Previously…

My last post had some serious color mixing and warp winding and I couldn’t wait to get everything on the loom and see how it would turn out. Just a reminder, here is the inspiration for the latest warp based on the insert/poster from a Magic Puzzle we had just completed.

I sleyed the reed…

And because everyone wants to know about the levels in the reed… I warp front to back, for many many reasons, but the trick to working from the front, through the reed, and then the heddles, before beaming the warp, is to have multiple ends in a dent stacked in levels, so they can’t jamb up in front of the heddles. Cay Garrett wrote a lovely book on the subject, somewhere in the late 70’s, just as I was becoming a serious weaver, and I have never looked back. The book was called Warping All By Yourself, and almost every weaving guild library has a copy. Anyway, I tie horizontal cord around the reed, creating as many levels as I need for the threads that occupy the same dent. I grouped them based on size of yarn and structure, so I knew what went in which dent.

That makes threading a piece of cake, since I’ve already gone through and checked my original draft, and made sure there were no mistakes when sleying the reed. As it turns out, I had made two errors, I was short a thread in one of the groupings, easy to add before the warp was threaded and beamed, and I wound one too many of a different grouping. So I just dropped it.

The order in the reed keeps the order in which I wound the warp, so everything was just waiting for a heddle, and I was through this very complicated warp in no time.

I use a tensioning device from Harrisville Designs, which allows the threads to tension individually when beaming. Previously I used just a series of lease sticks, but I like the size of these smooth hardwood dowels.

And suddenly I was ready to tie on!

I selected a fine lambswool weft, which helps keep the rayon under control once the fabric is off the loom and washed, This is definitely a warp faced series of structures, and there is a lot of slippery rayon. The draft is based on the 12 shaft version from my lengthy article in Heddlecraft Magazine, issue #38, but I was able to convert the draft to 8 shafts, and maintain the integrity of the original.

I’m really happy with this so far, it is exactly what I envisioned. Which is always fun when things work out!

Meanwhile, I apparently am on a quest to warp all the looms. I have 49, have I mentioned that? 15 are always reserved for beginning weaving classes, but the rest, many of them little Structos or Leclerc sample looms, I have been setting up with explorations of various structures, for my entertainment, but also because it might be fun to have people come and play. And there is always the hope that one day I’ll carry a little loom outside and sit in the garden and weave…

One of the looms I got from that stash from a school in California still had to be refurbished, so I set out to do that yesterday.

I needed a different reed, obviously a new front apron, and I won’t even discuss the heddle situation. I did a previous blog post on heddle etiquette. Obviously this loom had not been exposed to that.

And so I replaced the apron, fresh and white. And I changed out the reed, I needed a 12 dent reed, which fortunately I had. I have five of this particular loom, and I’m fortunate that two of them had hex warp beams, that fit Structo spools.

So I swapped out the warp beams and added the spools, and though I’m running low on Leclerc heddles, which are a different length than the thousands I have for the Tools of the Trade Looms, and the Macomber, which is different from all those, I did manage to find enough to put on this little Leclerc, with all of them canting in the same direction.

For those who aren’t weavers, skip this section, just look at the pictures at the end. I’m including a little tutorial here because I’m going to be asked, and I might as well include it in the post. How do you warp the spools? I use many different methods, but the easiest is just to make the chain warp, and warp from Front to Back.

Once the ends come through to the back, they have to be attached to the spools, using a strip of paper tape, the kind you wet, and that little tab then slips into the metal flange in the spool.

The next step involves a bunch of zip ties. I buy these by the gross. I put a pair around the hex beam on either side of the spools so they don’t travel left or right as I beam.

Then I put a pair on either side of each of the warp bundles that will load onto a spool, across the back beam. This channels the warp into the spools. It is important as you wind that you keep an eye that there isn’t any uneven build up, and that you hold the warp tight from the front as you are beaming.

And there you have it. I put six yards on this loom, of 10/2 perle cotton, and probably didn’t even fill the spools half way. No packing needed!

A couple of years ago, I saw a fabulous social media post from Elizabeth Tritthart, historicweaving.com called 100 Horizontal Stripes. They were just beautiful, and Elizabeth figured out how to take old cross stitch and needlework patterns and convert them to drafts for pick-up. Typically, she works on a draw loom, but this book had information on how to work with just four shafts, which my little Leclerc had. I’ve been wanting to do this for a while. And I also have old needlework books and leaflets…

And so I started weaving. Yes, this is painstakingly slow, but slow cloth is a thing, and I’m not in any hurry. Each design is separated by a “ribbon separator” as she calls it, a three pick basket structure that looks like a little chain. I ended up using doubled embroidery floss for the pattern threads, as I have tons of it in many different colors.

