Weaving Again

The jacquard warp is finally knotted, pulled through the heddles, and tied onto the apron rod. I wove a couple of inches of plain weave to be sure things had settled down, and then started the hem of the first piece.

I've designed a bottom hem that has my name and the year placed so that they will appear right-side-up when the hem is turned up and stitched. I'll save a copy of the file without weaves inserted into it, so I can make changes each time I need a new combination of appropriate weaves. Originally, I tried using a simple 8-end satin for the top and bottom hem, but found that after wet finishing, the hem areas didn't necessarily shrink or take up as much as the body of the piece if it was weft-backed satin based on 8-end shaded satin, which made nicely turned hems difficult to achieve. This set of top and bottom hem should always end up the same as the body in width - at least, that's my assumption. Only finishing will tell the real story.



Then I moved on to the first piece - the coleus leaves I sampled on the very end of the previous warp. (I posted a picture of the sample here.)



At the time I took the picture, I was about 2/3 through the piece. By the end of the afternoon, it was finished.

There's one hook that was misbehaving (not lifting when it should), so before I begin the next piece, I'll probably ask DH to help me replace the hook. Once the warp is cut off the loom, this piece will need some needle-woven repairs to disguise the errors. Not fun, but necessary.