Weaving Hack

People may think I'm crazy, but I wind all my bobbins for weaving on my sewing machine. I've tried several other methods, but for me, this works best. Enjoy!


Bobbin Winding Hack

6 Shaft Shadow Weave in Chenille

The last time I did color & weave or a shadow weave, it was on 4 shafts. My 1st piece was a log cabin runner woven on my rigid heddle loom. It was my favorite, until.... I got my floor loom. I did a table runner in 4 color log cabin. It still is one of my all time favorites. I've been having a hard time deciding what to make for some upcoming craft shows. Ultimately I decided to try to use up my chenille and make some shadow weave scarves. 

When I searched "8 shaft shadow weave", I found several links to Eva Stossel's blog. Using her specs as a guideline, I began to wind the warp. In the end, I went with a 6 shaft pattern and I decided on a sett of 17 1/2. Why this odd sett? I have two reeds; a 5 dent & a 10 dent. Eva recommends a sett of 16-18 for her various projects using chenille. I should add, I'm using 1400 ypp rayon chenille. The closest I could get is 17 or 17 1/2 epi. I decided to go with the closer sett.  This whole experience has sold me on the absolute necessity of an 8 dent reed ;)

Threading; my least favorite part 

Here is my draft.

Fast forward about a day and im having threading issues. I'd fix one error only to weave another inch or two before finding another. I also thought I could get away without floating selvedges. That was another bad plan. After blowing through almost 2 bobbins and about twice as much warp as I had planned for sampling, the pattern was perfect......

....sort of. I noticed that certain warp threads appear as if they are floating. This is due to the sett of 17 1/2. To sley in the 10 dent reed, I sleyed 2,2,2,1. The threads that appear to be floats are where one thread is sleyed in a dent. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it will even out when off the loom. 

I did another version using purple....

 

And another with green in a diamond pattern....

Fringe is a must with these scarves and fringing chenille was a lot more tedious than I had anticipated. The fringe looks great, but I'm not looking forward to fringing the rest!

Fast forward to wet finishing. I soaked the 1st scarf in hot water. The water turned pink immediately so I continued rinsing until the water was clear. I rolled the scarf in a towel & then put it in the dryer. Some of the fringe got a little wonky but the finished fabric is like "buttah" 😉

Happy Weaving!

Next up, Fancy Twills on the 8 shaft 😀

Adventures in Doubleweave

I had a bunch of horrible acrylic yarn I wanted to get rid of so I decided to sample some doubleweave. I plan to do a very large double width wool blanket but before I invest time and money on such a large scale doubleweave project, I think a bit more practice might be in order. 

I only have a 10 dent reed so I had to use a relatively big yarn to get close to 20 epi (10 epi per layer). 

I decided to mess around a bit with color so my warp was threaded with tan as the light color and 2 different blues as the dark color. I threaded 4d,2l,3d,1l for block A and 4l,3d,2l,1d for block B. 

My treadles were tied as follows:

1- shaft 1

2- shaft 2

3- shafts 1&2

4- shaft 3

5- shaft 4

6- shafts 3&4

Doubleweave with interchanged layers 

Doubleweave with 2 separate layers 

This just plain weave (only using treadles 3&4)

The sett was WAY too tight, but I'm happy with the selvedges and I only had one skip on the bottom layer. 

Happy Weaving!

A Rug in Summer & Winter on 6 shafts

I've been wanting to weave a few rugs, but have been so indecisive with a pattern. I ultimately chose Trellis by Bertha Gray Hayes, but opted to weave it as summer & winter, using the overshot draft as a profile draft. 

I used "Overshot for Rugs" by Tom Knisley as a guide and inspiration. For his rug, he used 8/4 cotton, doubled, in a 12 dent reed. I don't have a 12 dent reed, so I sleyed 2 ends per dent in my 10 dent reed. 

I had a few sleying & threading snags along to the way which might explain why I completely forgot to weave the "twill" border to the bottom of the rug. I put twill in quotes because what would've been a 6 thread twill border, when woven in overshot, now becomes 24 threads woven in 6 blocks in a converted draft.

After weaving for a while, I also realized that I had omitted a 4 thread block. I cut the weaving, added 4 string heddles, re-threaded and resleyed. Not fun.

Here I am weaving the rug at the Mercer  Museum in Doylestown, PA as part of their Heritage Artisan Series.....

Thank you to everyone who stopped by. I had a great time and I am so grateful to the museum for this wonderful opportunity. 

My rigid heddle loom is also very happy. It hasn't seen much use since got my floor loom. I warped it so visitors could try their hand at weaving. 

This is the work of about 5 or 6 children. It was really cool to see them weaving and to see how much they liked it! I know the museum got some pictures of me with the kids and I'll post them soon. 

Back to the rug. Always one to try several patterns on one warp, rug #2 was woven with doubled 8/4 cotton in Spanish Blue with a dark heather grey rug wool for pattern weft. I inverted the treadling for the blocks, ie.: 2-1-1-2 becomes 1-2-2-1 and 4-3-3-4 becomes 3-4-4-3 and so on. 

