The new Weaving Barn

After 16 months of hardwork the first floor of our barn renovation is complete - a new studio for weaving, spinning and yoga. Downstairs is next to create teaching space and washing/drying/dyeing spaces for our ouessant fleeces.

Hopefully we'll be announcing dates for courses in spring 2026.

 

Huck Lace

460 ends of 30/2 silk on the loom for a new project in huck lace. It's a shawl design by Susan Foulkes that caught my eye. You can see hers here

It's the first time I've used pure silk. Its slipperiness meant an overhand knot was necessary on the warping wheel to prevent each section from sliding off as I warped it onto the beam. The weaving went easily although a gentle beat was required to to stop the square motif becoming diamond shaped.

Normally with lace weaves the warp and weft are the same colour but I used brown for the warp and yellow for the weft. The result is a gold, lustrous fabric. With so many ends I decided to hem stitch and leave a fringe. Hem stitching a fabric with 26 epi was excrutiating and required a large magnifying glass and several hours!

The cloth has a lovely softness and drape as you'd expect from silk. I gently wet finished than hung to drip dry.

Close up of the structure

The shawl with the plain weave border and fringe

One repeat of the draft, 9 shafts and 9 treadles

Advancing twill

I've always been intrigued by the fractal quality of advancing twills. So at last I decided to weave one to make a backrest cushion for our iron bedstead.  Inspired by weaver woman's Caribbean Beach I designed a warp then wove two 1.50m lengths of fabric, one with a black weft the other with a white weft - both in 8/2 cotton at 25epi. 

Difficult to spot threading errors with these fine constantly changing patterns.  In fact I had one through the entire white weft weave and only when I changed to black and the pattern was clearer did I discover it.

 

Warping wheel in action!

First time using the new handbuilt warping wheel. Maybe a little slower than bobbins and tension box for a warp with many colour changes, but much less fiddly, more sure and less stressful. Also much less waste! I had to make a couple of changes to the wheel, I realised the arm holding the raddle for winding on was on the wrong side of the wheel (it would have had to rotate the wrong way) and I moved the holder to align better with the warp on the wheel.

This next project will be an extended advancing twill on 8 shafts in 8/2 cotton with a set of 25epi - it'll make a bedhead cushion, a scarf and maybe something small.

Building a warping wheel

I started my sectional warping experiences using a homemade bobbin rack and tension box. It works reasonably well for my warps which tend to have complex colour sequences rather than length, but there are drawbacks. Winding the correct amount of warp onto each bobbin is rather hit and miss and usually involves a lot wastage. The bobbins have to be moved around the rack frequently when the colour sequences of the warp doesn't co-ordinate with the number of threads in each section. Sometimes warp threads catch in the bobbins and snap halfway through winding a section, requiring immediate repair or if you haven't spotted it soon enough, supplemental threads hanging off the back of the loom.

I've heard only good things about the American made AVL warping wheel but at 900 euros in Europe it is rather expensive. It doesn't seem too complicated so I'm making my own. A few old bobbins, some cheap timber, mdf, a handful of bolts and a dog comb for the raddle has 95% of the materials covered. The only piece I've been struggling with finding is the brake drum (turned on a lathe on the original). After much head scratching I found a drive pulley for a lawnmower which will work.  For the clip I used an old feeler guage which has the right amount of spring to grip the thread.

Dog comb raddle, the holes originally connected the handle, but are now used for the locking pin.

Saw tooth connector to keep the warp in the raddle when winding on to the beam.

Texsolv and spring for tension adjustment.

Lawnmower pulley, brake and spindle bearing combined.

Double layer shawl

The weaving went much quicker than I expected and was all over in about a day. I hemstitched both ends on the loom then cut the fringes to about 2 cm. At first I couldn't get The wool to shrink but eventually at about 55 degrees it started. Overall about 33% shrinkage in the width and virtually nothing in the length (superwash merino warp). After gently pealing the layers apart that had slightly felted together, I blocked it and let it dry. 

