This is a project to use up some of my stash. The warp is bamboo (left over from the baby blanket) and the weft will be alpaca and camel mixes! I’m taking on a plain weave. This was challenge enough!
I have threaded the heddles…it took a moment of consideration. I am so rusty! But it’s becoming smoother and smoother. Next is sleying the reed. I’ll update. This feels good!
I am still dressing the loom with the dishtowel warp! I had to rethread the heddles upon making a rather large error. I’m now rechecking the threading, found one error. So it serves to recheck!
Next will be winding the warp. I’m a little nervous about this. These cotton ends are so tangly! But I’ll beam inch by inch if I have to.
I don’t think I’ll be weaving for another couple of weeks. I will take a picture when it is ready for that.
But it has felt good to put the mind to the task as it were.
I have successfully sleyed the reed and just finished threading the heddles in my front to back warping! It is fun. Only one rocky moment when sleying: I dropped the cross so I am sure all those ends are helter skelter.
Next is tying onto the back beam and then beaming. I’ll take a picture at that point.
I got sliding hook flyer and bobbins for my Ashford. There was a moment when I thought I would have to return it when I couldn’t get the whorl off! But unlike my other flyer where you screw the whorl off, with this one, you pull it off! Then I thought it was missing a set of hooks to help hold the fiber against the flyer but I found them. Installed and I am spinning away on some romney hogget and silk (97%/3%).
I had received two gift cards for Christmas so I went to A Loom with a View and bought this book:
It is gorgeous and I love how it is written.
Because of some electrical work, I didn’t have power for a couple of hours yesterday so could not work. I threaded instead! It was very fruitful, mostly because I caught a huge error and was able to fix before too much had been threaded. I am more than 75% done at this point. The power came back on and I had to go back to work.
But I did reflect on weaving in times of old, before electricity. I am sure there were candles or firelight or gas lamps. Or perhaps weaving happened just in the light of day. A nice couple of hours.
This is a more complex pattern than I thought. It is a huckaback variation so I have a lot of different threadings going on along with the three different colors of the warp. Plus the fiber is a little slippery and thin. I am only doing a few bouts at a time. But I am also double checking as I go along. The last few projects have had to be halted and unweaving to correct the error. I am determined that this won’t happen this time!
Centerweave 