Next on the Dobby Loom

I'm at the halfway mark beaming a warp of 25/2 silk at 34 epi. Where does one get 25/2 silk, you ask? From Thailand via eBay, that's where. I suspect somebody ordered 20/2 or 30/2, and when their order came from the mill, the yarn was either too fine or too thick, and got sent back. After the cones were relabeled with a number closer to the actual yarn size, eBay to the rescue!

The silk was very sloppily spun - lots of slubs of loose fiber, and also lots of knots, so the warping process is slower than I'd like. However, I can't complain too loudly, because it was very inexpensive compared to the usual retail price here in the States.

The weft will be the grey/beige cone of luscious fine-lace-weight pygora. It should halo nicely during weaving, and even more after finishing.


I haven't designed the draft yet, so I can't start threading right away. In the meantime, the yarn for the first 4-shaft warp is dry so I can start beaming that soon.

Dyepot Done

Weibke voted for blue, so here it is:

The dye was MX reactive dye -  Dharma's Cerulean Blue, which is somewhere between Royal Blue and Turquoise. The small skein in front is 20/2 cotton for hem weft, and the two larger skeins are 10/2 cotton for the body of the towels. Or table mats, depending on how the aspect ratio of the design weaves. I reserve the right to decide at the loom!

Dyepots Readying

Now that I've finally got all the missing parts for the 4-shaft loom, it's time to get a warp on it. The first warp will be 10/2 cotton for towels; I felt that something strong and untextured would be best for a first warp whose main function is to verify that all the loom's parts are working correctly. So today was cotton-scouring day:

The rinse water is fairly clean. Not so the wash water - I couldn't believe how brown it was! The yarn has been in the stash for a while and probably picked up some dust in the process.

Anyway, please stay tuned to see what color I decide to put in the dyepot. Blue? That's always a safe choice for table linens... Maybe red? We'll have to wait and see.

And the projects for the other 2 looms are still simmering on the back burner. I've got a couple of designs queued up for the jacquard, so it's only a decision that's needed. There are too many possibilities for the dobby loom, making decisions difficult. Oh well, what's the difference between first in the queue and second, I wonder!

Just Off the Knitting Needles

I haven't posted in a while. It isn't because no textile work is happening, just none that's blog-worthy. I've been busy mending and mounting the family portraits for Ann, and they'll be delivered today at the Designing Weavers meeting.

In the evenings, I've been knitting a scarf out of an interesting yarn from Araucania made of rayon from sugar cane. When I saw it in an email blast from Webs, I had to try it! Very soft and lustrous. Because it's a variegated yarn, I decided to use a simple knit and purl block pattern with garter edging:

Now all that remains is to graft the ends together to make it an infinity scarf, and block it.

I hope to be back at the looms soon! Plans are simmering on the back burner for all of them.

The Last of the Family Portrait Series

I'm working on #4 of the set of family portraits. Tomorrow should see it completed, and then I can begin the mending and finishing, and DH can make the canvas stretchers for all 4.

You can just make out the negative (reverse) of the previous weaving underneath the current one, as it travels around the knee beam and down/back toward the cloth beam.

Another Lace Draft

This one began as a profile draft based on a Fibonacci sequence: 2-3-5-8.

Here it is (through the magic of block substitution) interpreted as Bronson Lace:

I made another variation with blocks A and B reversed; I haven't decided which I like best.

In both variations, the reverse of the cloth will show warp floats instead of weft floats. It'll be woven from the side with weft floats, because the lifts are lighter, although with only 4 shafts this isn't terribly critical.

Playing with Huck

It's likely that lace in all its woven forms will be high on my list of 4-shaft projects. I've been playing with drafts for 4-shaft lace. Huck seemed like a good place to start, since the constraints of the structure make decisions easy. There are two primary pattern blocks: A, and B. A can be warp spots or weft spots or plainweave, and must be surrounded by PW or B; B can be warp spots or weft spots or plainweave, and must be surrounded by PW or A. You can't weave both A and B as warp spots at the same time, or as weft spots at the same time; warp spots and weft spots, if adjacent, must alternate. If you try to bend this rule, you get some extremely long floats! A third threading block can weave true plainweave.

