weave4fun

Not much else to say. Sometimes you run out of heddles, or perhaps you have to add one after you're started warping due to a threading error, so here's how I do it.

So, today I present a wee photo essay on picking up and placing the cross in multi-end stake warping. When you first see this done it looks like magic and if you're like me and you started making warps one end at a time you'll be delighted by how much time you save here. The first thing you need is a spool holder with an upper and lower section and an eyelet above each spool stand. You place your first end in the top and your second in the bottom, and so on, for each section of your repeat. If you have a lot of spools and a simple warp you can warp with as many spools as your stand can hold. We have an ex-industrial stake warping rig here at college that has about 100 pegs on it, but there's not often much call to use it as we designers don't tend to work in monotones. Anyway, all this is is an explanation of picking up and placing the cross. I forgot to take pictures of the actual spool stand, I'll do that tomorrow Firstly, get your hand betwee...

Before I start with the main body of this post, I thought I'd share this. Don't you just hate the way selvedge threads are always breaking because you don't use a temple because they leave nasty holes in the cloth, are a pain to move and anyway, whatever? This obviously doesn't apply to those blessed by the rolling temple, you lucky people you. Anyway, check it out. It's an elastane yarn that's been twisted with 2 plys of worsted, to make a 2/48Nm yarn with a composition of 97/3 worsted/elastane. The worsted has been competely worn away by the reed, yet the elastane filament holds out. Cool huh? Now check out these awkward guys here. The way this cloth is constructed is that there are 4 main blocks. The black is woven on the first 4 shafts, to make a 2/2 twill, and the colours are woven on 3 seperate 6 shaft blocks. the whites are on 5-10, the lights on 11-16 and the darks on 17-22. The back two shafts have some spare heddles for in case I fe...

This is how I always try to sley the reed. You can't do it this way on a table loom usually as that's the way they're built, but I expect there's always a way to work this way on any floor loom. Firstly, I've removed the beater and breast beam from this loom in order to thread the heddles. Once the heddles are threaded, I hang the reed in front of the shafts. This reed is 41" wide (I had to cut it down to fit, but that's ok, cos this is the widest of the beaters we have) and my warp is set 40" wide, so I just start, like, a dent or two in from the side, do all the difference it makes. The reed, as you can see, is hanging perpendicular to the shafts (at right angles, if i'm using the right word, i think i am) in order that I can easily get in-about the heddles for to pull out the required number of ends for each dent. Also, not hung so low that my heddling hook has difficulty getting up there. In this instance, I was threading up a pretty c...

I feel like I should do a funny dance. Anyway, it occurred to me that the method of stake warping that is traditionally popular in industry and the college here in Scotland is far from universal, though I think it's probably the best and simplest. I hear lots of talks in various lists and forums about warping up one or two threads at a time, or warping up without having a 1/1 cross throughout, or warping up using a paddle with holes drilled through it and all sorts of odd stuff like that. We don't do any of that. We use a 1/1 cross all the way through the warp as otherwise we feel there's no way of making sure that every thread is exactly where it's supposed to be. And we don't use paddles or anything like that, and we can warp up with as many threads as the yarn stand can take. So, we have the yarn coming from the yarn stand on two levels. Every even end goes on the bottom and every odd end goes on top. You make the cross to go onto the cross sticks by pic...

Yes, definitely worth the effort.

This is the first post in a series, in which I'll be illustrating my design process, now that I'm taking it properly seriously. As I can't the now find the images to illustrate my inspiration source, the first list shall instead show you some collaging. I have made 3 books of collage for this semester, 50 tpages each. The first two are explorations of colour and basic proportion, and in the third book I take my favourite colour combinations and experiment more with placement and angle, sometimes creating a subtle effect, sometimes a lively and even violent one. in the next post I shall illustrate what I have been doing to attempt to get a feel for illustrating fold and (the all important) drapes in my sketchbook.

To thread a 1440 end warp. 440 heddles I had to make myself, and they're a little too tight so don't move very easily. That's 3 whole days. Not counting the half day it took to build and wind the warp. I swear I'm getting slower, It only took me two days to do the last warp. To be fair, it only had 576 ends, but still. I had to resley almost the entire reed. Twice. Once when it was still attached to the shafts, and then again while I was halfway through tieing on. a 48" warp at 30 epi in a ten dent reed. Next time I make this cloth I'll just up the epi to 32 and sleigh it in an 8 dent reed instead, probably save me a lot of hassle. Nevertheless, this still promises to be the best cloth so far. I've used this yarn a lot before and I know exactly what I'll be getting in terms of drape and handle. It's lovely stuff and it weaves up easy enough without too many broken ends (during the last warp I was having to get up and retie and end every few ...