One day weaving

 Lucy, Lottie and Paula with their debutant "one day" weaving course creations.

On our one day weaving courses, the looms are set up and ready for you to weave. After a short introduction we get straight to the action! In just a day you can create your own fabric on our 8 shaft looms. We also give a brief history of weaving, information on how looms work, show you many different yarns and discuss their properties and differences, plus a visit to our flock of sheep!

Deflected doubleweave

Latest design and warping complete....more later

First real foray into designiing something in deflected doubleweave. I started with developing the block draught of a design by Margaret Coe in Marion Stubenitsky's book "Double and twist". The final draught requires 20 shafts. I have a stash of DMC embroidery thread that I got on Leboncoin so used those colours to enhance the design. After dressing the loom I did some quick narrow samples to check the sett to achieve the square design requiring a balanced weave. Alas my sample was too narrow as once on the main project I quickly realised the design was 4 x 5 rather than square. I ve cut this first piece off and re-sleyed 18epi. This is now working out close to square, I probably need 17epi to be perfect but I should be able to wet finish and block the fabric to get it square enough - I don't have enough warp to re-sley again and tie on a third time!

first attempt at 20epi

Finally square at 18 epi

 

Gamping

More gamps from the same threadings for the weaving experiences and courses.

Pointed twills

undulating twills

 

Bertha Gray Hayes overshot

Whilst at the "Fil et Fibre" festival I wove some overshot with two a colour mercerised cotton warp 5/2 and a dark blue silk noil 3/14 for the weft. I ve used some of it to cover a laptop case for John's 70th birthday.

Warps are going on the table looms ready for one day weaving experiences. 

Festival fil et fibre

This weekend is our first festival/market to start selling and promoting our courses. The festival is at Le Mas d Azil.

Time for a few more

There are still another 8 days until the wool festival at Mas d Azil, so time for a few more creations! These scarves use a networking threading based on overlapping sinewave design lines. multiple twill tie-up and "tromp as writ". 16 shafts for the design plus 2 for the plain selvedges.

This one is with a silk warp and cashmere weft.

This one is with a silk warp and merino weft.

Extract from the draft

Pashminas

A new pashmina design in merino and silk warp, with combinations of linen, silk and lambswool weft. This design has a patterned border inspired by kilim rugs. I ve also added some thicker wool silk in the warp. Because it's not evenly distributed and a lot thicker, this was warped traditionally rather than sectionally and has gone on a second warp beam.

detail before finishing "fluffs" the fibres

the thicker wool/silk measured out on the warping board

merino (red and blue) and the silk (yellow and green)

the thicker wool/silk on the second warp beam

 

Second pashima underway with linen/silk warp. I think it might be much more linen than silk and a bit stiff, I ll sleep on it before deciding whether to change it back to linwool.

Reverted to linwool!

Double weave shawls off the loom

The double weave shawls are finished. The second shawl I tried substituting the 1/7 lambswool/linen/silk for 2/16 linwool. Which has worked out fine giving a side which is less slubby. On the final part of the warp I tried 2/10 wool/silk. The colours are amazing and as the 2/10 is too thick to maintain an even pick density  through the integrated areas, the weft opens up which has actually produced a subtle transverse stripe in the finished cloth. It's a heavier, thicker cloth than the linen ones.

Something for next time.

The fringes were knotted in groups of 6 and trimmed before wet finishing. Slightly quicker than hemstitching but much easier on the eyes at 30epi!

Last time I took the cloth to 56 degrees to get some width shrinkage, this time I stayed cooler and left the width almost unchanged.

 

Delicate warp

The two doubleweave shawls in 30/2 superwash merino and 1/7 linen/lambswool/silk are underway. Real problems with the selvedge on left had side with repeated warp breakages. The 30/2 is at the limit for being a viable warp but it has worked in the past on other projects with the same warp and weft. The blues and yellow shades I have used before seem much stronger and less sticky than the red. In the end there was a twisted thread around a heddle eye that was probably exacerbating the problems and the 15 epi reed may also be causing too much friction, I'll use 10 epi next time with 3 ends per dent.

The two faces are in sharply contrasting colours, each face is a separate cloth joined in the little double density squares where all the yarns form a single "integrated cloth". The cloth shrinks on finishing the results can be seen here.

My problems haven't ended there, I forgot to lock the draft in Tempoweave and at some point when returning to weave I will have clicked my wireless mouse to turn it back on (when unused it goes off to save battery) evidently the mouse must have been over tie-up and changed it very slightly...enough to produce long floats on the reverse side of the cloth (hidden from view) in line with the integrated squares. By the time I noticed I had made over a hundred passes of the shuttles.

No alternative but to unweave (I only have enough of the light grey weft to make the first shawl so I could not cut it off). The super fine warp and slubby weft stick together and in the dense integrated squares they were literally feltef together! It took 2 hours 30 minutes to undo. Things are back on track now and I'm halfway through the first shawl. There'll be a colour change on the second.

 

Weaving course pieces

Here are some photos of the amazing fabric Ruby wove on the 4 day course. 

She had never woven before.

 

Weaving course underway

Susie and Ruby, neither of whom have ever woven before, are my guinea pigs for the beginners weaving course. The first day and some of the second was spent dressing the looms but by the end of day 2 they have both made some fantastic designs! Two more days of weaving and learning still to come.

 

Looms arrive at last!

At last the first two table looms (Louet Jane 8 and 16) have arrived. The two smaller Harmony looms are still pending. It took a day to assemble the pair and another half day to build my own stands for each. The Louet stands cost 268 euros each, mine cost 29 euros and are sturdier!

The first course, a trial run with Susie and Ruby starts tomorrow!

The Megado upstairs is now ready to start weaving two shawls in wool, linen and silk.

 

Double width overshot

The blanket is underway. In the video below I explain how the floating selvedges are managed. Because I've added alternate picks of tabby to the pattern, which requires two shuttles, it is easier to do two picks of pattern followed by two picks tabby. As the blanket is woven folded, the two picks equate to one pick across the entire width of the unfolded cloth.

Photo below is straight off the loom, because the cloth is folded I'll have to hemstitch after removing it. The second half of the warp is on the loom for blanket number 2.

 

Fishing line removed, the crease should go after wet finishing

Two more wraps

Two more colourways for my "swirl" design. The combination of lighter colours has made for a subtle pattern, whilst the "less lustrous than silk" tencel, which is also slightly thicker, has altered the design slightly.

The blue and yellow, evokes the "seashore" imagery in the design. The all yellow is less successful.