Star Warps

NAME: Lunatic Fringe 10/2 cotton 27 color gamp DATES: 1/15/2023 to 6/26/2023 SOUNDTRACK: 90s Alternative and Stevie Nicks YARNS USED: Lunatic Fringe 10/2 cotton PATTERN: Lunatic Fringe 10/2 cottong 27 color gamp shawl SOURCE: Lunatic Fringe Yarns LENGTH OF WARP: 5 yards WIDTH OF WARP: 36" SETT (ENDS PER INCH): 24 epi DIMENSIONS BEFORE WASHING: 33" x 51.5" DIMENSIONS AFTER WASHING: 30.5" x 44.5" % SHRINKAGE: 8% LENGTH OF WASTE WARP: 24" GOAL OF PROJECT: a rainbow shawl WAS GOAL MET? not really... DISCOVERIES: Well, I wrote a lot about the warping process last time, so I'll skip that part now. The result of this gorgeous warp is a delightful fabric. There were a lot more lessons learned from the rest of this project aside from the warp. I was confused as to why there was so much warp left over after I finshed mirroring the color stripes for the shawl. I realized only after I'd cut it off the loom that I wove the mirrored stripes u...

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 ...

NAME: Zig Zag Placemats DATES: 4/6/2021 - 6/8/2021 YARNS USED: Maurice Brassard 8/4 cotton in Gris Fonce and Natural PATTERN: This zig-zag 8 shaft pattern (I only used one color, obviously). Once I realized the woen fabric wouldn't be wide enough for a dinner plate I put a fabric border around it with my mother's sewing machine. SOURCE: my brain LENGTH OF WARP: 5 yards WIDTH OF WARP: 24" SETT (ENDS PER INCH): 15 DIMENSIONS BEFORE WASHING: I did not measure them, really... DIMENSIONS AFTER WASHING: 11 3/4 x 18 3/4" each placemat % SHRINKAGE: sigh. LENGTH OF WASTE WARP: I didn't measure this either... GOAL OF PROJECT: placemats for my SIL's birthday + a bit of learning WAS GOAL MET? sure... DISCOVERIES: Take the step block out before weaving! Beaming the warp should probably be done slower tahn I did it. I got some great tips on this in the MAFA Weaving 101 class I took. The beacming affected a lot later on. The selvedges of the warp wer...

I hate knitting gauge swatches, but I always knit one because I've been burned making sweaters and shirts that don't fit. My favorite "ugh" was a beautiful black shirt I had knit out of some bamboo silk yarn. I got gauge, but I probably didn't wash the swatch the same way I'd wash the final garment. I had a great time knitting it, and the day after I finished I wore it to work. The hem in the morning was at my waist. The hem at the end of the day was closer to my knees. Since then, I've always washed the swatch the same way I want to wash the finished garment. So why, then, did I decide to wash the swatch for the placemats by hand and air dry instead of tossing it in the machine like I knew the placemats would be laundered? Even my gut was telling me that I was rushing and I should have stuck them in a machine. I don't have a washing machine in Brooklyn, so I washed the sample by hand. HUGE MISTAKE! I was intending to hem these, but if I do, they...

As I was weaving, I found the my post-it note I was using to keep my place in the pattern wasn't sticking too long. So I got an iPad mount for Rey so I could see where I was at all times. It clamps to the castle and holds the iPad really securely as well. I have an app I use for kniting called Goodreader that allows me to draw a line on a pattern, especially a lace or cabled pattern so I can keep track of where I am in the knitting pattern. I turned the image of the zig zags into a pdf and brought it into the app to do the same. I can also make notes on a pdf in this app, so I'm able to keep track of how many repeats of the pattern I've done so I can make sure the placemats are all the same length. (please excuse the mess, since we haven't had any guests due to COVID this bed has become a bit of a weaving catch all) Most of the rest of the weaving of the placemats went rather smoothly once I'd internalized the repeats of the pattern. I didn't think I'd hav...

Since the last project I wove on Rey I warped the loom from front to back, and because I really liked using the raddle to spread out the warp on the table loom I warped in February, I thought I'd try warping Rey from back to front. I finally got all the yarn and measured the warps on April 8th and started to spread out the warp. I think the next time I do it this way I need to keep a cross in the back as well as the front. I'm not sure how, but it feels like things are tangled despite the fact that I was really careful when putting the yarn on the back apron rod. The fear of crossing threads made warping the loom take much longer than I think it should have. The entire time I was worried about warps crossing. Then I was also worried that I'd thread the heddles and/or cross warps in the reed. I did end up missing a heddle and needing to go back to fix it. It's confusing to me because I had counted the warps so many times! And I was even more worried that it wouldn...

