Roving Rug III

Now very cleverly called the "Right Side of the Bed Rug" as the final use of this first attempt will be as beside rugs (probably a gift for the first set).  From basic ideas this has grown a little, and been shaped by the lucky acquisition of some blue carpet warp.

As this is Anne's first project it has been a case of walking through all the necessary calculations for warp length and width/ends per inch. Generally seems simple when you've done it a few times, but I suspect can be fairly daunting.  Of course then, I add a twist or two by suggesting this would look good with a merged stripe warp and plain white weft, but roving at half the ends per inch of the straight tabby.  So not 'quite' simple!!

Lots of calculations later we had all the measurements and started to wind the warp.

Tying off at every 12 ends!

 Everything would have been straight forward if it had have been three colours in stripes of an even number of ends.  Needless to say this wasn't quite the case.  The effect required, coupled with the width of the rug, and the wraps per inch/sett of the warp meant that the stripes (and their 'merging' areas) needed counting at a different rate to the sett for the eventual sleying of the reed.  AND I introduced winding the two colour merge areas together (a trial that seemed to work) so that really played havoc with the 'counting.'

The finished warp

 Anne prepared a very detailed chart (visible above) that said when to change to the 'merge' areas, change colour, and tie up each bundle of 12 warp yarns.  VERY easy to follow, and something I think will become a standard.

Close up of warp

As we have dinner guests tomorrow this may not get on the loom until next week, but it should look really good with plain white (Clun Forest, of course) wool weft - alternating stripes of roving then yarn.  I'm hoping we can beat it so that the warp does not show on the roving shots, but does (exposing the blue) on the tabby woven shots in between the roving.  Some experimenting to get all of that balanced will be required.