I created a design that includes borders threaded in plainweave, with a center field of alternating A and B blocks. Lots of different possibilities on this same threading, just by changing the treadling:

I'm sure I could have thrown in a few more design variations just for fun. Now, if only I had 2 more treadles, so I could weave a towel (or table mat) in each one of these variations without changing tieups! Hmmm. I may have to add this to DH's honey-do list...

BTW, my resource for this design exercise was Donna Muller's excellent book Handwoven Laces, published by Interweave Press in 1991, ISBN 0-934026-66-1.

A Family Portrait

This is a photo taken yesterday of the weaving I'm doing for Ann Tompkins:

Ann wants 4 copies. The first is now complete, and I'll begin the second today.

It Looks Like a Loom at Last!

Most of the Artisat's parts are now assembled:

I have no heddles yet, so there's no point in putting the shafts together. The cloth apron has been laundered, cut to size, and serged on all the raw edges. It still needs to be stapled onto the cloth beam; at the moment, it's just draped in place.

DH made a wonderful castle/tray for me; the original Artisat model had no castle at all - the two uprights just stood there by themselves, with no cross-piece on top. The tray will be very useful! In its final iteration, there will be an LED light strip on the underside of the tray, to make threading easier.

I've only tied up the two center treadles so far, 1+3 on the left one and 2+4 on the right, so we could test the lift action of all of the jacks. Until there are shafts installed, there's no need to  tie up more treadles.

We're still waiting for some information on dimensions and placement of a replacement brake release treadle, so the rope the previous owner used (with her foot??) to release the warp brake and advance the warp is just hanging down in back.

I may decide to replace the whole warp brake system with a live weight tension system. However, I'd like to have a functioning warp brake 'just in case.'

I am very grateful to Leclerc for having all the assembly manuals and drawings for their looms (past and present models) online on their web site. Most of the assembly process was just plain common sense, but there were a few details that were only clarified for us by the drawings on the Leclerc site. They make good products, and support a large population of loom owners very well. Hats off to M. Brassard and his company!

A Day in the Life of My Looms

According to the tradition begun by Meg in Nelson, I'm posting the status of my looms as of January 1, 2014.

The jacquard has a new 30-yard warp of 20/2 black mercerized cotton. I'm sampling for a series of Woven Portraits that I'm weaving for a good friend, Ann Tompkins, based on an image of Ann and her husband and 3 daughters. I'm still sampling wefts and fine-tuning contrast levels, so there's not much to show yet.

The dobby loom is naked (oh, my!) but I have plans. The first warp on it will be either a 3-warp echo weave in 60/2 silk; or a complex twill pashmina (silk warp, weft of lace-weight Pygora yarn). The Pygora is from a local breeder. The goats are a registered breed that was developed from a cross between Pygmy goats and Angora goats. Depending on the ratio of Pygmy vs. Angora, the hair can be more like mohair, more like cashmere, or somewhere in between (which my yarn is). The color is a nice fawn and with a natural silk, it'll be gorgeous.

The new baby, a vintage-1975 Leclerc Artisat, is still in pieces in the garage, after being cleaned and refinished and resized and de-rusted. By tomorrow, it'll be mostly assembled, but there were a number of parts missing and I've placed an order with Leclerc; however, that'll have to wait until the shop opens on January 6. So we'll assemble what we can, and postpone the rest. Here's a shot of the wood parts, and another of the metal parts.

I can't believe the previous owner ever actually wove on it, as it was missing some critical stuff like the cloth beam advancing crank, the warp brake system was installed incorrectly, and a few other mysteries DH and I are still giggling about.