Weaving in Hyperdrive!!!!!!

Ok, let's see what's on tap for this month....Everything!!!!!!!!! I have my overshot workshop in 10 days. 7 yard warp of 10/2 cotton is wound & chained. Need to sley & thread by tomorrow. Warp #2, 3/2 black cotton, is 1/2 sleyed on the four shaft loom for twill pillows. I probably have about 15 pillows completed, another 30 woven and another 20 or so yet to weave. AAAHHHhhhhh!!!!!!!

Anyway, I wanted to post pictures of the gamp post wet finishing. Of the things I am most grateful for, as far as my weaving journey goes, is having found Laura Fry's "Magic In The Water" very early on. At that point I was still weaving exclusively on the rigid heddle and only had about 8 scarves "finished". I immediately wet finished all of them and was dumbfounded by the transformation of the different fibers. Wet finishing has since been an obsession of mine and I can not recommend Ms. Fry's expertise enough!

The weather here in PA has been dreary for about 2 weeks straight so I can't get a good shot of the gamp in natural light. 

Here are some of the pillows I've been making....

This is my 1st time using rayon chenille.....

Happy Weaving!

Bertha Gray Hayes Overshot Gamp

A correction: I wove this gamp tromp as writ, literally. I treadled exactly like the threading. After attending a workshop, I was corrected because tromp as writ means to weave the overshot blocks as threaded; not the individual threads. I think the sampler looks good as it is, but it is not correct overshot. I'll be correcting the draft and making a new gamp soon. 

It seems that all I've been doing lately is overshot. Well, I guess there could be worse things. 

Since I did not get a draft that I really like for my upcoming Bertha Gray Hayes overshot workshop, I decided to design a gamp. It was somewhat difficult to find patterns for the gamp because a lot of Ms. Hayes' patterns are asymmetrical. I ultimately decided on her patterns: Hazelwood (#63), Parquetry (#69), Blossom (#13), Delight(#29) & Peace (#39). 

My next challenge was choosing the fiber & colors for this project. I pulled out all my 5/2, 3/2 & 8/4 cotton. I stared at the cones and rearranged them a billion times. I chose the 5/2 for warp & tabby weft in blue, green, yellow, red & purple. 

The stripes are separated by black and I will use 3/2 cotton in black as pattern weft. I realized, as I was beaming, that I had wound my warp longer than planned. Hopefully, this will leave me with enough to weave a sample gamp for Ms. Smayda and possibly one for the HWBC archives. 

When I looked at my instructions for the workshop, I saw that Norma Smayda recommends using a set of 16 epi when using 5/2 cotton as warp. No wonder my 1st weavings using 5/2 were so stiff.....

I had used a set of 20 epi. 

For this gamp, I'll sley 2 ends per dent in an 8 dent reed for 16 epi. 

Almost ready to weave....

After resleying 1/2 the warp due to a skipped dent and a fixing a broken thread, let the weaving commence!!!!!

After weaving a few inches, I've noticed several things. Since I threaded the black threads on shafts 5&6, the gamp will have a good side and a bad side. Also, there are some small separations between the black stripes and the pattern squares because the pattern thread does not go from selvedge to selvedge but just across the pattern squares. 

You can see that it skews the design of the squares on the edges. You can also see the floats over the black threads. .

Well that's all for now. Hopefully I'll get this finished in the next day or so.

Happy Weaving!