Project COMPLETED!

Size on loom:
428 ends ends x 9 yds.
21.4” wide in reed.
Was planning to weave 9 towels @ 32” long each,
Leaving 9 x 4” =36” for loom waste.

18” wide finished after one hot wash with Synthrapol.

After hemming lengths:
Towel 1: 25 3/4”
Towel 2: 27”
Towel 3: 26 3/4”
Towel 4: 26”
Towel 5: 26 1/8”
Towel 6: 26 1/2”
Towel 7: 26 1/2”
Towel 8: 26 1/4”
Cloth at end of warp: 16 1/2”

Specs

GOSH! They’re a secret!

Hints:
9-yard warp.
428 ends wide. I eliminated 20 red ends from the selvedges on my preliminary design.

428 / 20epi = 21.4” wide
36 - 21.4 = 14.6
14.6 / 2 = 7.3” empty on each side of reed.

Warp colors:
W - wine
C - Cerise
R - Red

Wind:
24-16-28-16 (once). W-C-R-C. (84 ends)
20-16-28-16 (4 times). W-C-R-C. (80 x 4 = 320 ends)
24 (once). W

428 ends.

I will need to count carefully as I wind the warp, because my ends-per-inch groups contain more than 1 color this time. And this is a pain in the neck to someone as arithmetically challenged as I seem to be. Why do I do this to myself?

4S, straight draw threading.
Sley 2 ends per dent.
Convert 1 end each side to FS.

The Drafts

Weave 9 towels x 32” long.

(2/2 twill tie-up.)

1. Hopsack, Sapin green and natural weft. Anne Dixon, p. 35b.
2. Hopsack, Emeraud and Jaune Or weft, p. 35b.
3. 2/2 twill. Plaid weft. Ann Dixon, p. 29b, Z diagonal.

(Change tie-up to direct 1-2-3-4.)

1. 1/3 twill. Emeraude weft. Anne Dixon, p. 29c.
2. 1/3 twill, vertical point over 8 picks. Anne Dixon, p. 36b. Sapin Weft.
3. 2/2 twill, treadled 2 at a time. Quite the workout and fun! Random color changes, as I’m running out of the reds. Also fun and weaves up quickly.

Other ideas:
1/3 twill with plain weave (draft in photos.)
2/2 twill. Red weft. Anne Dixon, p. 32a, S diagonal; p. 29b, Z diagonal; p. 34a, horizontal herringbone.

12-11-2019

First two bouts are on the lease sticks.

And a third bout is wound and tied.

12-14-2019

The warp is wound, perched on the warp rod and lease sticks, and spread in the raddle. One step closer to throwing the shuttle.

01-01-2020

Christmas intervened. I haven’t done anything on this loom for over two weeks.

Well, today I got the 9-yard beast beamed. We shall see what tension horrors await me when I start to weave. LOL!

I was using nylon cord to hold my lease sticks, and the knots kept coming undone. Made me nuts.

I think I need to get myself a tension device and raddle for this loom asap. Or use Deborah Chandler’s hybrid warping method, using the reed in place of the raddle. That would solve the twist problem I’m having with the brassard 8/2 cotton.

I think my next warp will be 5 yards long. Warping went smoothly to that point. 6 yards might be doable.

And no more chaining the warp. That introduces twist that I have to manage later. I’ll have to find a box or some containers to hold the warp bouts. (I discovered that half gallon canning jars work well for this purpose with 8/2 towel warps.)

01-05-2020

Threaded heddles over 4 days, because of helping a friend move.

Straight draw, from right to left, 4-3-2-1, sitting in front. Sat on the padded footstool. Didn’t feel the need to lift the shafts this time.

The warp on the beam is not centered on the loom. I may have to rebeam all this warp.
But first, I’ve got to figure out why.

1-09-2020

Measure and mark the reed. Sley it 2 per dent.

1-11-2020

Tie onto the front apron rod.

Measure and mark a piece of ribbon to measure length of each towel.

Check tie up, threading, and treadling for Hopsack.

1-11-2020

Towel 1: Hopsack. Anne Dixon, p. 35b.
2/2 twill tie-up. Lifting 1&2, 3&4. Two shots of one color lifting 1&2 alternated with two shots of another color lifting 3&4.

Raising the shafts made a huge difference in the size of the shed.

This pattern requires a very light beat. It’s just a tap, really. I’m pulling the beater forward with just my thumb and middle finger at the center mark. When I pull with the whole hand, the beat is too variable.

I’m throwing the shuttle over the FS as it enters the shed, and it automatically goes under the FS on the way out.

I need to find the center of the reed and paint it white or something. The warp is about 1/2” off center. Why? I measured and marked the reed carefully, but it doesn’t line up with the metal pieces in the center of the shafts. So frustrating.

Other than that, the warp tension is great so far. Not bad for my first 9-yard warp.

I think I’ll get some narrow tape and mark the centers and project width on everything horizontal next time.

1-12-20

Towel 2: Hopsack. Anne Dixon, p. 35b.
Same as towel 1. I wove this one with Emeraude and Jaune Or.

I love seeing the interactions of the weft colors with the warp.

Towel 3: 2/2 twill, Z diagonal. Striped weft. Anne Dixon, p. 29b.

Weaving the plaid version and testing out different numbers of picks per color. I got halfway done, and one of the leather harness cables broke. Silver lining: I got to finish the stripe I was weaving when it broke on the last pick..

