How can I live without floating selvedges?

was a question on a forum last week.

Easily, is the fastest answer. I had been weaving for 20+ years before I even heard about such animals... (and I confess: have not tried FS, not even once, since I heard about them. And, since it is confession time: once in a while I have been known to make an extra turn around the outer end - but I had done that for the 20+ years of weaving before I heard about FS, so I don't know if that counts)

So, how?

Here are some answers:
1. see what happens. IF an end doesn't get caught, ignore it.
2. IF an end doesn't get caught, and it annoys me (probably not, but anyway) - try starting the weft from the other side.
3. think about them before weaving (see below)

The thinking gets easier with written-out structure (binding) diagrams.

Like this: let us assume a 2/2 twill, thus 4 shafts. There are four possible permutations for the tie-up(s). Likewise, there are two possible ways (directions) for threading (/// or \\\). For treadlings there are, again, four possibilities: /// and \\\, but also if we treadle from the top down ("American way") or from the bottom up ("Swedish way").

Here goes: first diagram. The colours in the wefts are put there to distinguish between right-to-left and left-to-right (in reality they are the same colour, as this is a single-shuttle weave)

Going clockwise from upper right: treadling from top to bottom, from right to left (means the red wefts go from right to left): both outer ends get caught. Treadling from bottom to top (means the yellow wefts go from right to left): both outer ends get caught.
However: if one shifts the shuttling direction, both outer ends become un-bound.

Next quadrant (bottom right): exactly the same applies - shuttling from right to left both outer ends get caught. If switching shuttling direction, both outer ends get not-caught.

The two left-hand quadrants work the opposite: if shuttling from right to left, both outer ends get un-caught - reversing the shuttling direction lets the outer ends get caught.
(As I always want to start from the right, I crossed out the two left-hand quadrants)

Diagram 2 - the tie-up is shifted one step up.
As I always want to start from the right, I crossed out the two right-hand quadrants because the outer ends will be un-caught.

Diagram 3 - the tie-up shifted yet one step up.
As I always want to start from the right... the two left-hand quadrants are crossed out.

Diagram 4 - the last permutation in the tie-up.
As I always (etc)... the two right-hand quadrants are crossed out.

Of course, all of the crossed-out quadrants can be fixed by either:
- starting the shuttling from left to right
- OR (still shuttling my fave direction) by adding or subtracting one end each side.


OK, I hear you: BUT what about a more complicated binding (structure)?

This is a random structure that I found on handweaving.net:

As I always prefer to start from the right, AND (being Swedish) read the treadling from the bottom up: here the turquoise picks go from right to left.
With this threading, tie-up and treadlings there will be some un-caught outer ends. If I haven't made a mistake (or two...) the longest selvedge float will be seven picks.

Is seven picks too much?

Well - for a, say, rug (or other coarse weave): yes, definitely.
But for something woven at some 30-40-50 ends/picks per inch? Being metric, I don't much care for "inching", but a free end at the selvedge being 1/2 to 3/4 of a centimetre is nothing much to me.
(It, of course, also depends on the end use of the cloth: if it is to be cut and sewn, the selvedges do not matter at all (coarse cloth or not).)

So, adding to the three "answers" above:
1. see what happens. IF an end doesn't get caught, ignore it.
2. IF an end doesn't get caught, and it annoys me (probably not, but anyway) - try starting the weft from the other side.
3. think about them before weaving (see above)
4. what is the fabric meant to be used for? IF for cutting and sewing, then selvedges usually are of no importance
5. what are the actual lengths of the "free" selvedge threads? Is it likely to catch?
6. (if I am hand-throwing: maybe catch the selvedge "manually" now and again - at the "points" of the top treadling)

This, my friends, is how I live without floating selvedges!

(Re point treadlings, see this post , which mainly is about making a "clean cut" when changing treadling direction.)

Tablecloth for x-mas?

It has been a long time - I have tried to get this blog going again, but haven't had anything interesting to share... because I have buried myself in something entirely different (but maybe equally nerdy), namely how industrial glass etching was done at the turn of the last century. (Everything about that adventure at another blog, which is only in Swedish. And, because of many specialized words, I don't dare put a translator on it...)

Anyway. Remember this? I visited the same place today, and saw a tablecloth:

(warp runs right-to-left in the above picture)

I took some pictures, which unfortunately did not come out quite focussed. (Have a new camera, too - it likes to do things on its own, and I haven't been able to tame it yet.)
Here is one not too blurry closeup of the actual cloth (warp top-to-bottom):

Cotton in white and red, turned satin (more than 5-end, I think), and too many blocks (at least five, maybe 6).

