Thursday, February 09, 2006


It just occurred to me that I am now a "real" weaver, as the towels I wove look like towels, and dry like towels, as opposed to the rectangular things that came off from my practice run.

Some thoughts (disclaimer - I will apologize ahead of time if I get the terminology wrong):
Equipment: 30" Kromski RH with 10 dent heddle.
Yarn: Peaches n Creme 100% cotton - both solid white on a cone, and the varigated in a ball.

I thought they were the same, so only did the wrap test on the white. It came out to 16 wraps per inch, so a sett of 8 would have been ideal for a balanced weave. I used each slot and hole on the heddle(does that mean sleyed?) when I put on the warp, for a sett of 10, thinking it would be close enough. My warp consisted of 150 ends - 10 white, 20 colored, 90 white, 20 colored, 10 white. I warped it directly on the loom, as I only wanted 2 15"x20" towels.

Got everything on correctly, and started weaving. After weaving with some scrap yarn to get things started, I started with the white. The first problem was the colored yarn got stuck in the slots, so the shed was tiny in those areas. The second problem was all of the gaps between the warp and weft yarns, yielding about 5 picks per inch. The tension on the warp didn't seem to affect how closely it got packed in. The situation improved after washing and drying, and the towels work fine, but the fabric isn't as dense as planned. I did keep track of how many picks, and how long the section was, when I changed colors. It made it much easier to have the ends ofthe towels mirror each other. Didn't do this on the practice run, so learned the hard way.

Most importantly, I loved the weaving process, and am pleased withthe outcome. So, once I have complete my Knitting Olympics event, we'll try again. Yes, we - my kids think it might be fun to weave, or loom, as they call it. "Mom, are you looming AGAIN?"

This is the plan for the next set of towels:
1. Use the white (thinner) yarn for the warp.
2. Skip a hole and a slot every inch for 8 epi.
3. Alternate white and varigated yarn for the weft. Posted by Picasa

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