned in a previous post, this pickup idea came from an article by Bob Owen in the March/April 1992 issue of Handwoven, pg. 56-57.

If I was going to change anything the next time, I would have more lace, and less plain weave divisions.  But then, the possibilities are just about endless.  Unfortunately, I will probably not have enough time to ever weave all my ideas.

I'm going out to get that rag rug off the loom now.  

Technique for Joining Rag Strips Worked Great

I just came in from finishing a rag rug.  I really liked the method for joining my strips.  I showed it in a previous post, as I decided to try it.  I did move the sewing over to my industrial Singer 111, because it sews faster.  If anyone tries this method, just make sure the fabric joins are staggered.  I overlap my joins about 1".  The join won't pull apart, because it has a solid strip backing it.  I was using a lot of doll clothes scraps, so some of the strips were short.  My strips varied anywhere from 6" to full fabric width.  To avoid stripes in the rug with the longer strips, just flip it over in the shed to have the reverse side show.  I used a neutral sewing thread down the center of the strips, wrong sides together, and the thread doesn't show in the rug.

Here is the hem end, with glue.  I will let it dry overnight and probably cut it off tomorrow and get it hemmed.  The colors in this photo don't show the green very well.  All the fabrics that I used had some green in the pattern.

These show the color a little better.

Finishing a Long Rug Warp

The warmer weather the last couple days (out of the single digits and low 20's) has gotten me back out to the studio.  Yesterday, I started cutting some more calico strips from a huge box of scraps that my aunt gave me.

These are cut 1 inch wide.  I  just use my rotary cutter, ruler, and mat.

The rug is on my Leclerc Fanny.  I put quite a bit of green warp on a while ago, and the color is getting boring.  I think I like stripes in the warp better than all one color.

For this set of rags, I am putting two one inch strips, wrong sides together, and stitching down the center to keep the right sides showing.  I just kept adding new strips until I had enough to fill a shuttle.  The first shuttles worth is already woven, and shuttle two and three are ready to go.  I will get back at it again tomorrow after I get home from work.

I should take the first Atwater-Bronson towel out to the studio, also, and get the hems sewn in. 

 Right now, I'm just too tired.  Bed is calling--

Ladder Hemstitching with Photos

I was looking for instructions for ladder hemstitching a couple days ago, because I can't seem to remember which side I should start the stitching. I did the first end of the towel without instructions, starting from the left, and it felt awkward, especially the second row. I could find directions for the first half of the two rows in some of my books, but not the second row.
I decided to try it again, from the right side (I'm right handed), and snap some photos as I did the steps. Now I can refer to my own directions in the future.
My towel started with a plain weave hem.  I wanted a hem about one inch wide, so I wove about 2 1/2" before starting the hemstitching.  I cut a tail from the weft, about 3-4 widths long. Thread a tapestry needle (which has a blunt tip) with the tail.

Starting at the right side, take the thread under the first bundle and up between the first and second group of threads. (Wrapping the first group is not shown, but is done like this photo.) 

Holding the thread taut, put the needle under the bundle again, and bring it up between the first and second bundle, two threads below the edge.  Tighten thread. 

Holding thread taut, the needle goes under the next bundle, up between bundles, and around bundle.  The needle exits two threads below. Repeat, as in the two photos, across the row.

Some of the first row. The spacing will look neat and even, if the thread is kept taut while stitching.

This shows two spacer rows woven in with a smooth, heavier yarn.  Make sure the heavy yarn is in the correct shed if it matters which direction your plain weave needs to be woven. Leave four widths of yarn at the right side, and weave several picks of plain weave.

Start the second hemstitching like the first, threading a tapestry needle with the tail.  Start with the needle under the first bundle, up and around the bundle, coming up between the bundles, two threads above the row.

Hold the thread taut, needle under the next bundle,

around the bundle, exiting two threads above.  Repeat across the towel.  

Finished ladder hemstitching.  The spacer yarn is pulled out after wet-finishing the piece.  Turn the hem.  Finish by hand, or as I did, by using matching thread and the zig-zag stitch on the sewing machine.  Adjust the stitch length, so each zig goes into a hole, and each zag catches the hem.

Zig-zag hemstitching can also be done using the same directions, with one difference in the second row.  Instead of using the whole first bundle, wrap around half of it.  Each successive group will be half of two groups from row one.

Although I was doing ladder hemstitching for these instructions, a single row can also be used to anchor the warp threads in bundles for fringe, instead of tying them in a knot.  It looks nicer, and doesn't take much more time, and your piece doesn't have hard lumps from knots.

Free Sleying Hook

Here is one of my favorite weaving tools.  The weaving craft can get kind of expensive, but this sleying hook is free.

 I use the fake credit cards that come in the advertising from credit card companies.  I tend to misplace things, so if I only had one sleying hook, I probably wouldn't get much weaving accomplished.  By making my own, I can have one or a dozen by each loom.  If I accidently drop one, I just pick up another one and keep going.











This wasn't my own idea.  I had heard of someone making them, but drew my own pattern.  It is designed so the tips just fit corner to corner on the card.  (The pattern in the photo is drawn on a piece of paper.)  Cut out the pattern and trace around it with a Sharpie marker onto the card.  Cut the card with heavy scissors, except the circular area of the hook.  Use a hole punch for that spot.  Make sure all the edges are smooth, so they don't snag the yarn.

I make sure I give a couple to each new weaver I get a chance to teach.  This photo is of me in my weaving studio in the garage.  It's a bit chilly out there this time of year, so I decided to bring one of my small looms inside.  I just started some hand towels with Atwater-Bronson lace pick-up, using some of my designs.

Have a great time weaving!  I know I am!