IN PROCESS

My first krokbragd project, with most of my how-to notes, can be found here:

https://www.ravelry.com/projects/ZaldoGrace/lily-15-krokb...

The Art Inspiration WAL project that spawned this one by accident:

https://www.ravelry.com/projects/ZaldoGrace/lily-17x-art-...

SPECS

Estimated Yardage Requirements

Black, 252 yds.
Olive, 227 yds.
Pumpkin, 54 yds.
Gold, 81 yds.
Lt. Gold, 43 yds.

But then there is the added section of olive and gold 3” long.

Man, I’m sitting here listening to Jimmy Page, the Edge, and some kid named White rocking the daylights out of the rain song and thinking do I really want to count every last yard of yarn I weave, or do I want to get on with it? Do I want to spend my time keeping meticulous records, or do I want to weave?

I took a little more than 1 skein each of black and olive. Not quite 1 skein gold, and smaller amounts of yellow and orange.

WIDTH
24” in heddle. 20” off loom. 4/24” = 1/6 draw in.

I estimate that a 30” wide warp would yield a 25” wide rug on the floor loom.

WARP

Making do. Ran out of black 8/4 rug warp, so I finished the warp with flax.

WEFT

Making do here too, with yellow and mango stash for the brighter parts of the flowers.

Taking the hollyhocks from the original painting as inspiration and stylizing them for krokbragd.

DRAFT AND GRAPH

Krokbragd is a 4-end threading repeat on shafts 1-2-3-2.

There are thus twice as many ends on shaft 2 as on the other two shafts.

Shaft 2 goes In the holes on the front heddle.
Shaft 1 goes in every other hole on the back heddle.
Shaft 3 goes In the slots on both heddles.

I am lowering one shaft at a time.
Lift plan is lower shaft 1, lower shaft 2, lower shaft 3.
Repeat those three lifts in the same order throughout.

When the back heddle is down and the front heddle is in neutral, the ends on shaft 1 are lowered.

When the back heddle is in neutral and the front heddle is down, the ends on shaft 2 are lowered.

When both heddles are up, the ends on shaft 3 are lowered.

If you want to weave plain weave, put the back heddle in neutral, then lift or lower the front heddle.

WEAVING

Spread the warp.
Place 3-4” worth of warp separators to allow length to tie Damascus edge. Placed in the plain weave sheds.

2 shots of worsted weight wool (red here) in plain weave as a weft protector.

2 shots of 8/4 rug warp (flax here) in plain weave just to see what the Damascus edge looks like when tied against a contrast color in the weft. I can remove it if I don’t like it.

2 shots of worsted weight cotton weft (black here) in plain weave. And Ooops, I wove the ending edge with 8/4 black cotton rug warp in plain weave.

How to design and read the graph.
One design unit or repeat in Krokbragd is 1-2-3-2. The numbers are the shaft numbers.
So if you color in these four squares plus an additional shaft 1 column for balance, this is what will repeat horizontally across the entire warp as you weave.

Color in those squares to make your design. Color in one row at a time. Every square in column 1 will be the same color on a single row of the draft. Every square in column two will be the same color. The single square in column 3’will be the same color across a row of the graph.

Weaving the graph.
It takes 3 picks to make a row of Krokbragd.
It takes 2 or 3 rows of Krokbragd to weave one square of height on the design graph.

Semi-actual yarn usage

I love this cotton Weft
Black 4.61 oz
Olive 4.56 oz
Antique Gold 2.41 oz
Banana 1.58 oz
Mango 1.2 oz (est)

Plus about 3 oz 8/4 rug warp

01-24-2020

Started measuring the warp. Ran out of black. Finished with flax. Gotta think of a Plan B.

Decided to do a test run with I Love This Cotton.
Black, Olive, Gold, Tan. Need to create some pumpkin.

When I sleyed the back heddle, I put 1 loop in each slot and one just outside the plastic on each side for FS. Turns out this means I over-stuffed the back heddle, so my first attempt at threading the shaft one ends was wonky.

Bought the cotton weft yarn tonight while shopping with Cat.

I put the shaft 1 ends back in place in their slots. I’ll start fresh tomorrow.

01-25-2020

I sat with a pencil and paper as I should have done at the first to figure out how many ends I actually need to create as wide a warp as possible on the 24” heddle.
Removed the one extra repeat and threaded holes with S1.

Threaded the front rigid heddle. Lashed on with seine twine doubled.

During breaks from threading, I colored my design and figured out how many yards of each color I need.

Tom decided to spring himself from homebase tonight by pulling the screen out of the screen door, then jumping over the cardboard! Enough of this shilly-shallying around behind closed doors!

01-26-2020

I started weaving this afternoon. The cotton doesn’t pack in as well as the wool when using just the heddle, so I will have to beat it with a hair pick.

It feels good to be weaving Krokbragd again.
The 1-2-3 rhythm of the heddles is meditative.

Tom and Ollie are asleep on the loveseat in my weaving studio.

01-27-2020

Tossed the stash and found the closest thing I have to bright gold and orange I Love This Cotton.

Wove the first flower.

02-07-2020

I’m about halfway finished with the rug.

When I finished half of the design, it was only 10 1/2” long instead of 12”. So I had to design 3” to weave before reversing the direction of the chart. It will be an olive green background with the darker gold used on shaft 1 or shaft 3 to make dots.

I started weaving that extra 3” this morning.

I finished the 3” in two half-hour sessions.

