Star Warps

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...

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...

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 ...