Loom issues #1

When I was weaving those eggshell cashmere silk lace scarves, I noted a problem that I thought might have been caused by an old reed, and decided to order a new stainless steel reed. That reed still hasn’t arrived, but I haven’t stopped weaving to wait for it.

After the eggshell scarf problems I decided to use my (rather disliked) 6 dent reed while I awaited the new 12 dent SS reed (like a few weeks). A customer had ordered a black lace cashmere & silk, and I didn’t want to make her wait that long.

So I put in the 6 dent, warped and threaded my wonderful, little counterbalance loom, and set off.

It all went great. I had a total of 3 broken warp threads for the entire 9 yard warp – not uncommon with fibers this fine. This confirmed for me that my old reed really was a problem.

After the black, I wove three 100% silk scarves in a lovely pale mint green. This was an 8/60 silk — I sure do wish I had a MUCH better handle on what these numbers mean. What I THOUGHT, incorrectly, was that I’d multiply the 60 x 1000 and divide that by 8 to get the yards per pound (ypp). Hah! That math would give me 7,500 ypp; in fact, it’s about 2,400 ypp. As is some 12/60 silk & linen blend I bought. WHAT??!! How can this be? Maybe I should just give up trying to understand that and be sure I get the ypp from the yarn seller.

Anyway, the mint silk has a beautiful sheen to it. It’s thicker than the cashmere silk, and way more expensive. So I didn’t want to screw it up. I set it at 16.5 ends per inch (epi), (2-3-3 on my 6 dent reed) as opposed to the 18 epi I normally use for the cashmere silk. It’s nice, but a bit stiffer than I’d like. Next time I’m going to try it looser – maybe 14 epi.

On a completely different note, here’s an odd tidbit. Flies that die upside down on your stove retain their iridescent blue color for days. This one died right by my burner a few days ago.

I didn’t see it at first, and then when I did, I was amazed that the color was still there. He’s been there long enough now that I don’t need to wait any longer to clean him up. Goodbye, fly.

Your turn: do you understand yarn counts and yardage?

January 30th, 2012 

Weaving towels

 Last year I joined a napkin exchange as an impetus to try some new weaving techniques. Since I don’t use cloth napkins — or a least I didn’t until I got a whole bunch of handwoven ones — this year I decided to join a towel exchange. I wasn’t particular wanting to try new weaving techniques, but did want to weave with some unmercerized cotton to see how it behaved differently from the mercerized I’ve worked with.

I decided on 3 colors, played with my brand new Mac version of Fiberworks (YAY!), figured out a draft, and ordered the cotton. A generous member of my fiber arts guild loaned me her warping mill so I could try it out for this long and wide warp.

No doubt the warping mill is much quicker than my warping board, but I’m not in love with it. I’m guessing that some of that is because I’ve only used one once so would need to develop familiarity, and some is due to the specifics of this handmade mill. In any case, I’m not ready to run out and get one.

I would a warp of 547 ends for 10 towels, set up my 8 harness Macomber loom (it took 4 hours!!! since the unmercerized isn’t th easiest fiber — but not as difficult as rayon chenille in the width and length would have been) and went on my merry way.

I used a 3/1-1/3 twill, getting the maximum amount of color interplay between the 3 shades of blue. Here’s the first towel on the loom.

I do like the way the colors are interacting; I don’t like working with three shuttles. It’s SO much slower than working with one, or even two colors. For the first towel I started two colors on one side, one on the other in an effort to minimize any mess of carryin threads up one side.

This was so tedious, for the next one I decided I’d start them all on the same side and minimize the time spent wrapping the threads around at the selvedge. I didn’t much care for that, either.

For the third and fourth towels I used the same pattern, but cut the threads after each color. This seemed more pleasurable, but still wasn’t my favorite thing to do.

So for towel #5 I picked out another unmercerized cotton I had and used it for the entire weft.

This is a variegated cotton slub with a tiny bit of nylon in it for a bit of shine. I enjoyed working with only one weft, but the pattern didn’t really show up well. So I figured what the heck, for towel #6 I’d try this weft in a plain weave.

Now the color really doesn’t show, but it sure is quick & easy to weave!

So for the rest of the towels, I went back to using all three colors. But a bit differently. For towels #7 & 8 I went through the treadling pattern three times instead of once, so I change colors only 1/3 as often. I like this, too.

For towel #9 I modified the treadling pattern for wider blocks of each twill. I’m not as fond of it.

So for the very last towel I went back to plain weave. I thought it might look interesting in someone’s kitchen if I wove half of it with the darkest weft and half with the lightest.

All went well (in relative terms; I’m having Macomber issues, but that’s a topic for another post) until I cut them off the loom and took them up to the sewing machine to run a line of machine stitching along the to-be-cut edges prior to hand hemming.

Uh oh! Clearly I skipped two critical steps: (1) checking for floats with the computer program and (2) sampling. As I’ve said previously, I hate sampling. I usually avoid drafting problems by remembering to check for floats on the computer. How could I have forgotten it now?!

