Triple layers - variation for easier weaving

Yesterday I stopped before doing what I always do: rearranging the treadling for easiest actual weaving:

Unless I have very fat yarns in my double (in this case triple) cloth, I try to arrange the treadling so that I can do two picks per shuttle (layer).
It is so much faster to do two picks before having to change shuttles...

(Yes, it shows in the end product:

These are two not quite focussed pictures of double-layer shawls.
They are approximately 2 x life size, and has the ends one-by-one and the picks two-by-two.
The warps are a combination of cottons, 16/2, 20/2, 22/2 and maybe a few 30/2.
The wefts are of course only one quality per shuttle, but I don't remember which grist. The sett was probably somewhere about 10 ends/cm (25 epi).

And no, I haven't tried it for three layers.)

So: here is what I would do before sitting down to actually weave.

First: use the existing tieup, but rearrange the colour sequence.

Next: rearrange the new treadling to straight:

As I weave from bottom to top, and have an overhead beater, this is the treadling I would use, namely start in the bottom layer, working up to the top layer, as seen in the widest section of the warp.
(Yes, on the loom there will be "gaps" where the layers change. I have never seen these gaps after wet finishing - see pictures above.)

Hm.
Remembering one of my doodlings from yesterday (which did not reach publication) - another way of making more-than-two-different narrow stripes - a shift in the warp sequence can accomplish that:

Of course it depends on the actual colours used etc etc, but something to consider, perhaps?

(s)pooling?

Some random weftovers:

Some waiting to become cloth:

Making the next batch:

I like to make three at a time, making them when the fourth quill is begun, and a new treadling sequence is about to begin (with the reed adjusted and the warp advanced, of course).

... this warp is taking forever... but maybe it doesn't help that I do lots of "whatever takes me away from the loom"?

How many ways to mis-count to five?

1-2-3-4-5; 2-3-4-5-6; stand up, adjust reed; 3-4-5-6..., yes, and 7; um - 4-5-6-7-8; stand up, adjust reed...

No, I couldn't count using the treadle number. Instead, etch the "endings" into the brain and just count to five:
1-2-3-4-5; start on 2 - 1-2-3-4-5 (2 treadles left); stand up, adjust reed; (2 left, therefore start on 3) 1-2-3-4-5 (1 left); go 4 treadles back - 1-2-3-4-5 (ends on 8); stand up, adjust reed; start 4 treadles from left 1-2-3-4 and back to treadle 1; start 3 from left 1-2-3 (over to treadle 1) 4-5; stand up, adjust reed; two in, therefore start on 2 from left 1-2 (back to treadle 1) 3-4-5; last treadle 1, back to treadle 1, 2-3-4-5. One repeat done. Stand up, adjust reed. Let off 3 or 4 notches on back beam, tighten cloth beam.
Start over.

This way I know that I always am "good to go" for next 40 picks.

If I have to stop somewhere in the middle, I always mark my place (marking the last pick done with the cursor), before I do whatever is needed. (I have far too many warp breaks on this.)

When I am leaving the weaving, I always write in which way I moved the reed last, 'cos sometimes it can be difficult to see: had I just done the uppermost position, therefore moved peg downwards, or was I still on my way "up", for instance.

The tension is also interesting: it varies with the position of the reed. The part of the warp being spread out always feels too loose, even in the middle of the warp. This also means that the fell line is always wavy:

and the cloth has bumps:

I am now at about one-and-a-half metre - I think I beamed 4 metres and some. I hope I get enough useable fabric for a shirt and something more...

(Some of you might wonder why I am not using the AVL. The reason is that I don't want to construct a new beater...)

Another V

For reasons to be revealed later in this post, I needed another smallish V shawl. (Given the size it perhaps should be called scarf?)

This one should be wool, and threaded to a point.
As usual, I wanted to use more colours than one, and I wanted to warp with four ends.

Being lazy, I looked at the yarns in the loom room (the rest are downstairs...) and found two nuances of turquoise. To add someting more, I also picked some green (the same nuance, this time).

So I warped with four ends – two of each nuance, added two stripes of green.
This means each warp loop holds 8 ends (4 “coming” and 4 “going”), which means the pre-sleying (using the reed I was going to weave with) was done with one loop in every other dent:
(remember that all pictures can be clicked for a bigger version)

The two nuances do not show in the pictures taken with flash. The next photo is not in focus, but the colours are more true.

I threaded the colours so that each layer had it’s own nuance. For the outer stripes, I reversed the colours. (As you can see from the picture above, this means that the ends withing each group of four can be "twisted" – but as four ends represent 1/4 of a cm, it is impossible even to see that "twist".) I then wove with the "opposite" nuance, making the body of the scarf "solid coloured", that colour consisting of both nuances.

The trick to weave double layers is that all the sheds have to be clear – here are two of them:

When you come to the joining/shaping, you have to cut the whole loop. In this instance, the cut loop gave me 8 loose ends. To cope with that, I first take all ends over the shafts and hold them with my left hand (I do the join from the right).
After opening the shed, I can tension the loose ends to make the shed clear.

The trick to get a good join is to make sure there is no draw-in.

As the web gets narrower, it is all too easy to beat too hard. Also, the tension easily gets tighter. So: make sure the tension does not get too tight (let it off some), and be very careful with the beat. The narrower it gets, the hardet it is to get the weft tension correct. But: it is always better to have loops at the join than to have draw-in.
The last few ends are almost impossible to weave with any kind of "correct" anything, but that can be fixed after it is cut off.