This is not quite right, proportions are somewhat off, border very much cropped. I used a light yellow for the white weft, and an orangey red for the red weft.
Here is the five-block version:

Revised to make four blocks only:

With four blocks and changing the satin to 4-end twill, it can be woven on 16 shafts. (How to do that? One way is described in an article on my website, here - for Swedish, here.

(Of course this profile can be made into something completely different... daldräll, some lace... )

Facings

It turned out I had beginner's luck with the first band... but now (after some picking-out, new try, more picking-out) all the bands are in place. Also, all the facings are in place.
(Are they still called "facings" if they go all the way around the neck?)

Decoration

(No, this is not the total "decor")

Taking shape

Wheels from the same family?

When first I moved down here (which is by now more than 18 years ago - how time flies!) I didn't want any more spinning wheels. I had two antiques, they are both good to spin on, and besides, I was weaving more than I was spinning.

Then we started to frequent the local auction house. I didn't actively bid on any spinning wheels, but they started to come my way all the same: "this one didn't sell, can't you take it?"
At some point, I started noticing all these wheels that obviously came from the same maker/workshop - they have a distinctive shape to the screw handle, the treadle is of a shape I've not seen on any other wheel, and they have a "waist" on the table, with a little punched ornament right at the narrowest part. I started to ask around - did anybody perhaps know where they came from? (They do not have a "normal" maker's mark - the ornament could be seen as a mark, I suppose, but I have seen at least 3 different.) No answers for the longest time - .
Some years later, it happens I now own two of them. The two are of very different sizes, with different ornaments, but obviously from the same workshop:

(I do have the flyers, and the bottom of the distaff for the pink one too) And even though they are quite different in sizes, they are unmistakeably from the same workshop - .

And then, quite by mistake, I found that the world-famous maker of wood floors, Kährs in Nybro, like to tell a little story: the founder started out as a maker of spinning wheels (branched out into furniture... "and the rest is history").
So I contacted them, wondering if it was perhaps their wheels I had (and was seeing all around). Disappointment: they do not have an "archived" one, they have no records of the number manufactured etc etc. But they did have a photo, often used in their marketing. (The photo is the top one in this post)
Disappointment again - nothing at all like my waisted ladies.
(The same museum that houses the abovementioned wheel, also has a black waisted wheel with the right screw shape, ornament, maidens...)

UNTIL: the other local museum in Nybro (yes, two historical societies, in a town with about 12 000 inhabitants) has opened an industrial exhibition: industry in Nybro from "then" (end of the 1700s) to now. And they have a waisted spinning wheel, ornaments, maidens... purportedly from Kährs. The museum guide, when asked, said their wheel is "the fancy model". Does he really know? - I don't know how to get further with this research, but the waisted wheels really are quite common hereabouts.

First an overview of the black lady:

Some comparisons of details:

(the inset is of the black maidens, both broken at the tops)

My two and the black one have the arched double uprights (braced to the back leg); the one in Qvarnaslät (of which I don't have a good pic) has a single upright, braced to the back leg. As has this (picture ganked from a for sale ad)

All of them have the same finials, the same treadle shape...
But where are they from? Are they, as the museum guide said, the "fancy" model from Kährs?

...and I have seen at least 4 more of this waisted model, but can't remember if they had single or double uprights. But I do remember that I have seen my "flower" ornament on other wheels.

Too many hats

Where has summer gone? And what have I been doing?

I have had too many hats, and only one head, that's what.

We are trying to organize a fibre-optic net locally (this is what living in the boondocks means - having to "fix" whatever we want ourselves... sometimes it is ok, sometimes less so);
we (a slightly different "we") are trying to organize a small museum for glass, not exactly technology, but showing old-ish machines, such as a manual press, a pantograph and... (read more here, only in Swedish);
I have been working on a couple of web sites - and I have had big problems with my web access (up/downloads of files bigger than a couple of k tended to die).

I have also washed my old kilim rug. To do this I had to invent a drying rack, as this (like all rugs) get very heavy when wet. My contraption may not work for wider rugs, but here it is, anyway:

take two ladders and some string, tie them together along the long edges (short strings on top, longer at the bottom), add one or more pieces of gutter upside down:

Next will be a stint of sewing, and, perhaps, more blogging.