Well, it's done. It's not done perfectly, but it is done. The apron strings on the warp beam have been replaced. The length of the apron strings used about 36" and now they're closer to 26". I'm hoping that won't cuase an issue lter. The back apron rod can still meet the castle in case that would be the issue. It took me a bit to realize what I had to do. I started by hammering in the staples with knots in and actually just about broke an apron string at the staple location by doing so. I tried to fix it by doubling up the waxed yarn at that staple, then I started knotting the waxed yarn after the staple was all the way in (which was honestly a lot quicker). The next step here is to replace the front apron strings, but I need to find more staples. Stan found some for a staple gun, but the ones that Macomber sent me were substantially thicker, which I think helped me use similar holes from the ones that were used originally, seemingly regular staples ...

NAME: First Sampler Ever DATES: 11/1/2020 - 1/18/2021 YARNS USED: No idea! Both yarns were unlabelled from Grandma's stash when I got the loom. It feels like the beige is wool and I think there's at least a little linen in the green one. PATTERN: 3" tabby balanced, 3" tabby for weft (with a hard beat), 3" tabby for warp (with a light beat), 3" 2x2 twill balanced, 3" 2x2 twill for weft (with a hard beat), 3" 2x2 twill for warp (with a light beat). The rest I just played around with. SOURCE: Learning to Weave LENGTH OF WARP: 2 yards WIDTH OF WARP: 10" SETT (ENDS PER INCH): 12 DIMENSIONS AFTER WASHING: 8 1/2" x 42 1/2" LENGTH OF WASTE WARP: 19 1/2" - 21" GOAL OF PROJECT: learn all of the things WAS GOAL MET? oh yes... DISCOVERIES: I met the step block I learned more or less how the loom worked I learned why it's important for the tension to be around the same for all ends I learned how to dress a...

There seem to be a few things specific to my loom that Learning to Weave doesn't cover. This is likely going to lead to another, probably more helpful post on the anatomy of my Macomber B5. More to the point, I think it might be more searchable for folks like me looking for an explanation of what tehse parts are without knowing what they're called. But here are the things I leraned this week: 1. My warp beam wasn't turning. I found a handle for it so I could try to turn it, which helped a bit, but what really helped was the Ravlery Macomber Looms group. I learned that the loom has a friction brake (I have really only known of ratchet brakes, so this was new to me!). Here's what that looks like: When the friction brake is on, it's difficult to turn the warp beam. I can press on teh brake while weaving from the front of the loom, but while warping that's difficult since I'll be at the back of the loom. This lead me to lesson nubmer 2... 2. A step block ...

I guess an introduction is needed, isn't it? I'm Jenn. I'm PassionKNITly on Ravelry, though I'm not a fan of their recent intolerance towards differently abled people. I'd like to move away from Ravelry adn facebook, which is one of the reasons why I'm starting a blog again, in 2020, so I can have more control over my content (yes, I recognize that Blogger is owned by Google. Google already probably reads all of my emails, I can only do so much to be in the world and social). The other reason I started this blog is that I'm finding it hard to find the resources that aren't, well, stodgy. I like to think I have a modern aesthetic (not like minimalist, everything is white modern - I like color!) and maybe this is just a product of the resources my grandmotehr gave me, but most of the resources I'm finding on weaving have an early 90s vibe to them. The books I have are great, don't get me wrong, but I was hoping tehre'd be an online space for...

In February of this year my grandmother moved into assisted living. My grandfather died in the living room in November and she had a hard time being in the space after that, which is completely understandable. This proved to be an amazing decision as COVID would have made things quite difficult for her to remain in her home by herself. This meant moving from an, albeit small, house to a room. Of course, there's no room in her new studio apartment for a MaComber floor loom. I'm the crafty one in the family, and when the right of first refusal came to me, while I had no idea if it would fit in my Brooklyn apartment, I just had to agree to take it. There are so many memories in this loom of crafting with grandma in the basement of her house in Cape Cod when I was a kid. The loom was valuable not only because of it's value as a floor loom, but it also held all these memories in it and I just couldn't let it go. So after much preparing and measuring of our guest room, mo...