So I ordered 4 new cables and a crank handle from Harrisville. I just hope I don’t have to remove the warp to replace the cables. (It turns out they can be replaced with a warp on the loom. HD’s assembly manual is very well-written.)

1-16-2020

The harness cables came already! I only replaced the one on harness 4. I’m back in business.

1-17-2020

Finished weaving the third towel. The plaid will definitely look like an experiment.

After I finished the towel, I changed out one more harness cable.

Towel 4. 1/3 twill. Emeraud weft. Anne Dixon, p. 29c.

(Change tie-up to direct 1-2-3-4.)

Two beats on the left, then two beats on the right.
I don’t know why, but I’m not a fan of treadling left to right. It doesn’t seem to have the right rhythm to me.
I’d rather walk the treadles. But I did get more or less used to it by the end of the towel.

I like this tie-up, though, because the treadling is light and easy.

This looks like a 2/2 twill at first glance, but the front and back are obviously different colors, revealing the fact that it is an unbalanced twill.

The Emeraude weft is gorgeous on a multi-colored warp.

1-18-2020

Towel 5. 1/3 twill, vertical point over 8 picks. Anne Dixon, p. 36b.
Sapin green weft. Lifts are 1-2-3-4-1-4-3-2.

1-22-2020

Towel 5 complete.

Towel 6. AD.*

The treadling as I wrote it down:
4&1, 3&4, 2&3, 1&2, 3, 4, 2, 1.

I think I wrote it down wrong, but it makes a nice-looking pattern.

Oh, yeah. It should have been:
4&1, 3&4, 2&3, 1&2, 3, 4, 1, 2

1-23-2020

Towel 6 complete. This one was fun. I used three reds, two greens and two golds and wove a randomly Fibonacci-like pattern, choosing the number of repeats from this short sequence: 1-1-2-3-5-8.

With 6 32” towels complete, the cloth beam is starting to touch Shaft 1. So I’m going to cut these off the loom before weaving again.

I guess this means that a 7-yard warp is the max for this loom. (6 towels x 32” = 192” woven. 6.33 yds. Plus take-up and loom waste.).

Or I can just cut off the cloth when it gets close to the beam. The warp beam can accommodate much more length than can be woven. Plus, a sectional beam is available for this loom. I wonder why.

1-24-2020

I cut the first 6 towels off the loom the morning.

03-03-2020

Lashed onto the warp rod this afternoon. The warp tension seems much more even since I did this.

03-04-2020

Towel 7: BROKEN TWILL
2/2 broken twill woven with black weft. 1-2-4-3.

Towel 8: Broken twill with twill accent on both ends. Black weft. 4-3-1-2.

I lurve the broken twill fabric. It has so much drape.

NAPKIN at end of the warp: CORD WEAVE - Reversible. Davison, p. 4, VI.
Lifts: 4&1, 1&3, 4&1, 2&4.

If I were going to do a lot of this, I’d set it up to walk it on 4 treadles, tieing up 4&1 twice.

03-13-2020

Hemmed the napkin. It’s ready to wash.

03-17-2020

Washed the whole batch in hot water with Synthrapol. Dried on hot.

03-18-2020

One of the two broken twill towels hemmed tonight.

09-14-2020

One towel hemmed.

09-16-2020

The last towel is hemmed.
Need to photograph.

LEARNINGS

1. Turns out I really like weaving ad lib with color on a simple textured warp. So much fun! I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, since I love weaving Krokbragd.

2. Cayenne looks amazing in warp cord on these reds. I’d love to try weaving this with a gradient weft.

3. I think Cord Weave would be a nice weave for scarves in larger yarns. It makes a very drapy fabric, and probably could be sett closer if desired.

4. Having looked at all of the towels from this warp, the only ones that are skewed are the ones that were treadled straight draw. Treadling basketweave (hopsack), broken twill, point twill, or any pattern that alternates directions will keep the fabric straight.

Other treadling Ideas

Trying to decide what colors to weave for the last two towels. I’m running very low on reds but don’t want to reorder yet.

HOPSACK?
Looking at hopsack again. Maybe alternate Sapin-emerald-Sapin-natural. Or just Sapin and emerald.

HORIZONTAL HERRINGBONE STRIPES or SOLID?
Or, because I really enjoy weaving it, maybe horizontal herringbone, with 1” stripes in the greens plus black and natural with an occasional red stripe.

Next actions

1-23: With so little left to weave on this warp, I need to do the following:

X Get a warp on the ARHL. 1/25.

X Wind a warp for Louie the Voyageur. (The 4-yd orange herringbone warp.)

X Wind the next warp for LOVE Linen Weave (Davison) table runners.

Tune up

X Replace the harness cables

Replace the adjustment chains with longer ones.
I still need to find some.

.
X I need to find the center of the reed and paint it white or something. The warp is about 1/2” off center. Why? (A: The center of the reed was not lined up with the hooks on the heddle frames. I put center marks on the front and back beams.)

Replace ribbons with texsolv

X Replace lease stick ties with seine twine.

Find a 5-yard roll of 39” kraft paper or see if I have any more watercolor paper.

Make tshirt yarn and measure its wpi.

X Buy a reed the appropriate size to use the tshirt yarn for rag or krokbragd rugs. I’m thinking a 6 dpi reed. Seine twine might work for warp.