Warping Mill

When I was on my recent workshop in Mittagong I used a warping mill for the first time. I liked it so I have just bought one. I find it very easy to use and I think that for shorter warps it is easier than using a warping wheel and sectional warping.

Normally when I am winding a warp with different yarns I wind the warp chains following the warp order as it is in the threading.  So for this deferential shrinkage scarf  (see previous post) previously I would have wound 30 ends of yarn A followed by 30 ends of yarn B, followed by 30 ends of yarn A and so on.

In this instance I wound all of yarn A on one chain and all of B on another. All went well and it was a speedy process. The pictures below show Yarn A spread in the raddle leaving spaces for yarn B.










I shan't be doing it again! The time saved in winding the warp was lost because I had to mess about with two rods attached to the back apron rod and two sets of lease sticks. Still, you have to try these things otherwise you could miss out on some cunning improvements!

Yarn shopping

I have been yarn shopping.

The cones are of 20/2 NM Merino which hasn't been treated so it shrinks and felts very nicely as shown here and here. I bought it from Yarn Barn, West Coburg, Victoria.

I bought the skeins from Glenora Weaving and Wool which is based in Gerringong, New South Wales. I took a train down from Sydney so that I could have a browse before buying. I bought some more Mora 20/2, Alpaca Silk 28/2 and variegated 20/2 Silk. All are destined to be combined with the 20/2 Merino in various ways.

The first project will be a differential shrinkage shawl, similar to the scarf that I wove just before Christmas. I will be using analogous shades of blue. The blue 20/2 merino (almost a Royal Blue) is to be partnered with some 28/2 Alpaca Silk (Peacock). The colours are not quite as close together as the photo below would suggest. The peacock yarn is, well, peacock!

I have completed my project plan and shall start putting on the warp tomorrow. My deadline for this shawl is the 21st February - delivered!

The Monks Belt that I was working on is trimmed and washed. Here it is in a couple of cushion mock ups.

Monk's Belt progress

I couldn't weave for a couple of days because of a ricked back. I am now back on track and should be finished tomorrow. It has been quite slow going with the frequent pattern weft changes and I am going to have do a little bit of work with a tapestry needle on the selvedges when the piece comes of he loom. I must finish it soon as I need the loom for some scarves that I am planning; more differential shrinkage

My wife has decided that it is worthy of becoming the front of a cushion cover - praise indeed!

Monk's Belt

I wove a  Monk's Belt sampler in 2007 and it has been pinned to the back of a cupboard door ever since I wove it. I have admired it from time to time and vaguely thought about doing some more but nothing has ever eventuated.

In September last year a wove some Brighton Honeycomb scarves. The scarves were finished some time ago but I have yet to fringe, finish and photograph them in all their glory. They took second place to all the excitememnt of playing with my counterbalance loom and differential shrinkage. There was about two yards of warp left on the loom when I had finished weaving.

I have ordered some more 20/2 merino in several colours for my next foray into differential shrinkage and double weave. I have to get a birthday scarf finished and delivered by mid February so I hope that the yarn arrives soon.

In the meantime I am weaving some Monk's Belt on the warp left over from the Brighton Honeycomb. The weft is Bendigo  2 ply  which I have re-sleyed to 15epi ( a tightish plain weave) and I am using the same yarn for tabby and doubled for the pattern weft. I am not sure to what the use the final product will be put; perhaps a table runner or a wall hanging for a gloomy corner.

I have had to rummage through my unused equipment box to find enough shuttles. The bottom shuttle in the picture below is my shuttle of choice, an AVL end feed but I  have never used the top three before.

The pattern weft colours are those that I used for a multi-coloured warp early last year. I think that I have enough warp for three 24" hangings. This first one is fairly conventional; I might break out a bit for the next two.

Double Weave with Differential Shrinkage

At the Contemporary Doubleweave Workshop I decide that I wanted to try some form of combination of double weave and differential shrinkage. Our tutor Liz sketched out a design for me (see the squared paper below) and I worked it into a draft and plan for a sample.

I started weaving it at the workshop but with the distractions of the interesting things that everyone else was doing I didn't get it finished until I got home

This is what the sample looked like when I took it of the loom

and this is what it looked like when I had finished it.

