Wabash Weavers' Guild Meeting

Today's Wabash Weavers meeting included a "weaving/fiber garage sale". I sold many cones of acrylic yarn and purchased two wooden boat shuttles.

The long, dark wood shuttle I purchased because--well, because it was long. Those are approximately 6" bobbins with it. My red LeClerc shuttle that uses 4" bobbins is at the bottom of the photo for size comparison. I think the long shuttle will be great for multi-bobbin weaving as well as for projects that will use a lot of weft!



The middle shuttle I purchased because it is pretty. (Isn't that terrible! :) It looks like it will take the same 4" bobbins my LeClerc shuttles use, but the two colors of wood were just too pretty to pass!











Our guild has been doing a towel exchange for the last couple of years. These are the two I drew this year! Aren't they beautiful!?


The white M's and W's is stunning. I do not know how to use this beautiful piece. If I use it like my regular handwoven towels it's bound to get dirty, but it's too beautiful to just put away. I don't know what to do, but I love it!





The blue towel is huck lace and I know this one will get regular use! It's just right to join the ranks of my other towels from the last few years!

Walking Weaving

My fabric seems to be walking to the right on my front apron beam.



See that stack of selvages showing in the top photo? It's not draw-in...the fabric seems to be winding on to the beam in a spiral.












The right edge of the fabric is loose enough that I can stick the tip of my finger under the selvage that shows.

WHY?

What would make fabric wind onto the front apron beam irregularly like this?

--This is on a Baby Wolf loom. I did notice that the right side of the loom was loose (lifting screw not tight) and tightened it early in the weaving.

--The fabric is weaving beautifully and I'm almost finished (100/140 inches woven). Is my tension about to go all crazy because I discovered this?

--I am using my make-shift "paper-clips-on-weighted-strings" temples on this piece (Woolgatherer's weighted temple plans). They are evenly weighted, but the strings are different lengths. Am I inadvertently pulling the fabric to one side with my temples?

???

Warping Woes

I was taught to warp from front to back, but have found that it is easier to thread the heddles on my Schacht Baby Wolf if I sit at the front of the loom.

So, I am trying to figure out how to warp from back to front. In theory, it is pretty straight forward. In practice, I haven't gotten it right yet!

This warp was one of the worst ones that I have done. I wanted to maintain the warp cross, so I put the other end (just a loop) of the warp chain on a rod and lashed it to the back beam. I spread the warp in my raddle, and wound it onto the back beam. When I got to the end of the warp (with the cross) I discovered that I had a mess! The cross was still there, but the thread order as wound on the back beam did not match the thread order of the cross!



I think I'm still missing something! I need to go back and read two or three different references on how to warp from back to front before I do this again. I think the problem is that I "think" I know what I'm doing....and so I'm not doing something right! I'll get it sorted out eventually!

The warp is weaving beautifully--there is something wonderful about plain cloth! This is a 15" wide plain weave piece to complement a brown & white piece I wove earlier this year.

Frogged Mittens

I used to knit regularly and I thought that I remembered how to knit mittens. The mitten on the right looks ok from the backside, but it was too narrow across the hand and the thumb opening was huge!!

I admitted defeat with the mittens and got out a knitting book, made some calculations and started again--this time with a pattern and a decorative stitch. That's the mitten on the left. I like the decorative stitch, I really do, but it doesn't show the colors of the yarn very well.

Both of these mittens got ripped out or frogged and I started again. I got the body of the new mitten (knit with a pattern, but no decorative stitch) done and had my daughter try it on for size.

The first words out of her mouth were, "Mom, it's itchy".

Argh!

At which point I gave up knitting these mittens for her, and found some scraps of polar fleece and made this bright pair of non-itchy mittens:


Hooray for non-itchy fabrics!