weave4fun

  You can't easily know how happy this picture makes me. So I'll try to explain. First off, what's happening? Well, when I tied the new warp on to this loom the other month, the knotting machine found a few instances where the ends in the crosses for the old and new beam didn't match up. So, doing what I've seen done before, I broke them out, knowing I could always run some new ends in from cones.  Now though, I've managed to completely sort out the warp and managed to put every end in it's place. I checked each row of hooks individually and tied new warp ends in. Where possible, from threads hanging off the back, of which there were a few on the left hand side there. Also, on the right where the threads go up,  I ran 4 cones up, around the beam and into the heddles and reed.  When I finally finished, I realised I had 4 free ends on the left hand side, in exactly the right colours, so I took a stick with a hook on either end, ran them do

It's taken me a little while to get round to this. Finally though,  I have the space and,  in the form of the remains of a large pile if shafts we got shot of from work over the summer,  the materials. Lots of pieces of wood of uniform dimensions. Nice strong stuff too,  tasty. Also,  the drop saw makes short work of cutting the stuff down. I drew up some plans the other night,  and built the frame and Castle today. The castle has been built in such a way that I expect to be able to be able to swap different shedding systems in and out. The castle is probably a little tall just now,  but I thought better bigger than smaller. The first shedding mechanism I'll install will be counterbalance,  then maybe a countermarche and perhaps eventually a jack mechanism,  though I'll need a router to do that,  so it may have to wait for some time. Also,  there are lessons to be learned in the process.  Even in the building of the frame.  But certainly in the building of the sheddin

Here's that warp on the loom. I beamed it with sticks,  despite the fact I don't believe in them. Sadly,  my wee loom has a tottie wee warp beam,  about the thickness of a broom handle,  so it's really the only way. Still,  it works for short warps.  Heyho,  we have to work with what we've got.  The loom is currently beamed at 60 epi and sleyed at 112 epi.  I'll really it after the festival two samples at something like 80 epi,  which is a more natural sett for thus yarn.  I'm trying to make denim,  so am upping the epi in a bid to increase the density of the cloth.  I'm also going to try different samples with differing tension,  to see if I can increase the prominence of the warp floats. A part of me is wondering whether this is a useful exercise as I plan to weave a proper quantity on the big floor loom in the new year and the characteristics of the loom are very different.  For starters,  the shed us a good deal deeper,  which I'm sure has some ki

This arrived today from Devere Yarns. 1.5 Kilos of 2/20's combed cotton and 1.5 Kilos of 2/40's. Well packaged, each cone of 250g labelled properly and arrived in good time. This is my first warp in 2/40's cotton of 396 ends. I'm going to make samples with this to determine the correct sett I need to make reasonable denim. After that, a larger warp with 4 solid colours, trying different twill variations and wefts. In other news, I shall soon be getting my big counterbalance loom down from up north, now that I've got somewhere to put it. Then I can get some serious weaving done. It'll be awesome.

Something I did yesterday. The car is still in the workshop, but I expect it to be out soon. Then I can start properly making things. First in line is a couple of tapestry frames. After that I'll make a counterbalance rug loom on two shafts. But I'll make the castle big enough that it could fit 16, in preperation for the day when I get round to building a dobby box.   For now, there's this. I'll paint it and the backing up in contrasting colours and put it on the wall. I'll probably make more, but have to work on my knotwork design skills.

Well, we had a brief discussion the other week/month (time flies) about making tablet weaving accessories. So, last month I bought a scrollsaw and a pillar drill. And since then I have been getting a workshop space ready at a garage on a friend's farm. There's been a lot of work, and it still isn't quite ready yet. I'll have a lot more space when the car is out of the way. There's a long workbench for my woodworking tools and the desk where they're currently at will have a cheapo laptop and some of my 'leccy tools and projects, I also intend to build a very simple, but biggish, rug-weaving loom which I intend to have set up in such a way that I can fold it up against the wall when it's not in use if i need to. Thinking of maybe having the warp going up and over a rail at the top and weighted down, with the back beam of the loom sort of attached to rails on the wall. Difficult to describe, I have a picture in my head. Anyway, I moved my tools in toda

This is the kind of thing I get up to when I'm bored and the loom isn't cooperating. These are drawings for Tablet weaving card. From left to right, 6 3-sided cards arranged radially, one 6 sided card, which I haven't figured out the best way to arrange yet, and an array of 4-sided card. Also, a comb and a shuttle. Everything but the shuttle can be easily made in plastic by laser or waterjet cutting. The shuttle may be a little trickier as I would like the beating edge to have a gentle slope leading to a nice curved blade edge for good beating. The warp can be tied into the comb with string on top, I see no need to make a hinged attachment to go on top. I may make other shuttle shapes tonight, and rethink the comb. I am undecided about what material to get these things made in. I reckon the cards should be as thin as reasonably possible, 1mm acrylic perhaps. They will be breakable, but these things tend to be. In my experience the thinner a weaving card the

Found this video online. Just randomly. Check out the way she swaps the cards around, about 30 seconds into the video. Can't believe I never thought of that. Don't know what language this is. Also, I love those cards.

I felt that when I started working that my journey was pretty much done. But far from it, who was I kidding? Think I was being a bit daft. To be fair, the original purpose of the blog was to chronicle my getting-to and getting-through college, and that's done now. But it'd be silly to think it really ends there. A lot of good has been built up here, I've been coming to realise over the last year, in the friends I've made on the comment sections and the things I've learned from the other weavers, sometimes seeing other people taking on similar paths to my own. It's all good. So why waste it? I may work in education for the time being, but why should I limit myself to one job when there's so much more to do? I realised this truth recently when I got an email from youtube telling me that one of my videos,  Tablet Weaving Lesson 1 , had gained 10 000 views, which was frankly surprising. To be fair, it's the first video I put any serious effort into