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Bertha Gray Hayes was a North American weaver, active in the mid twentieth century and is best known for her miniature overshot designs of which she designed nearly 100 original patterns. I thought I'd use here designs to make some blankets for our yoga studio using some of Susie's homespun wool from our ouessant sheep for the weft and a 8/4 cotton for the warp. 

Because there is a jump in scale (BGH's original designs used 20/2 warp and 10/2 weft) there would be unacceptably long floats if I just used her drafts with these much thicker yarns. Our wool fulls and felts quite easily on wet finishing, so it is the cotton floats that I've reduced with the introduction of alternating tabby picks in 8/2 cotton.

I ll be weaving these blankets on the Spring II loom as double width. This is a method whereby I weave the cloth in two layers on the loom with a fold on one side and two loose selvedges on the other. When the cloth is removed from the loom it unfolds into a piece twice the width. As the warps tend to weave tighter at the selvedges, it is important to prevent this on the side that will contain the fold as this will create a ridge in the cloth when unfolded. There are a couple of ways to prevent this: Sleying the reed slightly wider adjacent to the fold for a couple of dents and/or adding a tight length of fishing line adjacent to the fold which is woven in, but then withdrawn at the end of the weaving. The tension on the line helps to prevent draw-in.  I'll probably try both together.

More or less the draft I'll be using, but with different colours and heavier yarns. 

As both of the final selvedges for the blanket lie on the same side during weaving and must be kept apart, a special technique must be used to ensure they don't interlock...more later.

Triple weave part 3

Sorting out the draft for this weave has been a challenge. The main difficulty has been weaving the middle strip of brown wool amongst the other layers without the weft getting interlocked with the warps and wefts of the outer strips and other layers. It took several failed attempts and some extensive rethreading of sections to final succeed. As a consequence it's not the neatest weaving I've ever done, but perhaps one of the more complex. 

The brown red and green strips of wool are thre separate cloths which move from above to between to below the two layers of cottons cloth (yellow and white) which also swap places and occassionally amalgamate.

To develop the draft, it became easier to work with the liftplan and the eventual key to success was to weave two successive picks for each wool strip in turn and using the liftplan to create an escape route for the shuttle ensuring that the wefts were always lying in a position where they were not disturbed by subsequent picks.

I have still to wash the sample which should produce some differential shrinkage and help to disguise the obvious threading error on the lefthand side. After so much fiddly rethreading I couldn't face trying to correct it and the purpose of this exercise was to get the draft to work rather than make something in particular.

Trials and tribulations of lambing

Lambing season is upon us and first up was Sasha who managed a straightforward birth of a male lamb who we called Iggy without any intervention on Tuesday. A couple of days later Truffle had another boy overnight who we named Bonbon. But the following morning he'd vanished. We searched everywhere but probably a fox had jumped the electric fence and taken him...heartbreaking.

Yesterday Inkling had her first baby, another boy we named Nattie. This time we locked mother and baby in the bergerie overnight and will do the same again tonight. 

Today at about 12.30 Trudy's waters broke, but two hours later she still couldn't push the baby out. We called the vet but they had no one available to help. The lamb was normally presented (nose and front feet) but Trudy was too small - this is her first baby. I called my friend Paul in the Mendips who also has sheep and he suggested sticking a couple up fingers up her bum, feeling for the back of the head and exerting a little downward pressure to pop the lambs head out. It worked a treat and once the head was out, in a few minutes later she managed to give birth to a little ewe. Mother and baby are safely in the barn.

Sasha and Iggy

Poor Truffle and her baby that was taken

Trudy and Patchuli

Inkling and Nattie

Tripleweave part 2

As can be seen in this photo the edges of the wool strips when they weren't on the top of the weave were being "sewn" through the other layers at the edges. I've finally worked out a way to avoid this with some changes to the lift plan and separate series of treadling, one for each of the wool strips. 

To be able to weave the three wool strips as a separate layer:

• they each need to each be on their own set of shafts
• there can be no interlocking at the shuttles at the selvedge or a separate selvedge weave - the edges of all the layers must remain open.

I decided to cut off what I had done so far and so wove in a lease stick. After cutting off the weave, I can preserve the tension by tying this stick back onto the front beam.

