One neat trick – and a fly-shuttle mechanism

Starting with the "neat trick": over on Weavolution, Sally posted a trick to keep some order when weaving with several shuttles. Here it is – scroll down to the last picture.
As my warps often are wide enough to take several "idle" shuttles (and as I seldom bother about catching idle wefts... lazy, what more can I say?) , I seldom see idle shuttles as a problem.
But now – now I have the tail end of the honeycomb samples still on the loom (did I say lazy?) – and: the main reason for it still being there is that it is too narrow to handle the idle shuttles... So I adapted Sally’s idea (why didn’t I think of that, myself???) – here it is, not elegant, but functional:

(No, I don't use the fly-shuttle(s) for narrow warps; it doesn't work very well and is far more trouble than it is worth.)

(Then, on WeaveTech, we got this link to a short video, showing a very elegant and simple solution. Enjoy!)

There is also a discussion going on Weavolution on flying shuttles and mechanisms for "flying" them. I tried to photograph mine, but there isn’t enough space behind the loom to get it all in one picture. (And, yes, there is way too much in the background to make a "good picture" - .)
Mine is a side-pull, which means you flick the handle to the right to propel the shuttle to the right, and vice versa. (With the center-pull mechanism, pictured on the Weavo thread above, you flick the handle downwards to propel both pickers at the same time.)
So: here is the left-hand side of the loom:

The right side (couldn’t get high enough contrast, so the cords are sort-of-highlighted)

A detail from the right-hand side:

My loom* has an overhead beater – the top arrow points at the beater sword(?) – the bottom arrow points to the picker. There is no stop at the outside end of the box – the cord is short enough to stop the picker from falling out.

When I mount the double-box next time, I will take pictures of that, too.

* My loom is an AVL PDL - an older cousin to this one.

Finished honeycomb samples

I wove the three samples from here – that is, I omitted the one that would result in two separate layers.

This is what they look like, unfinished (scanned):

the original Maja draft (and a correction to last post – it calls for *22* ends per centimetre, which is why a doubled warp means 44 epcm).

the double-sided, with just one "cell" weft.

and the third, which has 2 cell wefts, the layers being connected by the outlines.

We abused them as best we could – hot water, vigorous washing, more hot water, wringing, drying in dryer… the lot.
Nothing very exciting happened… here they are, finished and scanned:

reacted as predicted. Obviously the widths of the cells (warpwise) are important, as is the depth (number of picks). Comparing the results to some old-ish pieces I have met, I can see that, if the cells are small enough, there is no need for the thicker outline weft.

did not really develop any “cells” (also more or less as predicted). However, if we adopt the old name “bed cover weave”, I would say this is better than the original. After all, it has a serviceable wrong side.

was more of a disappointment to me. I had thought there would be more distortions - . Perhaps “longer”cells (more picks) would have made a difference? Longer cells would have meant more space for the floats (but would of course have generated more floating yarns, too).

Will I ever try the more complex (and even thinner) Hulda Peter’s honeycomb? No, probably not... Would I try a double-sided with somewhat thicker yarn? Well – perhaps it would make a sturdy draft-breaking door drapery - which could be made in several other more interesting structures, instead...

First honeycomb samples

So I took up Laura’s challenge to bring woven samples when I visit - .

The original Maja draft looks like this:

It calls for cotton 30/2 set at 22 ends per centimeter.

As I wanted to experiment with giving it a useable reverse side, I needed a “back” warp, which meant I had to have 44 ends per cm. (That means 44 x 2,5 = 110 ends per inch, so my american readers don’t have to convert... :-)

I wound some 800 ends (lost count somewhere after 825) to the shortest warp I dared put on the AVL – 2,5 meters, about.

Threading was ok, sort of. I made several widths of cells, from Maja’s 10 and 4, to max 40 and 40, to see if/how the width would influence the results. I ignored the selvages.
Then came the sleying... After some thinking, I decided to sley 9 ends per dent in a 50/10 (metric) reed, which would give me 45 ends per cm. With the odd number, it meant I have an average of 22,25 epcm and “layer”.

It turned out I made two sleying mistakes, but I solved them the alexandrian way: I just cut out 9 ends at each place. (It is a sample, after all, so it doesn’t really matter.)

Then I started weaving. Too soft tension. After several tries I had a tension so I almost couldn’t advance the warp, but I really would have liked i higher. (At least it is my experience that very tight cloth requires very high tension.)
It turned out I had made a couple of silly mistakes when converting the draft to dobby, but after some corrections I had it right.

