Here's the beginning of my next project. I'm going to make some cotton yarn dishtowels/placemats. The real goal is to get some practice on making nice edges and to get some pictures I can use for a weavealong tutorial next month. I'm going to weave the towels 16 inch wide by 27 inch long with the fringe. With about 10 percent shrinkage during wet finish (washer/dryer cycle) I'll towels that are 14 inch x 24 inch.
The supplies: Erica rigid heddle loom, 8 dent heddle, two shuttle sticks, a pick up stick, white Peaches & Creme worsted cotton yarn, Sugar & Creme Hot Green, Hot Orange, Hot Blue colored yarn for the stripes. I used up a lot of green and orange on other projects, so I'll be trying to make minimal stripes on this project.
The project is 16 inch wide x 8 thread per inch for 128 ends. I'm going to have 4 ends each of each color for a small stripe x 2 stripes for 24 ends of color and 104 ends of white. I started Monday night by measuring out the warp on the warping chairs.
(sorry for the blurry picture) These are my warping chairs. I'm going to weave two towels on this warp, 27 inch long. That's 54 inch. Plus 17 inch loom waste. That's 71 inch per warp thread. The top chair posts are 18 inch apart. The tops of the chairs have been moved to 53 inches apart. Each time I go around the four posts, I have enough yarn for 2 warps. 12 times for the colors, 52 times for the white.
(sorry for the fuzzy pictures) Here I have cut the warp at the corner post and I have all my warps cut to the right size.
Then I hang the warps on a hook on the wall. The way I warp is probably more labor intensive than others, but it works for me.
I am working from the back of the loom toward the front. I take a warp off the wall, loop it over the back loom bar, dip the cut ends into the glass of water, make a point on the end of the yarn and thread through the hole and slot in the rigid heddle, working from the middle to the outside.
Here it is all threaded up. There is an 8 thread white border each side, 12 threads of color each side and all white inside. The weft will be all white. It takes about about three hours from beginning to this point. Save until tomorrow.
On Tuesday after work, I laid out the warped loom on the floor. I open up some brown paper grocery sacks and cut them up so I can use them to wrap around the warp as I roll the warp onto the loom. As the warp goes around the loom bar, having paper to separate each layer helps the warp stay on the same level, allowing for even tension on the warp. Without a separator, the warp can be high and low on the loom bar, allowing for uneven tension.
So I comb out the warps with my fingers to be sure there are no tangles before I roll the warp onto the loom bar.
In order to get some resistance, I tied the warps to a weight (the bar stool) so the warp has something to pull against while I roll the warp onto the loom bar. I am warping on the floor this time. I usually enlist the aid of a boy to assist me while warping on the kitchen table. I can usually find one of my sons in the kitchen or on the computer, but I'm trying to do this solo as to explore possible solutions to problems.
This worked okay. In the past I've tied soup cans to the warps bunches and hung the warps over the edge of table. That was okay, but not great. If I find a great way to get resistance on the warps by myself, I'll post it. Spent over an hour playing with the paper and rolling the warp on Tuesday. Call it a day.
Wednesday - Post pictures. More later this week.
Have a good day!
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