Skip to main content

Black and White.....Well, Almost

      Oh my gosh!  No one has to tell me to stay home twice!  Why not make the absolute best of this quarantine and use up as much yarn as I possibly can?  Well, that’s my philosophy right now!  I have a gorgeous yarn rack in my living room that a dear friend made for me for Christmas years ago.  It gets the award for best gift.  Handmade and holds 88 cones of yarn and right up until this week, it was full.  I’ve woven nearly 40 yards of fabric since March and will be posting about each run weekly until I’m caught up.  Honestly, I hope I never get caught up!  I counted empty spots on this cone rack and I had 15 free spaces!!!  I can’t wait to share those projects.  Before I do though....

There is plenty of cotton on my yarn rack both mercerized and unmercerized.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE unmercerized for towels.  The untreated fibers make for fabulous absorption and the more use they get, the better they get.  However, I do have a lot of mercerized as well and it was time to start making a dent.  I have tons of 3/2 that I was working with to make placemats as well as tons of 10/2 that I was using for napkins.  There’s that funny little one in the middle......5/2.  All I had was three cones.  Black, green, and white....or maybe it’s more like bone or cream.  

Black and white/cream won the vote!  Simple and traditional was the plan, yet I wanted something that was unique so, I chose a pattern out of the 8 Shaft Pattern Book and started counting ends.


Counting 452 ends, two of which were for floating selvedges so that way I would have nice neat edges.  The warp was only five yards long and winding a solid color made the process of counting ends smooth as butter.

Once the warp was spread evenly in the raddle and beamed on the back beam, I was ready to thread the heddles.

 

The threading was easy enough to memorize and thankfully, I got through the first try with no errors. It’s the worst feeling in the world to get to the end and realize that I missed something somewhere. 


Ok....let’s talk about this for a minute.  I’m weaving these towels on my Glimakra Ideal 8 shaft horizontal Countermarche.  I love this loom and everything about it but, let me tell you...if the treadles aren’t tied up just right, the shed is terrible.  This makes weaving a horror as opposed to a dream.  There’s a little knack for getting the shed just right.  The 8th harness has to hold the treadle horizontal almost perfectly in line with the bottom cross post on the front of the loom and then each shaft in succession to the first shaft have to compliment the tension on the 8th.  With a countermarche loom, either the top or bottom lamm is tied to the treadle (depending on the pattern).  So, when setting the treadles, the 8th harness holds up the treadle initially and each harness thereafter should not have more tension on the treadle but not be too slack.  I’ve been battling with getting this just right.  Somewhere along the line, I lost my ability to get this right every time.  Maybe it just used to fall into place for me, I have no idea.  Either way, I spent a good deal of time on the floor getting it right.  Success!


So, here’s the header.  Basic boring stuff:). It’s just used to space the threads evenly so that when I start weaving the fabric, I don’t have ‘skips’.


It’s starting to look like something!


That’s the idea!  With a solid warp, solid weft, and a nice clean shed, these wove up in no time.


With only a five yard warp, I had these off of the loom pretty quickly.


Another valuable lesson I’ve learned is that not giving myself enough space for a nice hem only frustrates me after wet finishing.  There have been a few times where I pull everything out to be pressed after wet finishing only to find that I have to gear into repair mode.  Very frustrating.  Solution = big hem :)


So this picture is in black and white.  I wanted to somewhat simulate the finished product by comparing it to the first picture in this post.   Below top photograph is before pressing and the bottom photograph is after pressing.  


So, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about items for sale.  The Etsy shop is up and running and you can access it by scrolling to the top of the page and clicking on the store link or you can just click here.  I’m not an outdoorsy kind of person when it’s cold out and sunlight is the best light for taking pictures.  As soon as it’s a nice enough day out and the sunlight is at it’s optimum, I will get out there and take some pictures and have these items listed.  Promise! 









Comments

Rebecca said…
I loved reading of your ordeal (and your strategy) for getting your Ideal to give you a good shed with 8 shafts! I have the same issue, but the weaving with that loom is so dreamy that it seems to be worth the headache of tying-up. Love your Black & White weave!

Popular posts from this blog

Damask....Ah Ha Moment....Now Taquete?

Ok . So since the weather has been changing, I now have some more obvious time to 'play' with some designs that I have stored in my head:) Damask, in particular, has been a favorite of mine to look at and I really feel the urge to use my loom to create tapestry like scarves and shawls. I don't want anything too heavy as I really like the feel of tencel , bamboo, and I would eventually like to switch to silk for my finer works. I am still in the learning stage though and I hope to always remain in the learning stage. The damask pattern that I have been toying with, I like but, I lose a lot of detail the more I stretched it out. I was a little frustrated but, certain that there was something that I could do. The picture above is a little small but, the piece all the way to the right is a 4 point twill threading, the middle is a 5 point twill threading, and the one on the far left is a 6 point twill threading. To get a true satin/sateen I would have to use the one on the far

A New Loom!

       I’ve been weaving on a Glimakra 8 harness countermarche loom for almost 10 years now.  I love it!  It weaves like a dream, it’s super heavy, I get an excellent shed when all is going well, and I have a bit of an emotional attachment to it.  The only thing that I don’t love about this loom is that I have to climb on the floor to tie up the treadles.  Depending on the pattern, I could be under there for quite some time.  I’m pretty limber and in pretty good shape but climbing under the loom is back breaking work.  So much so that I’m sometimes out of commission for the remainder of the day after.  Look how pretty this loom is though!       I cleaned out the area that this loom has been designating as it’s home and prepped for the replacement.  I got an amazing deal on a Louet Spring and couldn’t pass it up!        I’ve been doing a lot of research on looms (well, really when am I not looking at looms!) and know that I love Louet.  My Megado has served me well for many years and th
        You know when you make something and the entire process just seems seamless?  Well, that’s how this project played out.  I have some 10/2 tencel that is natural and I dyed a bunch of it over the summer.  I wound off bouts of around 1700 yards each and now know that I would like to make larger skeins so that I can get a couple of scarves using this pattern again...just a bit longer.       This picture was taken in natural sunlight of the braid after counting the ends on the warping board.  Let’s get this thing on the loom!                  I learned a new trick for spreading the warp in the raddle.  Since this is an A B color pattern, it’s important to not separate the colors in the raddle.  To never “separate the twins” makes beaming the warp a piece of cake!   Another cool trick I learned was to put the warp under tension while beaming.  With a stack of my son’s graphic novels, I had the full six yards beamed in seven minutes!  SEVEN!!! My absolute favorite part, threading