This piece will probably end up as a gift for a small niece. I need to think about the colours but I have enough now to enable me to work on a full size version with four panels. I am delighted with the results and I don't think that I would have got anywhere near weaving something like this if it hadn't been for the workshop.

Contemporary Doubleweave Workshop

Well that workshop was fun and very informative. I have learnt a lot from both our tutor and from my fellow students. Now it is just a case of putting it into practise. I will not be giving any hostages to fortune by listing what I have learnt; I shall talk about each topic when I have actually done it.

The pictures show some of the work that was done ( I shall be plagarising) and the spacious weaving rooms where we produced it. I wonder what the topic will be for next year's workshop.

Weaving Workshop - Contemporary Double Weave

It is just before 7:00 am on Monday morning and I am in Mittagong. I am just about to start  week long workshop, "Contemporary Double Weave: reuse, layers and containers with Liz Williamson"  which is being held at the Sturt Craft Centre and I have to confess to being a little bit excited.

My wife drove me down here last night (about 100k from Sydney) and I am staying in a student hall - very novel! The grounds of the Sturt Craft Centre are lovely, the buildings are set in very satisfying gardens with lots of arbors, pergolas and woodland walks.

Weaving Focus

One of the problems I have when I am weaving is that my mind tends to wander off so that I loose the focus on what I am trying to do. A similar thing happens to me when I am listening to music or trying to meditate.

I end up thinking about what we should be having for supper or how I am going to solve the problems of the world and before I know it a selvedge has pulled in, the beat has gone to the dogs and something horrible has happened to a thread at the back of the loom.

On my last project (Differential Shrinkage Scarf) where concentration on the technique was so important ( beating 10 ppi with a 20/2 weft needs nerves of steel) I wrote myself a little list and pinned it to the loom and read it out loud to myself as I wove.  I consider myself to be an occasional weaver so I probably don't have the fully developed muscle memory that is needed to get all the little complex movements just right. It is early days yet but I think that this little weaving chant and check list might help.

I would be interested to hear if other people have a "focus" problem and how they resolve it.

Differential Shrinkage Scarf - Postscript #2

I have finished the sample that I wrote about in my previous post and it has worked out very well. The combination of an open sett and a more restrained fulling process has produced the the effect that I was hoping for. The secret of success for this look is to get the shrinkage with just enough felting to hold the scarf together but no more.

As I have said before this was a lovely project to work on and I have learned enough to enable me to produce similar scarves in the future.

So, what's next?

Off the loom before fulling

After fulling

The model

Fulling Table

Differential Shrinkage Scarf - Postscript #1

I have a little bit of warp left for the differential scarf so I have re-sleyed to 10 epi and shall weave a sample at 10ppi. I shall full very lightly so as to just shrink the merino a little bit; I want to try for something light and lacy.

I have just done a little bit and it is not easy. Weaving with such an open sett means that the slightest nudge will displace a weft thread; I am having to be very careful and gentle and have to confess that I am finding it a bit of a challenge.

This has been an interesting project which took a little longer that I planned but which was nethertheless very satisfying and great fun.

• Planning
• Rusty Reed
• Progress
• Weaving Finished
• Fulling
• Stephanie's Scarf

Now that the project is nearly over I have written up all my notes and calculations. I keep a manual notebook but I also find using a spreadsheet invaluable - here are some of the tables that I use;

Stephanie's Scarf

The differential shrinkage scarf is finished and here is Stephanie wearing it! It was touch and go to get it finished and I actually had to take the scarf back after I had given it to her so that I could trim a few loose threads.

It is unlikely that it will be worn  for a few months. It is quite hot here in Australia at the moment.












These pictures show how the fabric turned out after fulling.









And here I am trying to be all arty!

Differential Shrinkage Scarf - Fulling the sample

I have been having fun today felting the sample. We are having a little heatwave at the moment so it was very hot in the laundry whilst I was doing all this.

Sample as woven

This is the sample before I started the fulling process. It is 18" long and 16.7" wide. I twisted the fringe at one end and just left the other hem.

Washing up bowl and milk thermometer

Agitating the sample

First fulling

I used a washing up bowl to do the fulling and I borrowed my wife's milk thermometer to assist in temperature control.