After having adjusted most of the irregularities, it looked like this:

Some plain-weave joins within reach of the camera:

A double-weave join can be seen here, the third picture down.

After wet finishing and pressing, parading on the steps on Spinnhuset:

Now this one, together with the tencel one, is on the way to Handweavers in London (UK), to promote/illustrate the V-book (also on the way to London).

The book (in English) can also be bought from Laura Fry (click on "store", then "Weave a V"). I have them too, both in Swedish and in English.

History looming...

A few pictures - Masson mill, near Matlock, founded by Richard Arkwright

In the weave shed, one whole wall was filled with saved threadings:

And who knows how old this sign is?

(I really, really need to learn the weaver's knot. Or maybe not?)

To show that we have some other interests, we are overnighting in Haworth (of Brontë fame). But I see more textiles in our near future...

Organized!

No more pawing around among the gown patterns:

Now that I have (yikes!) six different gown patterns, I decided it was time to make a "foolproof" organization. I made copies of such pattern pieces that are used in more than one, put one complete pattern, including a printout of the how-to description, fabric samples, best lay-out for production... in one bag and hung them over the guest bed in the studio.

Two more bags to prepare ('cos one of the gowns will never be produced again).

(And now you know where I buy my food, too :-)

And… they’re OOOFFFF!

(is what the, hm, what’s-it-called? "speaker"? yells when the racehorses jumps out of the starting gates)

Two of these are now in the mail.

For me it remains to write up all the details, including what I learned about "appliqué-ing" velvet onto a flat surface.
And perhaps present it to my pals in the Burgon Society, to get (informed) critique...

Oh – and here is a link to a video showing a couple of the velvet gowns on stage (opens in new window, as usual).

Another detail

This is a sleeve decoration, in place. (The not-yet-attached lining is just hanging inside)

This model, like every "new" one, has caused several procedure reflections. For the velvet gowns one problen was to attach the (flat) silk to the velvet. Here it was the opposite: how to attach the velvet to the (flat) worsted. The pile of the velvet tended to make the worsted pucker.

One can go any lengths towards perfection, but for several reasons there have to be compromizes – time is limited, and time is also money.
After some (false) starts I had found a "good enough" way to attach the velvet facings. (The cording helped, too)
Now, to attach the sleeve decorations was another thing... but I think I have found a way.

There is velvet

and then there is velvet...

Some time ago I wrote "when sewing velvet, there is no such thing as too many pins, or too much basting".
Little did I know.
In fact, I was Very Lucky with that velvet...

Now, this velvet... gets marked by pins, by basting, by tracing the pattern pieces...
Hand sewing is underrated anyway, right?
(Front piece just pinned to the dummy, which has a... Prominent Colour)

And a free tip: for ages and ages I have used these nuts to weigh down the paper pattern pieces (or whatever needs to be weighed down). Some time ago, I found one can buy special weights to use for this - and they are quite a bit pricier than are nuts from the hardware store...

To paddle or not to paddle?

Why, I have been asked, do I not use a paddle when warping with multiple ends?

The question came as a comment to this post – and the shortest possible answer is: but I did – only the "paddle" took the form of a reed.

One longer answer is: because I often use several colours/nuances, and rarely want a 1/1 lease because that would prevent a "random" colour placement.
Examples of "random" colour threadings (and the results) are:

On the occasions I do want a "perfect" colour order and the ends are of similar value (and thus can be difficult to see when threading) I do make a 1/1 lease – but as these colour orders often do not repeat, I haven’t found a way to make the paddle work: once the ends are in the paddle, they have their set place... Also, my favourite method for making colour transitions is based on Pascal’s triangle, which means I need to change the number of ends I warp with all the time. The system is described in an article on my website – here.

Some examples:

Detail from side panel:

Another one:

Detail, approximately bottom left corner:

I have seldom had problems with bigger leases, probably because my loom(s) are quite long, and because I seldom use very fine threads. (Most of what I weave is cotton 30/2 and coarser, and my favourite wool is approx 10000 m/kg, or something over 5000 ypp.) Maybe I would find out the need for a 1/1 lease if I ever could get my hands on some real angel hair... :-)

Seafaring and the importance of weaving

Nearly every time I say something like that, at least one person laughs and objects. Weaving – important for ships??? Oh, come off it, you weavers always want to show off.

Well.
The first "boats" were probably raft-like: timbers lashed together by... ropes, perhaps?
Some time later, so called "sails" were invented. And sails are... woven, right?

Sailing ships were around for a long time – according to Wikipedia from about 3200 BC, until the birth of the steam-driven ships (Wikipedia, again: [...]France, by 1774 [...]working steamboat with rotating paddles [...]sailed [...] 1776, apparently the first steamship to sail successfully.)
Several of the sailing ships had rather large sails.
It is believed that Santa Maria, Columbus’ flag ship, had a sail area of around 350 square metres – and the biggest ever sailing ship (Preussen, built in 1902) sported 4650 square metres of sails. (Even with a weaving width of 2 metres, that means a roll of 2325 m, or more that 2500 yds, of sailcloth.)

I think I have made my point: before there could be sailing ships, both spinning and weaving must have been invented...

On a trip to Karlskrona, I saw some examples of "fibre arts" pertaining to sea-faring:

The sloops were built between 1830 and 1860, and are now used for (small, but still…) regattas every Thursday during summers. Read more here.

In the museum I saw some more "fibre arts"

Jarramas is one of the world’s smalles full-riggers:

To complete this post: a rather big "water spout"