After wet finishing the this side shows more or less my intention - wool loops, which dive between the white and yellow cotton layers, then later re-emerge of the reverse side. The differential shrinkage giving the fabric some puff and structure. (I cut the wool where it was previously sewing layers together for this picture).

The reverse side as currently woven has the wool strips "sewn" to the other layers at their edges even though they are a separate layer. Some more drafting to correct this, then hopefully a larger sample off the existing warp.

These exercises improve my drafting skills and knowledge even though they may not produce something useable or beautiful at the first attempt. Cotton is much cheaper than more exotic yarns and so is a useful test material for passive yarns.

Tripleweave

In March 2025 I was sampling an idea which involved two layers of cloth (doubleweave) sandwiching some free floating active warp threads inbetween areas of intergrated cloth where they were constrained. The experiments weren't really a success and I eventually ditched the floating warps and kept the intergrated cloth and created a nice shawl (now sold). 

Having recently bought Stacey Harvey-Brown's excellent new book "Creative dimensions in weaving" I have returned to the subject with some fresh ideas. 

This time rather than using floating threads I'm using a complete third layer of cloth in wool/silk, working with two plainweave cotton layers. In fact I'm using three separate differently coloured "third layers" positioned side by side at intevals across the warp as strips of cloth. These active layer strips change position from being either between the other layers, or on one side or the other of them.

In the positions of the strips, the cotton warp for the plain weave changes from 8/2 to 16/2 whilst maintaining the same sett so that the strip is slightly visible between the layers. When the strip moves to the outside position, the layers beneath are integrated.

The wool/silk 10/2 is going on a second beam and the 8/2 and 16/2 I am going to try on the same sectional beam as it's only a short warp now, about 3m. Hopefully I won't have too many problems!

Hard to explain, more explanatory images to follow.

Warps all tensioned and tied on. An annoying sleying error in the reed which I had to go back and correct but all seems ready to go.

The annotated photo tries to explain what's going on! There's a lot of experiments going on at once and the biggest one - wet finishing - is still too come. There's a lot to learn.

• I kept the wool layer loose for maximum shrinkage (it's a wool/silk mix so shrinkage won't be massive) but it's probably too loose - difficult to weave evenly.
• I had to make a dozen repair heddles as the integrated selvedges were too dense - have changed to basket weave.
• It's not possible to keep the wool layer completely separate from the other layers when it's on the bottom below an integrated layer or in the middle (at least not with my current draft) it is caught in at the edges (visible in photo). I'll be working to change this as it's key to the wet finishing result I'm after.
• I need a trap! Managing 5 shuttles on such a narrow sample is difficult. Also I'll probably cut the warp and restart with a different shuttle order to make this more manageable.

Weaving courses start in May

If you are considering coming from overseas we have accommodation available in our gite a few hundred metres from the studio. We are in an amazing location. Contact us for details.

 

Finally on and off the loom

The scarf commission is finally on the loom. The hemstitching at 45 threads per inch is excruciating, but now it's over the weaving is going well. After discussions with the client, I added a bit more light blue into the scarf. The warp is now ABAC with A being white silk 30/2, B being a navy blue superwash merino 28/2 and the C being a blueberry superwash merino 28/2. The warp is the same sequence and yarns.

 

From some angles the shiny silk reveals the waves

From other angles the blue wools show the bubbles. The yarns change places on the reverse.

The scarf is more blue than it appears in these photos.

 

Treadling the threading

800 ends of silk (30/2) and merino (28/2) threaded! 

I ve been "treadling the threading" on the Megado dobby loom. This lifts each shaft in the order of the threading each time you treadle, so that you can thread the heddle on that shaft and make hopefully zero errors.

Tempoweave will create a threading wif at the touch of a button. My other findings are:

• A low stool helps.
• Be careful that if a shaft is up too long (because your warp threads got in a tangle, or you dropped a thread) the solenoid might time out and the pick won't register, so you'll get a repeat. It's a good idea to glance at the screen to watch the pick advancing...or not!
• As there is not a tensioned warp helping the shafts to descend, keep an eye on hung up shafts that could trick you into threading the closest one.
• Even with complex networked drafts with no discernable repeats and multi coloured warps, look out for patterns in the threading e.g I have a 4 colour repeat A B A C and a network of 4. A is always on an odd shaft, B and C even shafts and C on a shaft number divisible by 4....it's a good double check of a skipped threading.
• It's a little slower than traditional threading, but zero mistakes can save a lot of time and anguish later!