The technique that I used was 5 minutes gentle agitation in hot water followed by 5 minutes agitation in cold water (from the cold tap which is 60F today).












This is the degree of fulling after three hot/cold cycles with hot at 120 F.

There is a nice bit of movement. The sample length has reduced to 14" (22% shrinkage) and the width has shrunk to 13" which is about the same percentage.

Second fulling

After the second fulling which was two more cycles at 14 F the sample was 13" long and 11.5" wide which is a 28% reduction in length and a 32% reduction in width.

Second fulling

This is another picture of the sample after the second fulling. I think that I want to achieve something between the two around 25% shrinkage.

Felting

Here one can see how much the merino has felted. Again, I think that this is a little bit too much. So, I shall repeat the process to get myself to stage one and then do little increments of temperature to get to the ideal 25%

This is all very exciting. It is too warm to do any more messing around with hot water so I shall  wait until tomorrow to start on the scarf. Time for a nice cup of tea and a bit of gentle fringe twisting

Differential Shrinkage Scarf - Weaving finished

I have finished the weaving. As I have a bit of warp left I put in a stick heading before I cut the scarf off. It is now gently resting until I get to work on it tomorrow. I have to say that it looks extremely sleazy but I suppose it should at this stage.

Differential Shrinkage Scarf - Progress

We are having a very nice summer and what with camping, gardening and messing about in boats I have spent a lot of time Not Weaving. Momentum has picked up now, mainly because the scarf is intended as a Christmas present.

Sleying the reed

In a my last post I wrote about how I cleaned the reed. It ended up a nice dark grey colour which unfortunately was an almost exact match with the dark grey of one of my weft yarns. Needless to say I had a couple of sleying errors and they were close to the centre of the reed.

In the past I have balanced the reed on boxes when sleying; silly, it is much easier to hang it from the superstructure.

Open sett means see through cloth

When I started the weaving I had a problem because I found it difficult  to see the fell clearly and judge my beat. The set is very open (12 ppi for the Mora and 16 ppi for the Merino) so the cloth is see through with lots of visual distraction coming through from below.

Three lights at the front of the loom

I put extra lighting onto the loom. The little clip on lights that I have put onto the beater uprights are invaluable - I use them all the time and move them around as needed

Light behind the beater

The sample

In addition to the three lights shown above there is a neon light (turned off in the photo) attached to the back of the top beater bar. This shines down and through the red giving a good view of the fell.










This is the sample. I have made it larger than I normally do because it will be needed for determining the amount of finishing that I will need to do to get the right degree of shrinkage and pucker.

Measuring 14 ppi 

 In theory I should be beating the red Mora wool to 12 ppi and the grey Merino to 16 ppi. Swapping every 2"proved too much for me so I have settled for 14 ppi throughout. I could probably have set the whole warp at 14 ppi.

Washers (nuts) in the boat shuttle

I normally use end feed shuttles but because this CB loom beater does not have a shuttle race on the bottom batten I decided to use lighter boat shuttles. I had a problem with the spools catching and snagging but a couple of nuts serving as washers has fixed the problem.


I am now well into the actual scarf having woven about 2' today in a couple of gentle sessions. I should make it for Christmas!

Rusty Reed

The best laid plans and all that but I finally found some time to wind the warp for the differential  shrinkage scarf, beam it and thread it. Apart from domestic distractions it took a bit of time because I managed to twist one of the warp chains and it took a lot of realignment. My only concern is that I don't know how I did it so I shall probably do it again.



Memo to self; check reeds before starting a project. I was ready to sley but found that my 12 dent reed wasn't wide enough. I found another 12 dent reed stashed away but it was in a bit of a state. So I assembled some wire brushes, emery paper and rust cleaner and set to with a will. The reed needed two applications of rust cleaner and a lot of rubbing and brushing; the results are remarkably good as the before and after pictures below show!

The rust removal product I used is called Dr Fixit. It comes from India and is formulated for the treatment of corroded steel (rebars is the technical term as I learnt from the tin) in reinforced concrete. I should write to the manufacturer to let them know that it is pretty good on reeds as well.