I went to the Weavers and Spinners weaving day on Tuesday, and it was really cool. I stayed for the morning session and just walked around and chatted to people and looked at their weaving. Then everyone sits in a circle to eat their lunch and have a show and tell. Mostly the beginners weave and a couple of more advanced ladies run around and fix things up for them. I wished I'd had my loom with me, but if I had then one of the ladies surely would've unwound it and re-tensioned it.
It did get me thinking about my tension problems though, and later that evening when I rolled the whole thing forward the right edge got even tighter and I just couldn't get the rest of it to match. I was having huge problems opening up a shed because the middle was so saggy, so I stopped weaving and left it overnight. Then I decided to re-tension it myself. I also decided I was bored with plain weave and had a look through my books to see if I could find a nice twill pattern that would be more interesting. Anyway, because I'm INSANE I ended up rewinding the warp so it was even and tensioned and good and stuff, then I cut off the piece of weaving I'd done (it's about a metre long), then I COMPLETELY RE-THREADED ALL MY HEDDLES AND MY REED. I couldn't find anything interesting for the threading that I already had, so I had to change it. I must be crazy, but it's done now and it was so totally worth it because LOOKIT
I MADE DIAMONDS! :D :D It's all even and neat and I seem to have figured out how to keep my edges all smooth and straight too. It's so much nicer to have it all tensioned evenly to start with, so it rolls along smoothly and all I need to worry about is the actual weaving part.
The piece I pulled off turned out ok for a first go. One edge is shorter than the other because of the tension issues I had, and some of the twill sections are really messy because the end warp threads didn't always get caught with the weft. I've put a floating warp on the edges of the diamonds which is working really well for me and probably helping keep my edges neat. I washed the first piece to see what happens with the felting, since this wool is felting wool, and it's only fluffed up a little bit. I was worried it would fluff out a lot and obscure the patterns, but it's not actually made much of a difference. I did put it on the gentle wool cycle, and I'm wondering if the washing machine doesn't heat it past 40 degrees on that cycle even though I set it to hot/warm. We have a commercial top loader washing machine that only has hot, warm or cold settings to choose from instead of actual temperatures. Anyway, I'm hoping to use my diamonds piece as a scarf, and I won't be washing it very hot anyway so if there is more felting to happen then I most likely won't be seeing it.
Other than my weaving, I've been planning Midwinter Feast. It's in three weeks and it's taking AGES to get everything organised and signed off. I really need to start advertising soon or no one will come, because I think most people are thinking that it's not happening this year. It is! I'm working on it and it will be totally awesome with delicious foods and stuff. I even found a really nice old hall that's really pretty and has a convenient wire running along the walls at banner hanging height.
It did get me thinking about my tension problems though, and later that evening when I rolled the whole thing forward the right edge got even tighter and I just couldn't get the rest of it to match. I was having huge problems opening up a shed because the middle was so saggy, so I stopped weaving and left it overnight. Then I decided to re-tension it myself. I also decided I was bored with plain weave and had a look through my books to see if I could find a nice twill pattern that would be more interesting. Anyway, because I'm INSANE I ended up rewinding the warp so it was even and tensioned and good and stuff, then I cut off the piece of weaving I'd done (it's about a metre long), then I COMPLETELY RE-THREADED ALL MY HEDDLES AND MY REED. I couldn't find anything interesting for the threading that I already had, so I had to change it. I must be crazy, but it's done now and it was so totally worth it because LOOKIT
I MADE DIAMONDS! :D :D It's all even and neat and I seem to have figured out how to keep my edges all smooth and straight too. It's so much nicer to have it all tensioned evenly to start with, so it rolls along smoothly and all I need to worry about is the actual weaving part.
The piece I pulled off turned out ok for a first go. One edge is shorter than the other because of the tension issues I had, and some of the twill sections are really messy because the end warp threads didn't always get caught with the weft. I've put a floating warp on the edges of the diamonds which is working really well for me and probably helping keep my edges neat. I washed the first piece to see what happens with the felting, since this wool is felting wool, and it's only fluffed up a little bit. I was worried it would fluff out a lot and obscure the patterns, but it's not actually made much of a difference. I did put it on the gentle wool cycle, and I'm wondering if the washing machine doesn't heat it past 40 degrees on that cycle even though I set it to hot/warm. We have a commercial top loader washing machine that only has hot, warm or cold settings to choose from instead of actual temperatures. Anyway, I'm hoping to use my diamonds piece as a scarf, and I won't be washing it very hot anyway so if there is more felting to happen then I most likely won't be seeing it.
Other than my weaving, I've been planning Midwinter Feast. It's in three weeks and it's taking AGES to get everything organised and signed off. I really need to start advertising soon or no one will come, because I think most people are thinking that it's not happening this year. It is! I'm working on it and it will be totally awesome with delicious foods and stuff. I even found a really nice old hall that's really pretty and has a convenient wire running along the walls at banner hanging height.
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