Marathon completed

A later start today (7:30) and 5 placemats completed.  The warp was 'just' enough for the last one - although I'll note for future that with a non-elastic warp you can't really push the loom waste.  As the warp gets shorter all minor variations in tension start really showing up, luckily, I think, I was able to squeeze the last out of this one.

In what is now a tradition (or does it have to happen three times) - at the end of weaving I was presented with a glass of wine.  I could, of course, now start a whole series of very short projects to earn more wine - but probably not!

Rachel presented me with a glass of wine at 'the end'

The Colours of Ireland Placemats (CoIP) have hand coloured weft stripes based on a picture painted by Connell Byrne (http://www.pbase.com/connellart) after he took a trip to Ireland a few years back.  The photo shows a copy of the painting with the stripe, and also noting this was one of two 'alternative' woven patterns I tried - by reversing the start directions a different pattern appears.

Colours of Ireland origin

So all up there are 15 placemats - I had planned 14 (6 plus 4 plus 4) and a small sample.  The weaving today went fairly smoothly - no broken warp threads and even the selvedges behaved.  I went faster today - with the best time being 1 hour and 5 minutes for the first placemat.  Coincidentally - enough time to ensure your forgotten coffee is stone cold!

Off the loom

With a sewing machine borrowed from our friend Robynne I was able to quickly run some stitching either side of the cut line before separating the placemats.  After that I will do a trial run at wet finishing (washing/rinsing/freezing/ironing) on the sample piece.

Separated placemats

I have a few ends to darn in and then trim where I joined the weft threads - then hand stitching the ends.

We should make the deadline after all.