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...

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 ...

Has anyone played the video game Worms? You're a team of worms and try to force another team of worms off an island with a bunch of ridiculous weapons like homing missles (that look like houses) and holy hand grenades (I can't remember if they count up to 3 or 5). When you're playing there is sometimes a crate that drops from the top of the screen with something helpful. Somewhere, a worm yells "reinforcements!" excitedly with a high pitched (think of a record moving too quickly) scottish accent. That's how I've been thinking of this adorable box of yarn from The Woolery . It's been a while since I've been this excited to start a new project! The adorable box is holding the rest of the yarn for the warp for the placemats. I've been incredibly busy at work, but things are about to settle down a bit and I think the warp might be on the loom by the end of the weekend. I started looking closer at the raddle and it seems some pegs are missing so ...

DO YOU WANT TO SEE A TOTAL WARPING FAILURE? If you said "Warp, yeah!" read on! To continue learning about weaving I decided to make a scarf on a table loom at my parents'. I measured out an 8 yard warp of 140 ends figuring a sett of 10 epi with this unknown dusty pink wool from Grandma's stash. Things were going well. Then I took the warp off the warping board, adn things started to go not well. While I had tied knots around every 10 warps, the ties seemed a little too far away from the end of the warp to keep them together. I also realized, once I put the warp on an apron rod, that I had no idea which warp ends were the edge of the warp. I did my best, and then thought I'd try to beam teh warp (this process of warping is new to me. The last time I warped front to back, not back to front, so I didn't realize that I had to keep all the ends in sequential order at the end of the warp as well as on the cross). When I started beaming, I realized that t...

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 ...