A Few More Rugs

Ok, so now that I'm off pillows, for a very long time, rugs seem to be my favorite "mode of medium" at the moment 😉

I had previously woven a rug that I called the "Heavenly Handwoven Rug". It has been at the top of my Etsy site from day 1. Revisiting the rug this many months later, I felt the design needed to be augmented a bit. 

Where I used 2 ends of 8/4 rug warp per dent in a 5 dent reed before, I decided to sley 2 ends per dent in a 10 dent reed. I then realized that I didn't have enough 8/4 in natural. I did, however, have a massive cone of 8/2 in natural. I wound two threads together and treated them as 1 end. I hope it will add texture to the fringe as well as the rug itself.

When I last wove this rug it was weft faced with no warp showing and was woven in plain weave. I'm trying to make this warp multi-purpose. I'd like to make 2 of the weft faced puffy rugs and one rug, all in cotton, woven as overshot. To accomplish this, I am threading my 4 shaft loom in a design called "Tile" by Josephine Estes. 

I tried overshot with the fuzzy yarn & it wasn't working so I just wove plain weave. I love it!

Light as a cloud!!!!

For the next rug I used grey rug wool & 16/8 mop cotton to weave the overshot. I think it's looking pretty good. 

I've got 1 more rug to finish before vacation. Looks like I'll have a lot of fringe knotting & twisting in my future 😀

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!

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!

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!

Deviating From The Pattern

I've been wanting to try the Fulled Wool Scarf project from Weaving Today for a while now and just never got around to it. The pattern is by Madelyn van der Hoogt.

I didn't have enough wool for warp, so I warped with 3/2 pearl cotton at 10 epi. Here is the initial sampling using various wefts...

I ended up using 3/2 cotton in a silvery grey as weft. 

For the next scarf, I changed the tie up and treadling and got a herringbone type pattern. I used linen for weft.  The pattern was a bit squished so I added a tabby pick after each pattern pick.....

Using the tabby really makes the design pop and gives it an almost 3D look. 

I can't wait to see this one after wet finishing 😀

Happy Weaving!

Summer & Winter Weave On 4 Shafts

I've been wanting to try summer & winter weaving for a while now. I started drafting patterns in early January. When the last warp was finally finished, I wound another 11 yard warp, this time in 5/2 pearl cotton. I used a sett of 15. For overshot, using 3/2 as warp, I used a sett of 10. The recommended sett is 12-18. I figured that for summer & winter, since it's also a tied weave with a thick pattern weft, I should do the same with the 5/2. It's recommended sett is 18-24 so I used 15. Next time I might open it up even more to 13 or 14. 

Once threaded and tied on, I decided to sample each treadling available when using 4 shafts. I have included the treadling sequence in brackets below as blocks A & B. Tabby, shafts 5 & 6, is used alternately with every pattern pick. 

From top to bottom, 

1. Dukagang (A 1111/2222  B 3333/4444)

2. Brick (A 1212, B 3434

3. O's (A 1221, B 3443

4. X's ( A 2112, B 4334) 

I went with X's (which gives you O's on the other side) and used Brown Sheep Fingering wool in a gorgeous teal for pattern weft. 

I LOVE it!!!!! 

 

When I finish this scarf I'm going to do one in Kauni yarn but I haven't decided which color. I'm going to use the brick method for more crisp lines. I can't wait to see what it will look like!

Happy Weaving!