Just waiting on the yarn for the last square. I should have enough of both warp and weft to weave one or two extra squares for matching pillows. (What you are seeing is the reverse side of the fabric.)
Category: Weave Page 9 of 34
I’ve been plugging away at my coverlet squares for the Coverlet Exchange. Not much to show yet, unfortunately.
A few things I’m learning along the way…
- I can’t seem to get “square” for the life of me. Good thing that my overshot pattern is asymmetrical and the lack of squareness isn’t immediately obvious.
- In an attempt to make the weaving more square, I changed my sett from 18 to 16. It looks better. I can sett it even wider, but my weaving width is now 16″, the target width of our squares. (I’m getting around 2″ of draw in.)
- I am weaving a bit longer than the aim of 16″ with the idea that the fabric will shrink in length a bit once it is off tension. I am weaving anywhere from 1/2″ to 1″ longer. It’s easier for the recipient to cut off the extra lengths than to figure out what to do without.
- There is a large variety of weights of pattern yarn in the exchange. Anything from nearly DK to heavy lace.
- The thickness of the pattern yarn isn’t as much of a factor as the squish factor (loft).
- I’ve been re-teaching myself how to throw my shuttle, with my palm up, rather than palm down, and catching it with my palm up too. This has resulted in a lot of missed catches and drops. I may need to buff some of the dings from my shuttles when this is over.
First trim attempt (aka sample)
Here’s the tubular to flat trim from the inkle on the previous post. I wove exactly to the length I measured, plus 1/2″ on both the tubular and the flat portion. Unfortunately, even though my measurements accounted for take-up on the loom, it didn’t account for the take up while tacking it onto the sketchbook cover. I ended up about 1″ short.
Back to the loom. Since I had only spun a small amount of the dark red in the stripe of the trim. I had used up all I had on hand.
Yes, I could have carded/blended more of that silk and spun it up. I just didn’t want to wait the extra day that it would take from start to setting the twist and waiting for the new threads to dry. So, I warped on again with just plain blue purple.
This time, I started with the flat ribbon portion of the trim and wove it to the length of the sketchbook plus 1.5″, then I wove the tubular piping until I ran out of warp. This ensured that I had enough to go all the way around the sketchbook.
I also made the flat ribbon portion a bit wider by not pulling the weft taut. This is harder to keep a clean edge but it had a better drape. The first ribbon was very firmly woven.
Specs: 20 ends woven on the Palmer Inkle Loom with spindle spun tussah silk of unknown origin. Finished length is approx. 61″, which maxed out the mini loom.
Here is the finished sketchbook, in all her glory. The third time is definitely the charm. (Version 1: submitted to CNCH Gallery. Version 2: added stabilizer to the back of the handwoven fabric.)