The red portion is the “simple cloth” (ie the extra warp floats at the back).
Then I switched to blue weft and the double-sided (one-weft) version.

As I was very curious about how the back looked, I just pointed the camera to the underside...:

Of course, with wet finishing it may yet come out ok!

Having a backing warp also took care of the selvages – at least at the left side. Had I used two shuttles for the outlining weft I would have had two nice selvages (I think).

(Yes it is blurry)

This is the weaving draft for the double-sided – rotated to “fool” the image-viewer:

(Laura, shall I bring them unfinished? Then we both can share the excitement... or the disappointment, of course)

Playing with software

How did we ever manage to experiment with strange ("new") structures before there was weaving software?
The answer (true for me, anyway) is: we didn't. Or, at least, I did not do it often – or, at even lesser (probably nor correct English, but you get my drift, I hope!) I did not often experiment with several layers.

This began with Maja, again. Her honeycomb isn't very interesting, except the quality: she used cotton 30/2 for warp anf weft, doubled for the outlines. (Ok, 30/2 doubled is double the thickness, but in most examples I've seen the difference has been a lot bigger than that.)

I have never woven honeycomb. One of the reasons is that I don't like structures with a so very obvious "wrong side". So I started to speculate... what if?
What if I tried to make a "back" – would I still get the weft distorsions?

This is the original draft

First, I tried with making the cell weft make cells on the back where it would have floated (back side to the left, right side to the right):

Only one cell weft, binding either on the right side or on the wrong. I decided I would have to use double outline picks (two each side), or the outlines would never distort. (As usual, the colours are there to make the draft more readable. You may not agree, but I find it easier, anyway.

Then I thougt that perhaps the non-floating weft would prevent the distorstions. New try:

Hm. This will make two separate layers (I think). If I wished two separate layers, I could as easily sew them together.

Another try:

Here the cells occur at the same place in both layers. Both warps, and both wefts float at the same time. To make the layers connect, I used only one outline weft, picking up one end from each layer.

Dear readers, especially those of you who have woven this structure: what do you think of my chances? Will any of these drafts give me distorted weft (except the original)?

And what did they do for the selvages – were they just hemmed? As I have shafts available, I think I will try to get a small selvage. Maybe some basket weave?

Hålkrus?

Evelyn posted a question over at Weavolution. She asked how to treadle pattern no 44 (Hålkrus) in Vävbok by Hulda Peters.

The book in question is but one of many - in the early 1900s there were several small books containing "simple" (or perhaps "traditional"?) weaving patterns. They were often thin pamphlets (the Peters book is, in fact, unusually thick - all of 96 pages), often claiming they are describing "local" weaves.
This, I suspect, was the time when Daldräll ("overshot") was associated with Dalarna, when Jämtlandsdräll became "typical" of Jämtland, when Gagnefkrus was attributed to Gagnef, Östgötadräll to Östergötland, Rovadräll to Rova... and Smålandsväv to Småland.

Peters is, at the time, manager of the local Craft society shop in Skara. She is quite unique in that not one of her threadings has a geographical name.
She is also unique in that she does not give any treadlings... The detailed threadings are there, the tie-ups are there, and occasionally she gives some off-hand treadling instruction ("treadled back-and-forth").

The hålkrus, #44, has the threding and the tie-up. It also has a picture - (click to biggify):

As hålkrus usually has well-defined "holes", it is easy to doubt the name. Or, at least, to be confused...

(This picture from the book Varp och inslag, ISBN 91-27-35226-9.)

As I don't like to be confused, I did some research. It resulted in a new article on my web site - read it here.

I also wanted to know what you called it in English, I tried googling.
At handweaving.net I found an excerpt from Master weaver from 1954, titled "Hålkrus, or Gagnefkrus, or Spetsväv, or Lacey Weave, or Honeycomb". It says: " Strangely enough this weave with so many names, has none in English. In colonial times it has been called Honey Comb. Since then however the industrial weaving adopted Honeycomb as a synonym of Waffle. So if we want to call Hålkrus by the name of honeycomb, we must add Colonial, or nobody will know what we are talking about."
So, I googled honeycomb +weave - and, sure enough - most hits I got depicted what I would call waffle - this (scroll down a bit), and this - in fact, there are several waffles on this site, all labelled honeycomb.

Conclusion: the more you know, the more you know that you don't know...

(Please, can I have all possible names for the technique? Don't mind the language!)