I had a bit of warp left, so I made a sample with dukagang treadling; only using the odd numbered treadles for pattern. This would make a fabulous rug and I'll definitely do this one again. 

I hand knotted all the fringe and, voila!

I love love love this rug!!!! Here is the blue & grey (pay no attention to the treading error 😢)

Happy Weaving!

Converting Overshot Patterns To Summer & Winter

The I love to weave overshot and I also love summer & winter. I thought I'd combine the two. The John Landes collection of patterns by Mary Atwater, gives threading a for both overshot and summer & winter for most of the patterns. Those patterns were the inspiration for my latest experiment.

I decided to make a few wraps. I used "Periwinkle", a miniature overshot pattern by Josephine Estes, as my profile draft. It is a great little overshot pattern and it's fun to weave. Here is the threading...

To convert the design to summer and winter, you will thread each square in the overshot design as a 4 thread summer & winter block. For example, the twill border, threaded for overshot, would be 4,3,2,1. For summer & winter it would be 1,6,2,6; 1,5,2,5; 1,4,2,4; 1,3,2,3. Here is the draft....

I threaded 5/2 cotton in natural for the warp, sett 15epi. I used various colors of 5/2 as tabby weft and alpaca from Galler Yarns as pattern weft.

Here is the result....

The overshot version of Periwinkle as compared to the summer & winter version.

Same warp, but using a different treadling and color scheme; "winter" side

A view of the "summer" side 

I can not wait to get these wraps off the loom!!!! 

Happy Weaving!

The end of a 10/2 warp

Frankly, I never thought this would be a blog post of mine! I've used so many yards of 3/2 cotton that it has become my standard and I love it. That said, when the drafts for the Bertha Gray Hayes overshot workshop came out, I had some choices to make. I could thread 5/2 cotton at 16 epi or 10/2 cotton at 20 or 24 epi. Since I wove with 5/2 at 20 epi previously,and thought the results a bit stiff, I went with 10/2 with a sett of 20 epi. 

After the workshop was over, I still had quite a bit of my 7 yard warp left so I decided to weave a scarf. One of my favorite variations from the workshop was rose fashion, on opposites. In the picture below, it is the green section...

I liked the feel of the bamboo that I had used for the sampler so I used the same yarn but in a coppery color. 

I ran out of the copper color just shy of 60 inches. I had just enough warp left to try one final technique that Norma Smayda showed us. She called it Allenstand....

I didn't have multiple colors in the 10/2 so I used 5/2 for tabby & pattern which made the design a bit chunky, but I like it. 

I must say I'm sad to be done with the Trellis warp. Though I didn't like it much at all initially, it did grow on me. 

Here is the finished scarf.....

I'm very happy with it. The bamboo is shimmery and the off white compliments the copper perfectly. It has gorgeous drape and a fabulous feel❤️❤️❤️

Happy Weaving!

John Landes #2 in Linen

I've been wanting to weave this forever. 

I never really liked the way it looked drafted for overshot. I knew that I needed 6 shafts to do the design in Summer & Winter, they way I wanted; so I waited.

Fast forward to this past March & the addition of my 8 shaft Macomber to my little family of looms. Now, I could weave this. Well, not really. Adjusting to this loom has been more of a learning curve than I had thought. Again the pattern would wait. 

Fast forward again to a few weeks ago when I took the overshot workshop with Norma Smayda. One of the most important things I learned in those few precious days, was to not be scared of a fine warp. Bearing that in mind, I decided to go ahead with my long awaited project. 

I'll be using 16/2 Bockens linen for warp & tabby weft. As I'm still warping, I'm not sure if I'll use cotton or wool or maybe a heavier weight linen as pattern weft. Ah, the possibilities!!!

Here is my profile draft, and as I said, I'll be weaving summer & winter, so each square represents 4 threads. 

Warping using two coffee cans to hold the spools of linen.

467 ends ready to go!

Happy Weaving!

An Overshot Workshop With The Incomparable Norma Smayda!!!!

A fore note: this is a long post! I learned an insane amount in 3 days so please, bear with me 😉

5/11/16

Today is the start of my overshot workshop with Norma Smayda!!!! I'm nervous about a few things. 1st being, 10/2 cotton is the finest yarn I've ever worked with. I managed to get the loom sleyed & threaded and wove a few inches. I'm also having tension issues with string aprons. The Dorset loom that I borrowed for this workshop, as well as my 8 shaft Macomber, use string aprons. Another thing I'm nervous about is that I've never woven with anyone before. I wonder if self teaching will prove to be a help or a hindrance. Yikes!!!!!!

Lastly I'm worried about only having 4 treadles. This is going to be interesting!!!!!

After our monthly guild meeting, which yielded several beauties for show & tell,...

.....we were introduced to Norma Smayda. She gave us a fascinating presentation on Bertha Gray Hayes & then we dove right into weaving. 

