Needle-Woven Repairs

Not my favorite task, by a long shot. But the results are worth it. Here are the 3 weavings I made for my sister and a family friend, as belated Christmas gifts. They've been mended, washed and dried, and pressed.







The selvedges on the chicken are not embarassingly awful; however, the two lions' selvedges are definitely icky. This is a problem of different take-up between body and selvedge. So I think either the pieces will get framed, or I'll attach black binding to disguise the selvedges.

After re-sleying the reed at 51 epi (3 per dent in a 17-dent reed), I wove part of the 4-weft satin blanket again. As you can see, the second oval from the left still has the lifting errors that cause long warp floats on the face of the cloth. At that point, I quit in disgust. Unfortunately, I feel like I can't trust it. Makes it difficult to expend good yarns and time and effort in a real weaving, as opposed to a simple swatch or a gift to a forgiving family member.

Subsequently, DH got out his tool kit and did some tweaking that seems to have fixed that particular problem. At least, I can't see evidence of the problem in that area of the 2-weft blanket that followed. Still don't feel like I can trust it, though..........



For the latter blanket, I changed the fill patterns to accomplish several things. First, I redesigned the fill patterns to offset the tacking points of the two wefts, in hopes they'd pack in better than having the tacking points for weft B directly above the tacking points for weft A.

Second, I have an image that I want to weave with 7 shades of grey and 2 shades of green. I wasn't entirely happy with the difference between the 2 shades of green in the first blanket, so I gave myself more shades to choose from. I think it'll be 1 and 4...where 1 is the 1/7 satin oval closest to the camera, and 2/6, 3/5, 4/4 etc. appear further away from the camera.

The 7 shades of grey are about the same as in the first sample. On this sample, just out of curiosity, I added an oval (lengthwise, farthest from the camera) that has both A and B weaving 1/7 satin on the face at the same time. It's there more for reference than as a valid choice for the image I have in mind.

Third, I wanted to see if the more open sett was more appropriate to the structure, and I'm afraid it's a no for both samples. The 2-weft blanket beats in more so the weft-faced areas are more solid and distinct, but only by sacrificing the darker value of the background, which is much lighter here than in the original sample. And for the 4-weft blanket, I still need to find yarns the right grist to do a valid sample.

Tomorrow, I'll re-sley again at 56 (7 per dent in an 8-dent reed) and weave the blankets again. I keep reminding myself that it isn't wasted time or yarn because it's very instructive. This is why I keep putting on cotton warps - better cotton than hand-dyed tencel or silk!