Star Warps

A friend recently asked me if I could take a video of myself weaving. Since the Lunatic Fringe 10/2 cotton 27 color gamp is finally up and running, I took the time to record myself making a pattern repeat for her. I explain a few of the things I'm doing so she could understand. Since the point of the blog is to remember what I've learned, I thought it might be a good idea to post it here. Enjoy!

I got cocky. The last project went so well I thought I remembered what I did. I did not. And this warp is substantially longer and wider than that of the last project, so... There were two pitfalls that caused this to be painful. One was an actual pitfall, the other was just imagined and then taken seriously. It's safe to say, however, that I've learned a lot from this warp. The real pitfall is that I put the counting thread on the end of the warp without the cross. While the counting thread helped me count how many ends were in a color (with mostly success - two colors ended up having too many ends and one color was missing an end) the actual purposes of the counting thread is really to figure out how many ends are in an inch so the warp can be spread out appropriately. I know this. But I was worried about being able to keep track of both numbers at the same time so instead of counting inches I counted ends in each color. That might have worked out if each color was an ...

NAME: Spiral Houndstooth Cowl DATES: 4/23/2022 to 1/2/2023 YARNS USED: Harrisville Shetland in Black and Delphinium PATTERN: #59 SOURCE: A Handweaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns LENGTH OF WARP: 120" WIDTH OF WARP: 15" SETT (ENDS PER INCH): 8 EPI DIMENSIONS BEFORE WASHING: 14" x 79" DIMENSIONS AFTER WASHING: 12" x 70" % SHRINKAGE: 11% LENGTH OF WASTE WARP: ~16" GOAL OF PROJECT: a balanced fabric 10 1/2" x 68" for a cowl WAS GOAL MET? absolutely! DISCOVERIES: Firstly, I'm super proud of this one. I absolutely hated weaving it, though. I'm used to knitting and I'd compare the process of weaving this to knitting alpaca yarn on metal needles. It can be done, but it feels kind of slimy. While on the loom the pattern wasn't really that visible. It looked like a simple checked pattern. It really only became visible after the fabric was blocked (I guess in weaving terms this is wet finished). I made a sample so I...

I don't watch a lot of TV. Name a show and there's an 85% chance I haven't seen it. I don't really watch a lot of movies either. If someone puts something on, I'll watch it, but I just don't think to put the TV on, for the most part. most things on the TV are for backgrond noise to drown out my tinnitus. There's an exception. Sports. I love watching sports. Baseball (go BOSOX!), football (go PATS!), tennis, basketball (mostly NCAA - I love my URI Rams), skiing, snowboarding, kabaddi, marble racing, bowling, axe throwing, you name it, I'll watch it. While I'm sure there are sports my grandma woudln't watch, she was always crafting while watching sports. When she lived in Cape Cod her craft room had an old TV. Her two floor looms were set up to face the TV so she could watch the Red Sox or the tennis matches while she wove. When my cousin and I were there we'd change it to The Real World or Road Rules, but I'm pretty sure that was mos...

The above image is of the sample for my next project. I'd woven with this yarn as a warp at 10 EPI for a sampler last year during the MAFA Weaving 101 workshop. While great to learn with, the resulting fabric felt a little to stiff for a cowl I was planning so I thought i'd try to see what this draft (#59 from A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns ) would look and feel like at 8 EPI instead. Y'all, it's gross to weave. I hate it. I need to beat it so softly that it feels super unnatural to me. I was convinced while on the loom that I would need to change the sett to 10 EPI after I blocked it. But then I blocked it. And it's just about exactly what I wanted in a fabric. It has drape and you can see the pattern! I'm a little annoyed it worked out this way because it does feel so gross to weave, but I'm hoping I'm as much of a product weaver as I am a product knitter . ONWARDS!

Rey's front beam apron strings were different lengths. Some of the apron strings were knotted and some weren't. Some had broken at some point while others were still in tact. This wasn't just annoying to me because the apron rod wasn't even. It was making the warp different lengths at different areas which was making the tension different in different parts of the warp I started by taking out all the original staples holding the previous apron strings in place. While the warp beam doesn’t turn unless the friction brake is engaged, the front beam turns in one direction all the time, which made it tricky. Once I got all the existing staples out, I was able to string the waxed string from the front beam to the screws and back, pound the new staple in on top of the string, knot the string, and go back to the screw. Then I used a snitch knot to tie the strings to the apron rod. The apron strings were different lengths making the tension different in different parts of ...