02-09-2020

I started weaving the treadling graph backwards today.

02-12-2020

Got a shipping notice on the 8/4 cotton warp.
Wove for about an hour tonight and made it to the transition between 2 rows per square and 3 rows per square. Approaching the end of the rug.

02-14-2020

The additional black rug warp arrived today.

I used up all the mango-colored yarn, so I substituted yellow because there was a shuttle of it handy.

I finished the flowers and leaves on the second half of the rug this afternoon. Just a bit of stem left to weave, plus the black border.

Wove again tonight. Just two more graph rows to weave.

02-15-2020

I finished weaving the last two rows of the graph, wove plain weave in black and then flax 8/4 (2 plain-weave picks each color), then two picks of red wool weft protector for tying the Damascus edge knots. Then I inserted 4 mini-blind slats in alternating plain-weave sheds to reserve unwoven length for tying the Damascus edge.

Then before cutting this off the loom, I wove 1” plain weave with the cotton weft, placed 2 warping sticks in the plain weave sheds, then wove another 1”. This should allow me to tie the warp back onto the apron rod or back beam to continue weaving. This is just something I’ve been curious to try. I think I saw it on Peggy Osterkamp’s website.

My favorite part of weaving: cutting it off the loom for the Big Reveal!

The rug is woven! There is a lot of finishing work to do yet.

02-16-2020

What shall I do today? Maybe rest.

Yesterday was a long one, with 8 hours spent at a weaving class warping a loom, and then more weaving at night.

02-18-2020

Damascus edge is tied.

02-21-2020

Bought a previously-loved LeClerc tapestry beater and 6 used 22-24” stick shuttles so I can do stash-busting Krokbragd rugs, totes, cat mats, etc. Happy birthday to me!

02-22-2020

Trying to save the last of this warp for trivets.
I put the lease sticks into the plain weave sheds.
Counted out 61 ends for each smaller warp.
Because I had initially warped every slot, leaving extras, I have enough for three trivet warps.

I think I will cut off groups of 10 ends and tie an overhand knot close to the cut end. Then I should be able to lash them onto the warp rod when I’m ready to begin again. I think I’ll tie the cross first.

Well, I think I’ve made a royal mess of it, but it will be an interesting exercise in trying to get it back on the loom. I should have used a second warp rod. Also, the extra ends that had been thrown over the back of the loom did not get separated back into the cross.

02-23-2020

Started twisting fringe.

Twist 4 ends individually Z, 20x.
Twist 2 ends together S, 20x.
Twist these 2 together Z, by hand, 3x and tie the end.

02-27-2020

Still twisting fringe every day. I might finish tomorrow.

02-29-2020

Fringe is done! Now it needs a good steam press.

FINISHING

X Skips
X Side ends
X Damascus edge, tying ends
X Twist fringe.
X Steam press

X Empty the shuttles
X Put away yarns
X Put away tools

Update and file paperwork

X Tighten screws on loom, especially the heddle block.
Back tension knob keeps popping loose…why?
Wax the loom.

Empty the table and dust/wax it.

LEARNINGS

1) I’m getting much more draw in than I did with the wool krokbragd trivets because I can’t make a 45° angle with the weft. If I want a 24” wide cotton rug for the powder room, I’m going to have to make it on LOVE, the 36” floor loom. OR, learn how to bubble the weft.

2) If I’m going to make another rug in cotton, I need to sett the warp at about 6 epi, I think. Another vote in the “buy another reed for the floor loom” poll.

3) My arms got quite a workout beating the fell line with a hair pick. It took a lot of beating to cover that flax-colored warp with dark yarn. SOLUTION: I bought a used tapestry beater (LeClerc) at the fine line. It is nice and heavy, so I’m looking forward to trying it on another cotton rug.

4) I should have counted squares on the graph. The sections came out to roughly the same length. Would be a more interesting design if they were different lengths.

5) Also, I didn’t bother to try to figure out how long the entire graph would be when woven. So I had to design an additional center section on the fly. It only worked out well because I bought twice as much yarn as I needed for this project.

6) If I am really trying to not have stash yarn, I should have done more accurate calculations before buying yarn.

7) This combination of 8/4 warp and worsted-weight cotton weft would make terrific fabric for a tote bag. It is lightweight and flexible for Krokbragd fabric.

8) “I Love This Cotton” weaves beautifully as weft and remains exquisitely soft even when woven in this very compacted weave structure. I really do love it.

9) I need to update this when I see how the rug washes up. I intend for this to replace purchased washable rugs for my powder room.

UPDATE: This is a fine machine-washable rug. Some of the ends of the weft have come up to the right side of the rug. But besides that, no problems. 10/16/2023.

10) I was worried about how bad my selvedges were, but now that I’m not at eyeball level to them, they don’t look too bad. I don’t think I’ll cover them up.

11) I’m rethinking #1 above in geometric terms. The narrower the warp in comparison to the distance between the fell line of the cloth and the beater, the greater the weft angle can be. So as the warp gets wider, holding the other variables constant, the smaller the weft angle and the less extra yarn going into each pick. Hence greater draw-in for wider warps. This is why I need to learn how to bubble the weft when weaving wider Krokbragd pieces.

Next project on LILY

Make a Bronson weave table runner for Chloe and for the BF WAL.

Make Peacocks on my 3-shaft rosepath with Fresh Haven warp and Monticello weft.

Make sure my notes are complete.