With a flick of the wrist, the shuttle glides across the warp. The curved, narrow end of a traditional Swedish boat shuttle slides right into my hand. This dice weave uses one shuttle for the plain weave background, and a second shuttle for the pattern weft.
Dice weave with 16/2 linen warp and weft. The blue plain weave weft and the brown pattern weft are woven on alternating picks in the pattern blocks.
From my bin of shuttles I choose the ones best suited for the warp that is on the loom. When a shuttle fits my hand, as the Swedish ones do, that’s even better. As the weaver, I am usually the only one who sees the shuttles at work, but that makes them no less important. The one purpose of a weaving shuttle is to carry weft thread across the warp, by the weaver’s hand.
How do you find your purpose? Discover your calling by putting others first. Like most people, I would rather put my own self first. But our grand weaver calls us to be last. He calls us to be servants of each other. In that role where we carry the thread without being noticed, we do our most important work. And that is where we finally find our great value in the weaver’s hands.
Properly dressing the loom means no thread out of place, no crossed threads, no missed threads. Every linen end is threaded through a heddle on one of four shafts, following a draft for dice weave (pattern weft on a plain weave background). I insert each thread one by one in a specific order. My fingers are the only tools I use for this task, and I love touching and directing every single thread.
Pattern repeat has twenty-four ends, repeated across the warp.
Someone great is looking after you. Our Father in heaven knows what is going on in your life, details and all. He knows the placement of every single thread in your personality. He knows the ins and outs of our needs, hurts, and desires. Father knows what we need before we ask. And yet, he invites us to ask. That’s a good invitation.
There is just enough morning light in the room to see the slight glimmer on the surface of these tubes of 16/2 linen. Line Linen has a sheen that sets it apart from other fibers; but without enough light in the room you could miss it. I am excited to get started with such exquisite thread. My mind’s eye is already trying to picture the finished cloth.
Two shades of blue will be combined for the 16/2 linen warp. The brown 16/2 linen will be seen as floats in the dice weave fabric that I am planning.
It was late last night before I got a chance to open the box that arrived the day before. You cannot identify colors in the dark. So, in the darkened room I could barely make out the colors of the linen, much less see any brilliance from the sheen that I knew would be there.
Pride is like a blindfold; it wraps over the eyes of your heart. It’s like staying in a darkened room where colors never shine. Pride takes, assumes, expects, demands, and makes itself known. Humility, on the other hand, gives, serves, looks for the betterment of others, and expects nothing in return. Humility is like the morning light that brings out the natural sheen in everyone around you.
May your humility bring light into the room.
Your friend, Karen
~Thank you, blog-reading friends! There is a discount coupon just for you on my About page, good for a few more days.~
My feet follow an eight-step sequence on four treadles for this rosepath pattern. Even one step out of sequence makes a glaring error. I start out conscious of the order, repeating the numbers aloud while moving my feet. 3-2-1-4-1-2-3-4. After a while, my feet find a motor memory and I don’t need to concentrate as much. Now I’m in my sweet spot, throwing the shuttle back and forth, making cloth. (This flat cloth will be the back of a cushion with THIS rya weaving on the front.) I would like my attitudes to stay in their sweet spot, too.
If I always stop at the same spot in the eight-step sequence, when I do need to stop, I am much less likely to get confused about where I left off. I like to have a filled quill ready so I can keep moving, even when I need to replace an empty quill.
There are normal interruptions in weaving, like stopping to replace the quill in the shuttle. Most of my treadling errors happen after those interruptions. With my attitudes, the disruption that knocks me out of my sweet spot is an encounter with someone who is disagreeable, rude, or unkind.
When we give a blessing, though, even to the undeserving, we come out ahead. If I show empathy, kindness, and humility to someone who does not show it in return, I end up with the blessing. If I return evil for evil or insult for insult, however, I throw that blessing away and my misstep makes a glaring error in my own fabric. Giving a blessing is the best way to get back to that sweet spot.
Finish the finishing, please. I always have a pile of handwovens that need finishing. Don’t you? The finishing smorgasbord includes repairing skipped threads (unintentional floats), securing ends, fringe treatments, hemming, wet finishing, pressing, adding hanging tabs, embellishments, and more. You know you are finally finished when your handiwork is being used and enjoyed.
1. Twisted fringe on bamboo huck lace small tablecloth. This cloth covered an heirloom table, becoming the altar, at Melody’s wedding. (This short piece was at the end of the warp after weaving two shawls.) You can see the shawls HERE, and twisting the fringe HERE.
Twisted fringe gives an elegant finishing touch to this small huck lace table covering.
2. Added hanging tabs to handtowels. Installed Ikea rod with basket and hooks to hang handwoven handtowels in the powder room. (When you need tabs for towels, it helps to have a collection of inkle and band loombands.) You can see the most recent towels HERE – I kept one of the eight for myself; the rest became gifts.
Ikea basket and hooks hold assortment of handwoven towels for guests to use in the powder room.
3. Untangled the fringe of alpaca/tencel throw. (A wet finishing nightmare I don’t care to repeat.) You can see what it looked like before washing HERE.
Each strand of fringe was carefully separated one-by-one after leaving the alpaca/tencel throw in the washing machine a few minutes too long. Untangling took longer than tying the lattice fringe. Hours and hours.
4. Hand-stitched rolled hem on Swedish lace tablecloth. (I may use this as a curtain for my weaving studio window, hung on rings with clips, on a rod.) HERE are the long curtain panels that hang on windows in my home.
Swedish lace panel can be used as a tablecloth, or a curtain, or even a light, summery shawl. The hand-stitched rolled hem gives a delicate touch to this elegant piece.Swedish lace is shown to its best advantage when light is allowed to shine through the cloth. The pressed rolled hem adds a classy touch.
5. Hemmed small sample piece to carry around with me when I have a cup of coffee. (I grab this re-usable “scrap” instead of a paper napkin or paper towel. It also doubles as a coaster wherever I happen to sit down.) The original M’s and O’s towels are HERE; and HERE you can see what I mean about carrying my coffee cup around with me.
Scrap of handwoven fabric, from a cottolin warp of handtowels, follows my favorite coffee cup around.
6. Replaced nylon cord on handwoven Roman shades with a cord I wove on my band loom. (The “temporary” nylon cord stayed more than a year. We now enjoy seeing this on our kitchen door every day, finally fully finished.) The only place I have a picture of the original nylon cord, and of the fabric on the loom for the Roman shades is in my Projects on Weavolution HERE. (I’m not sure if you can see it without logging in to the site.)
Linen and cotton threads that match the handwoven Roman shades were used to weave the pull cord. Cord woven on Glimakra two-treadle band loom.Handwoven Roman shades finally have a matching pull cord. When the shades are lowered at night, the two-block twill structure is seen covering the whole kitchen door window. Woven on 8-shaft Glimakra Standard loom.Opening the shades to start the day and welcome you. Please come in!
May you reduce your finishing pile (I know you have one).