And so I’ve had the most productive week, I walk into the garage/studio every morning smiling, and my looms smile back. I’m racking up good loom karma, each loom that gets refurbished and warped has a new lease on life and gets to play in my colorful sandbox of fiber. We are all happy campers. This is like a summer camp that goes year round.

There are a couple more looms I want to warp up, and then I’ll just weave away, for the rest of the year, always thinking of what I want to try next.

Stay tuned…

Works well under pressure…

Truth be told, deadlines are my friend. I am focused, organized, and have been doing this long enough to expect roadblocks, detours, and the myriad of things life throws at you when you are planning something else.

Like a fractured shoulder the end of December.

Like another flood in my sewing room last week.

My shoulder is progressing. Chris, my PT, is confident that I will gain back most of my rotation, and he doggedly pursues a course of action that is helping slowly but surely. He knows what he is doing, that is pretty obvious, and I trust the professional. I’m about 75% there, but that obviously doesn’t stop me. I’m always a woman on a mission, and figuring out how to meet deadlines in spite of what the universe throws at me, is my specialty.

Tuesday morning I had the plumber in, because once again, I took water in the basement sewing room. It was a bad storm, on top of an already ridiculous water table in NJ, much of the town flooded, but I should not have taken water under the wall in the corner where the sump pump lives. Turns out the hose of the dehumidifier was laying on the float, probably causing it to work improperly. You can’t make this crap up. So plumber installed a completely new sump pump, because why not, I don’t want to take a chance with a unit that is probably 25 years old, now that NJ is slowly sinking into the Atlantic, and the dehumidifier hose is properly mounted so it doesn’t interfere. Meanwhile, scrubbing the concrete floors and mats with heavy duty cleaner, on my hands and knees with a fractured shoulder that is still healing wasn’t my idea of a fun and entertaining couple of days…

But I persevered…

And was hugely rewarded. I will be honest and say I’m so freakin’ proud of myself, in spite of the tears these last couple of months. I had a deadline and I had to meet it. Three years ago I was asked to be an invited artist at the Convergence Fashion Show in 2020 in Knoxville, TN. I of course agreed, and started thinking about what I would send. We all know the curve ball Covid threw into the works, not only was the conference postponed for two years, but I retired from teaching on the road, and spent those two years developing content for my YouTube channel, The Weaver Sews. I’m not planning to be at the conference.

And so, back in January with one arm in a sling, I looked at the loom with the narrowest warp, which happened to have two shuttles, and I wove slowly, 6 inches a day, with one hand. Just clearing that 4 yard warp was a feat that I still marvel that I accomplished. I had no idea what I was going to do with a 9″ wide 8/2 tencel warp, about 3 1/2 yards long, but then I saw this piece from Urban Outfitters. I have not been able to find the piece on their website.) It was part of an article on sustainability with fashion designers, trying to use what they have. (Shacket is the term for shirt/jacket, apparently)

The shacket is not my taste, but it inspired me to do this.

My jacket is constructed almost entirely by hand and is completely reversible. The most challenging part was finding a reversible separating zipper. Though the piece doesn’t fit with my regular body of work, the response to everyone who has seen photos of it has been really wonderful, Jennifer Moore, whose workshop I wove the double weave fabric in, was really hoping to see it at Convergence.

The pattern for the jacket is from my pattern collection, a combination of the #800 vest and the armholes and sleeves from the #1700 tunic.

Meanwhile, if you have been reading my past posts over the last couple of months, you know I’ve managed to design, set up, and weave off yardage, hand dyed yarns, mixed structures on 12 shafts, inspired by a puzzle we were fixing. All with a fractured shoulder. I was able to get this walking vest out of the fabric I had, and I’m so freakin’ thrilled with this.

I used scraps of a caviar leather I had to make epaulettes, since there was no way I could match the shoulders, and there is leather piping down the front and armhole bands. I finished up the handwork yesterday. The pattern is from my collection, the #600 Walking Vest. It has pockets!

And because this fabric, woven a couple of years ago, kept calling me from the shelf, (it sat on the shelf for the last couple of years because I couldn’t think of what to make with it) asking me to make a dress. For the runway. Something that celebrated the stripes. Bias… I listen carefully to my materials.

I’m not certain how the dress will ultimately perform, it fits like a dream, being bias and all, but how will it hold up on exhibit in a fashion show? Normally I would have the dress folded on the shelf. I’m still up in the air whether I should send it. But I love the look of the dress, the way it chevrons on the side. The yarns are a combination of a bunch of stuff that was on my shelf, including a hand dyed warp from Blazing Shuttles, that’s the aqua tones large stripe. Again, a combination of structures, plain weave, twills, and some supplementals. And it has pockets! I modified my #900 bias top pattern.

So I’m sitting back and smiling at myself and all of my hardwork these last couple of months, mentally, physically, and all because of a postponed deadline from two years ago. I am my happiest when I meet a personal challenge head on and win. And I won this one.

Stay tuned…