Straight draw samples

The preparations are underway for my "introduction to weaving" courses. Above are 50 samples of weaves structures which complete beginners can weave on the course...mixing and matching or changing colours as the mood takes them! The fabric they design and create could create a table runner, placemats, napkins or cushion covers.

 

Weaving barn building works complete!

Dyeing and small batch fleece processing

The back room for processing fleeces and storing wool

Main teaching space awaiting the looms

 

Networked twills

With the weaving barn works occuping all my daytime hours, I've been designing weaves on the computer. The joy of networked drafting is that you can move away from stripes, checks and blocks and start creating curves and swirls. This design I particularly like and will sample as soon as the barn works are over. It uses three interleaved design lines expanded on a six point network initial.

The first two images show the front and back of the same cloth.

The interesting thing is that even a subtle change in one of the colours of the four yarns used and the pattern completely changes to that below. I've had to be very careful selecting yarns....lets hope I've chosen wisely!!

Finally the weaving barn is finished (more later) and a first time to use the Megado.

The first sample was in cashmere and merino (both 28/2) at sett of 45epi. There were some threading errors and the megado was occasionally misbehaving. I could see the colours were all wrong and the sample too narrow so I cut it off the loom.

After more fiddling with colours on the computer and looking at my stash of yarns I changed to a warp of white silk 30/2 and dark blue merino 28/2 (the cashmere was fragile warp) and a weft of the same white silk and a pale blue cashmere 28/2. This time I "treadled the threading". Using the dobby loom to lift each shaft to be threaded in order. This worked well but also highlighted the Megado problems! After some investigation I noticed the knife blade magnet was in the wrong position and the treadle needed adjustment as the magnet was not aligning with the sensor....hey presto everything worked! I also found an old bit of warp caught in one of the shaft pulleys!

This sample is looking much better, even though the finishing has been done yet. I ll try a few different blues. The blue should "full" as it's wool, whilst the silk should remain flat yet shiny.

Two final threading errors corrected and more samples and finishing later the results are below - front and back of each sample. The double waves behind the circles should be more evident in a wider cloth. When viewed at angle they are more apparent.

Weaving Stool

Just before I got my Spring loom I built myself a weaving stool from some oak. Splay legged for stability and wide for reaching all those 14 treadles.

When I picked up the Megado, I hadn't realised how high the breast beam was. The stool needed to be 70cm high, nearly 15cm higher. It's difficult to start weaving without so I searched for some offcuts. I quartered a piece of douglas left over from the roof trusses for the legs and planed it the right section, some old curtain poles made the foot bars and some oak from an old desk the seat and rails. A days work et voila! As the megado has a single pedal, width isn't so important.

 

Sampling networked doubleweave

This draft was going form the basis of the first sampling. The blue is 28/2 superwash merino and the white is a 30/2 silk. I'm hoping for a little differential shrinkage between the two yarns so that the areas with two separate cloth layers (they appear the whitest in the draft) puff just enough to separate. It comes down to how the superwash behaves...otherwise I might try some cashmere in 26/2. The sample is 16cm wide in the reed and has 240 warp threads. First sample will be at 15 epcm (38epi) and depending how it feels, I might try a wider sett too. I need 2 or 3 samples at each sett to experiment with the finishing process to control the differential shrinkage. The final piece is a commisioned shawl.

After contemplating the above I realised the areas of the raised silk layer will only be on one side...fine for a wall hanging, not so great for a shawl. So I revisited the draft to get the pattern more evenly distributed on both faces.  

After reading Alice Schlein's book on network drafting and several other books besides (some given to me by Pat Foster when I bought her Megado) I succeeded in getting a networked draft with the silk squares alternating on each side backed by squares of wool....then my silk yarn finally arrived!

It's beautifully lustrous and as I know from the swedish lace doubleweave scarf I just completed, that shine is killed by plain weave. I drafted something in doubleweave with each layer as a 5 end satin, but it wasn't pleasing to me. Finally I redrafted a design with 3/1 twills - a compromise but a good one I hope. An extract from the draft below. Using the same yarn I originally intended, the change from plain to twill increases the warp density to 25 epcm, so the sample is only 22cm wide with 550 ends. I ll weave three samples and finish them differently. The new Megado will enable me weave these 18 shaft samples.