As a result, I have some long floats on the back. Some up to 9 threads. Yikes! Well, what’s done is done. Throw these babies into the washer on hot water, then the dryer, and see what happens. Luckily I wasn’t planning to sell any of the towels — 6 for th towel exchange and 4 for gifts — but still, who wants her less-than-great work out there in public? No one.

After the towels come out of the dryer the shrinkage is enough that although I’m not happy with the floats, I’m no longer as embarrassed by them that I’m not willing to use them as planned. I’m in the hemming phase now; three are done, seven to go.

Here’s my draft. WARNING — DO NOT USE IT AS IS!!! The simple removal of harness 4 on treadle 4 and harness 5 on treadle 5 will solve the problem, although it will change the looks a bit.

January 27th, 2012

Quite the wait

 This is not the way I wanted to start a new year – by having 10 days between blog posts. Writing a blog post has been on my lis of things to do for over a week, and somehow, other things kept taking precedence. There’s nothing I can do about that now; I can only try to do better as we move forward.

In my last post I showed you some cashmere silk eggshell lace scarves on my counterbalance loom, and promised more info about them. Here it is, finally.

At one of my December shows a customer ordered two custom cashmere silk lace scarves. I’m always happy to comply with these requests, although I had to tell this woman that she couldn’t have exactly what she wanted. She wanted a scarf just like th one I was wearing. Should have been simple, shouldn’t it? But it wasn’t.

I was wearing one of the eggshell lace scarves I’d made on my Macomber when I was trying a new pattern. Those scarves were not stable enough, and can’t be sold. I often wear one at a show because they go with everything, and when I’m wearing the scarf the problems are not obvious. So I explained why I would have to modify the pattern in her scarf. She understood, but was clear that she wanted me to get as close as possible. I assured her I’d try.

I knew that I couldn’t really know what would work by using another fiber; I had to do my testing with cashmere silk yarn. I also knew I had a limited quantity of the eggshell, a popular color, and I didn’t really want to use any of it up in samples/tests that ma or may not be successful. So I decided to use my least-requested color, a bright Christmas red.

I also decided that I would only use a lace pattern I could weave on my counterbalance loom. The cashmere silk scarves I’ve woven on the counterbalance loom have been almost completely successful; the ones I’ve woven on my Mac not so much. I think it’s a combination of the loom and the weave structures I’ve chosen, but I almost always make the tension too tight and distort the scarves.

So I spent some time with my Fiberworks software, and using block design strategies, created a Swedish lace draft. I measured out enough warp for two red scarves, and threaded up the loom. I set off weaving, and was pleased with the results. Although it clear that while a piece is still on the loom you can’t tell for certain what it will look like after wet finishing, with practice you can get a good idea.

As I was weaving the first scarf, I decided that I could get even closer to my customer’s wishes. So I cut off that scarf, wet finished it to be sure I was right, and re-threaded the loom. I was also happy with the second scarf. Here are both of them.

After wet finishing the second scarf, I decided I could make even more changes to get even closer to my customer’s wishes. I also figured that I ought to warp for four scarves instead of my usual three, since I have had lots of customer interest in eggshel scarves. So I was off and running.

Unfortunately, things didn’t go quite as smoothly with the eggshell scarves. It had nothing to do with the modifications to the draf For reasons that I never could quite identify, I had all sorts of problems with the threads near the selvedges. They broke often, they fuzzed up, the refused to produce straight selvedges. I tried all the tricks I knew — weighting the selvedge threads, doublin those threads, using a temple — nothing made any difference. Ultimately, I did get four saleable scarves woven, but I’m embarrassed by the selvedges on all of them to one degree or another. I’m not showing you a closeup of them with good reason But here are two of the scarves. (You can tell at a glance I haven’t pressed them yet.)

Actually, I did have one idea about the selvedge problem with the eggshell scarves. The reed I use on my counterbalance loom is the one that came with it when I bought the loom, after it had sat in a damp garage for more than a year. The reed was very

rusty, and I was poor, so I cleaned it with naval jelly, a stiff brush, and lots of elbow grease. Although it didn’t hassle the red yarn I guessed that the eggshell yarn was just a bit more delicate, and that there were possibly tiny burs on the red that frayed the yarn. So I bit the bullet and ordered a brand new stainless steel reed. I figured that my little loom got enough use that it (and I) deserved a new tool. The reed was out of stock, so I’ll have to wait a few weeks for it to arrive.

Of course, I’m weaving in the interim (tempus fugit, ya know), but I had to work on another order before I went back to the cashmere & silk. The eggshell was pretty frustrating, and the other special order is for black. The only other black cashmere silk scarves I made had a similar selvedge problem, and I didn’t think my brain could handle it. I’m hoping (probably without much chance of success) that the reed will come in quickly and I can use it for the black scarves.

I promise, I’ll try to post more frequently. I want to show you what I have on that little rigid heddle loom (and I want to get back to that!), the order that’s on my counterbalance now, and my plans for the towel exchange I joined this year.

January 11th, 2012