Weaving With Linen

Cotton, wool, bamboo, even the dreaded acrylic from time to time. It seems I've worked with just about every fiber except linen. I've seen flax grown, harvested, broken, combed & spun. I have just never used it. Not looking to make a huge investment, I bought 3 8 oz spools of 8/2 linen. I know that this is mainly used for tapestry weaving, so we'll see what happens. 

While warping the 1st thing I noticed is that the thread has zero give. None. I asked about linen at the yarn store and the only advice I got is that you need to have perfect tension when weaving with it. Threading was a breeze. I hate threading heddles. Hate it!!! Threading with the stiff linen made it easier to see which thread was next and easier to get through the heddles. 

I wound the warp carefully and tried to tie on as evenly as possible. I am using an overshot pattern called Periwinkle . Here is the draft.....

After weaving one repeat of the pattern I noticed a threading error. I cut the incorrect threads and re-threaded and re-sleyed them. I tied a knot in the warp threads and secured them to the weaving with a T pin. It worked!

The repair is at the lower right side of the fabric. For this 1st sample, I used 3/2 pearle cotton in black for the pattern weft. 

For my 2nd sample, I messed with the treadling a bit and used Brown Sheep Nature Spun Sport in a blue as pattern weft.....

The next sample is the same treadling as the wool but with twine as pattern weft. 

Finally I used hemp as patern weft and changed the tie up to weave in Monk's Belt.....

Now, the wet finishing. Since I've never worked with linen before I was at a loss as to how to finish it. I saw a few things online that mentioned cold mangling. When I asked at the yarn store, they said they'd never even heard of that before. I decided to cut off a small piece of weaving (where I had made my repair in the beginning of the warp) and then I threw it into the washer and then the dryer. The transformation was amazing!

The design became more defined and both the linen & cotton softened considerably. 

Though initially scared of working with linen, now I can't wait to use it again :)

Happy Weaving!