I spent the 1st part of our workshop trying to understand how I've been wrong about overshot in Rose fashion. I was under the impression that if you inverted a star treadling that you would get rose fashion. Apparently you do not reverse the treadling but you switch shafts 1+2 for 2+3 and you switch shafts 3+4 for 4+1. Based on the drafts I made when I got home, if you invert the treadling, as I've been doing, and then you treadle with the shaft switching, you can get two different rose motifs in one piece. Pretty cool. Here are my results from day 1.....

5/12/16

Today was the 2nd day of the workshop. Norma Smayda is just wonderful!! She has SO much knowledge yet she gently guides you through your mistakes and misconceptions and encourages you to see, not only the beauty of a pattern, but the beauty that each individual weaver brings to that pattern. She is warm and funny and awesome!!!!!

Thankfully I didn't have any more issues with the warp tension on the Dorset loom.

Here are some of the samples Norma brought with her. They were all so stunning and all soooooo tiny. Most of them were done at a sett of 30 epi and completely out of my comfort range. I was very intimidated!

Today I wove Shifted Rose, On Opposites, Variation on Opposites (Windeknecht), Shadow Weave, Twill, Twill & Reverse on Opposites, Feather Stitch, Inlay and Polychrome. Whew!

5/13

One day 3 of the workshop I wove Sunburst, A Bronson Lace Variation, Honeycomb, Swivel  & Flame Point. Some of  these weaves were quite a challenge because I had to treadle 3 treadles with two feet. Following a new pattern and treadling like that for the 1st time was interesting to say the least. Throw in the challenge of 5 shuttles at once, and my head almost exploded 😉

I was so sad to see our workshop end. Norma Smayda is a weaving treasure!! She was warm & caring & funny and a walking encyclopedia of weaving & fiber. She opened my eyes to so many different things that I feel it would take a lifetime to master them. If you ever have the chance, you must go to her weaving school, Saunderstown Weaving School in Rhode Island. Thank You, Norma, you are the best!!!!!❤️❤️❤️❤️

I also can not say Thank You enough to the wonderful women & men of the Hand Weavers of Bucks County. They have been so warm and receptive. I feel so lucky to have found such a wonderfully creative group of people to learn from and share with. To have had my first actual weaving lesson from a person like Norma is something I am so grateful for. It is thanks to people like Sue and Elizabeth and Debbie and all the people in our weaving guild that I was afforded this opportunity so Thank You, Thank You Thank You!!!❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

When I got home, I began to apply what I learned to my current warp. This is Polychrome woven on an Orange Peel overshot threading.

Polychrome 

Shadow Weave

On Opposites

I'll post much more about the workshop & the different techniques I learned in the next few weeks. I can't wait to see what the other guild members do with this new found information. I'll bet next month's show & share will be amazing!!!!

Happy Weaving!

Patience, Grasshopper

So, this was a bit harder than I thought. I managed to thread the 8 shaft Macomber but then a few issues I'd noticed with the loom reared their heads. Firstly, the loom only came with 8 treadle hooks. The woman who had used it prior, used a skeleton tie up for 4 shafts, which only uses 8 hooks. Boy do I wish I'd asked her about more hooks, but I was just so excited I didn't realize until I got the loom home. The design I wanted to try needs 32. I decided to actually tie the treadles with twine. 

This was not fun.

Issue #2, is the fact that there are no cloth aprons. The front and rear bars are attached to the beams with nylon cord and as I try to wind the back beam, the cord doesn't roll onto it, but just slips and slides around. I figured out that if I wind the warp with sticks instead of paper, the cords don't slide. 

In the middle of writing this, I got a call back from Macomber. My loom was made in 1953. The woman was sooooooo nice and answered every one of my rookie questions :) These looms are so well made. I'm so happy with mine. I ordered treadle hooks & some heddles

A few days later than I had hoped, but I'm weaving on 8 shafts!!!!! My beat & tension need some work, but I LOVE it!!!!!!!!

Happy Weaving!

From Four to Eight Shafts

Well, I've done it. 8 months after getting my 1st floor loom; a 4 shaft 36" Leclerc Nilus, I am now the owner of an 8 shaft 40" Macomber loom. I think it dates from the late 50's or early 60's. It's in great shape for its age. I don't think it's been used in a few years, so it needed some TLC. Thank you very much to my husband who drove me 5 hours, round trip, to go pick up my loom. He thinks I'm crazy, but I think he's amused by my new obsession with "looming", as he calls it. According to him, I don't weave; I loom. 

The heddles are not in great shape. I sanded about 500 of them with super fine sandpaper to remove the rust. The rest I'll leave off to the sides for added weight. I'll get around to sanding the rest, but for now, I think 500 should do it ;)

I don't have a bench for this loom, which sits much higher than the LeClerc, so I'll be using one of my end tables temporarily. 

I struggled to decide what to weave 1st. I drafted twills, summer & winter and overshot.  I ended up going with an overshot draft, "Whig Rose on 8 Shafts" from Madelyn van der Hoogt. Her draft has two large center motifs and uses 361 ends of 10/2 cotton, 24 epi. I reduced the draft to one center motif and sleyed 218 ends of 3/2 cotton, 10 epi. 

Let's the threading commence!

Happy Weaving!

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!