The fabric is very light, soft and drapey with its open sett but the two layers add warmth. The areas os single cloth using the warps from both layers (the squares, selvedges and hems) help puff the layers apart and flare the ends of the shawl. The yellow side was a bit disappointing as the grey weft killed the colour (I couldn't see it when I was weaving as it was the bottom cloth). The slightly slubby linen/silk/lambswool weft adds a bit of texture.

 

Almost a thousand warp ends wound

940 ends wound on the beam for the doubleweave shawl. About halfway through I noticed that one of the bobbins had snarled up and snapped the thread, so quite a few sections were missing a thread (16). I managed to add the threads when threading the heddles and wound them onto the second warp beam. 

My next project will be building a warping wheel (a device to wind the sections not requiring bobbins and with hopefully less yarn waste too).

 

More samples

More doubleweave sampling....getting closer. This time superwash merino warp 30/2 with jaggerspun 8/2 for the shrinking ties. Lambswool/linen/silk 1/7 singles for the weft. A single cloth selvedge to give a wrinkly edge. I also tried more ties in a the shrinkable wool (one each side of the squares) but they have a tendency to migrate during the long floats and become unruly!

Unfortunately after I failed to get enough shrinkage with a hot handwash it went in the washing machine and is now 2/3 size and overfulled (I had to prise the layers apart) but the double layers between the squares give the fabric a lovely volume.

Third time lucky and all should be project ready for a shawl. I think I ll put the red stripe back in the middle of the squares and space them wider apart. I ll return to the yellow for one side of the shawl this time in superwash merino.

Sample before washing

After finishing, the shrinkage with  can be rather sudden! This sample shrunk about 20% in width and 10% in length. 

Double weave experiments

More experiments with doubleweave. This is a weave whereby two layers of cloth are woven simultaneously one above the other. I designed a fabric with two layers of cotton (16/2) plain weave at 24epi sandwiching free floating red woolen threads between them. At intervals the cloths are woven together as a single cloth in a series of squares. These also trap the red threads. Between the squares the red wool yarn is either tight puffing the two layers apart when it shrinks on washing, or very loose allowing it to free form.

The first sample was at two close a sett, so the red threads were only visible with back light. I widened the sett to 15epi for a second sample with almost a gauze like structure.

 

I also wove a sample as single cloth with a fine lambswool warp, but used the double layers as squares. In the single cloth the wool is tightly held by the warp, but in the more open sett of the double layer it can shrink and create a seersucker effect.

Planning to use this knowledge on a scarf project next.

A trio of homespun scarves

The first, a scarf for me made from homespun and odds and ends. there are squares of plain weave, basket weave and twill interspersed with stripes of sateen (red).

Another with the same draft but different yarns...the wool for the warp proved too fragile so I had to end the weaving early - hence the short length!

And another, this time with a stronger cotton warp and the sateen in a fluffy mohair, with a linen stripe.

Bateman boulevard scarves

An exploration of Bateman boulevard. These three scarfs are from the same warp in 8/2 bamboo yarn, just fringes and finishing to do.

more double weave with 2 structures

759 ends to thread and sley

Another experiment with double cloth overlaying different weave structures, this time huck lace over a pointed draft twill - both in cotton. 8/2 for the twill and finer 16/2 for the lace both set at 10 ends/cm (25 epi). The two cloths are joined at intervals in the weave. This didn't work at first so I had to add two more treadles to the draft and cut and re thread about 40 warp ends. Fortunately, the tension wasn't affected noticeable.

After washing, the lace structure has appeared, revealing the colours of the twill below, perhaps not quite as clearly as I had hoped. A very dark cotton or the lace may have helped and next time perhaps more blurred transitions between the colours underneath - maybe an echo weave.

Details of the lace structure (still wet and un-ironed!).

The finished cloth

The twill on the reverse.

 

more bumpy experiments

 Saw an interesting picture on instagram and converted to a weave. I hadn't realised I would need a supplemental warp for blue, as of course it has less interlacement and so needs a different tension. 

In fact I now see that it's a Shibori weave.

bedford cord

Some experiments with a weave structure called bedford cord weave using some thick "mop" yarn in the warp for the threads which usually create padding for the ribs. I've brought these to the surface to create pattern and also cut some them after removal from the loom.