calculate – Warped for Good

Grace at the Loom

February 2, 2021January 31, 2021 Karen

The blue threads for this project are delightful! Four shades of blue, from pale blue to sapphire, play across the warp, accented with navy blue stripes. Lucious 8/2 cotton is threaded in eight-shaft twill. The hand of the fabric will be well suited for the chair arm- and headrest- covers I have planned. This blue color sequence is the winning combination from the thread wrappings I showed you in October. (See Warp Sequence Planning.)

Threading heddles for 8-shaft twill. — Project notes sit with me on the loom bench.

Beautiful blue Bockens 8/2 cotton! — Beautiful warp beam gives a glimpse of how the blue flows together.

My warp planning had a calculation error. I went on my merry way, winding the warp, beaming the warp, and threading the heddles. Until, …Surprise! I have three extra ends left after all the heddles are threaded. Fortunately, there is grace at the loom. I pull the navy blue border threads and three light blue threads out of their heddles and re-thread the navy blue border stripe. The three light blue ends will hang off the back, unused. All is well.

Warp color sequence - blue, blue, blue, blue! — Three light blue ends sit on top of the lease stick tied to the back beam. These extra warp threads will hang off the back and stay out of the way of the warp being woven.

Grace is like that. We mess up, find and admit our wrong, and the Lord Jesus forgives, granting us a new start. When we are wrong we need grace. What about when others are wrong? When the errors of others affect us, what shall we do? Forgiveness is our only option. There is no good reason to hold those error threads and weave them into our fabric.

May you be a recipient of grace.

Your friend,
Karen

Tried and True: Designing Handwoven Towels

February 25, 2020February 24, 2020 Karen

How do you come up with a design for standout hand towels? Sometimes it’s nice to start with someone else’s ideas. There is a gorgeous wool throw, designed by Anna Svenstedt, in Favorite Scandinavian Projects To Weave: 45 Stylish Designs for the Modern Home, by Tina Ignell. This Colorful Throw—Reverse Twill makes a perfect template for designing eye-catching hand towels.

New handwoven towels. — Warp chains with seven colors of 22/2 cottolin for standout hand towels.

Decisions:

Colors – a set of seven colors, to be used in warp and weft
Fiber – 22/2 cottolin for warp and weft
Reed and sett – 50/10 metric reed, 10 ends per centimeter (~ 12-dent reed, 24 ends per inch)
Finished size of towel – 39.5 cm x 63 cm (15.5” x 24.5”)
Number of towels – 2 pairs of towels = 4 total
Spacing of warp stripes – add two more narrow stripes at each selvedge to balance the pattern

These decisions enable me to prepare a project plan, make calculations, and write a new weaving draft.

When the loom is dressed, the design process continues as I begin weaving a sample section. This is where I decide what weft colors to use, the spacing of weft stripes, and specific treadling patterns. I add these notes to my project sheet, which I keep at the loom as my weaving roadmap.

Measuring for weft stripes. — I place my measuring twill tape along the reed to mark the spacing of the warp stripes. I will use that same spacing for weft stripes to make plaid towels.

Testing colors and patterns. — Sample weaving to try out colors, stripe spacing, and treadling patterns. And, simply to practice this broken reverse twill treadling, which requires concentration.

First towel starts after the red cutting line.

These hand towels are a preview. If they turn out as hoped, I may have to make some bath towels to match.

May your designs stand out.

Happy Weaving,
Karen

Process Review: Drawloom Jewels

September 24, 2019September 23, 2019 Karen

It is exciting when Maverick walks by. Although he never comes in my drawloom studio, he does stop for a moment to look my way. You’ll see him in the slideshow video below. But what happens inside the studio is even more exciting, especially when it’s time for cutting off!

Drawloom with 16 pattern shafts. — Drawloom, set up with sixteen pattern shafts. I graph out the designs in Excel on my computer. Then, I print out the gridded pattern to use at the loom. I keep my place in the pattern with a magnet and magnet board made for cross-stitch embroidery.

This is Tuna wool, so I expect some shrinkage, but how much? I take careful measurements before and after wet finishing. Besides the main piece of fabric that I’m using for a garment, I have two sample pieces. I can experiment with the samples before wet finishing my garment fabric.

Here are my findings:
Sample 1. Hand wash and air dry.

10% shrinkage in width; 13% shrinkage in length.

Sample 2. Machine wash (3 minutes agitation on a gentle cycle, with a short spin) and machine dry (low setting) till damp, finish with air drying.

13% shrinkage in width; 14% shrinkage in length.

~How to do the shrinkage calculations~
First measurement (on the loom) minus the second measurement (after washing and drying) equals the difference. The difference divided by the first measurement equals the percentage difference.
For example, 50 cm – 43.5 cm = 6.5; 6.5 / 50 = 0.13; 13% shrinkage.

The first sample fabric is softer than the unwashed fabric, but not as soft as I’d like. The second sample fabric is beautifully soft, like a nice warm sweater. So, with confidence, I wet finish the garment fabric—with great results. It’s perfect for the fall/winter vest that I’ll soon be wearing, made from this fabric!

Wool garment fabric from a drawloom. — Like a sweater, this soft fabric will be comfortable to wear.

Making a pattern for handwoven garment fabric. — Muslin pattern for a simple vest. First, I’ll make a vest out of a wool throw, woven on my rigid heddle loom ages ago. Then, I will cut into the new drawloom fabric, with confidence about the fit.

Enjoy this photo show of the drawloom process.

May you enjoy the process you’re in.

Happy Weaving,
Karen

Tools Day: These 6 Apps Are Great for Weavers!

November 12, 2013November 11, 2013 Karen

I love mixing new technology with the old, passed-down tradition of handweaving. My iPhone has become a regular accessory in my daily routines. Since my iPhone is usually in my back pocket, the ease of using apps as weaving tools makes a lot of sense. (These apps are useful, even if you are not a weaver.)

Here are my favorite apps for weaving and how I use them:

Things gives me a simple way to organize my daily activities and responsibilities. I especially like the way I can break down a weaving project into parts or steps.

Kitchen Calculator makes conversions between metric and imperial units super easy. I use it to convert weight units and length units of thread and yarn.

WolframAlpha is my go-to app for more complicated calculations, such as when I want to convert two numbers in an equation. Some websites list yarn in grams/yards, which makes no sense to me. This app does the heavy-lifting math so my brain can save itself for more creative work.

My Library keeps a list of all the books in my weaving library. This certainly helps keep me from duplicating purchases. The books are organized by category in the app, so I have them arranged the same way on my bookshelf, making it easy to find a particular book.

OfficeTime – Time and Expense Tracking makes it easy to track the time for every phase of a weaving project. I can also set a dollar amount per hour, so I can see the cost of labor at a glance.

Google Translate helps me make sense of my stack of Swedish weaving books. I type Swedish words and it translates back to me in English. Usually the translation is not quite right, but close enough that I can understand what it means.

Have you found apps that are useful for weaving? Please tell about them in the comments!

May you reach a new level of efficiency that makes room for even more creativity.

Thankful,
Karen