Fast Weaving

I've begun weaving the wedding present scarf after tying it on to the previous warp (cut off on the beater side of the heddles.  I only had to re-thread the 24 'edge' threads which form a simple diagonal twill line and on the shawl were several inches further out.  Otherwise the pattern is the same, just not the stripes.

Scarf progress

The weaving is a lot faster for two reasons. The scarf is only 13 inches wide (vice 23), and the yarn is a lot thicker. It shouldn't take too many sessions to finish the weaving.  I was able to do quite a bit yesterday in between other things in and out of the house.  I baked French bread sticks and a loaf of beer bread and some banana muffins which we had with coffee for breakfast.  Then later in the day I made up a half jar of harissa from the many chillies that we now have coming from the garden.  Finally I made some pizzas for the freezer, and one for a snack for when Anne came home from work at 9:00 pm.

Pizza baking results

Should find more weaving time today as we don't have to water the top garden.  A convenient thunderstorm passed through yesterday afternoon and dropped a nice amount of rain on us.

Finishing and Starting

I've been busy with produce from the garden recently with the first lot of blackberry jam, barbeque sauce, and tomato sauce done, plus some quick re-potting and weeding.  We have pounds more tomatoes, plenty of blackberry in the freezer, and lots of hot chillies coming from the garden ready for use.

Tomato sauce cooling, blackberry jam done

So in between those efforts I have been sewing in the ends on the shawl and knotting the warp threads prior to fringe twisting. 

Shawl ready for fringe twisting

This morning I warped the yarn for the scaft - matching colors but a different stripe pattern given that it is only 13 inches wide. 

Warp ready to be tied up.

I have been warping on this warping board for some years, but only in the last year attaching it to hooks on the wardrobe doors.  The hooks normally hang on the inside with various robes on them, but work well to keep the board at shoulder height which reduces the back strain considerably.  I leave the center pull balls of wool of the floor and in this case, join at the color changes when appropriate.

Warping board hung on wardrobe doors.

When I cut the shawl off the loom the heddles are still threaded so I should only have to tie this warp to the appropriate number of threads (EPI is the same despite the slightly thicker yarn on the scarf) and pull it through. Hopefully that should happen today, in between other jobs (brew day at the Oak & Fern is number one on the list, then more jam).

Shawl weaving progress

Progress to date

Dressing the loom went fairly smoothly - I had Anne keep the tension on the warp as I wound it on and then dressed back to front without any major errors (one discovered in plenty of time to go back and do that section again.  Because I was so tight on the dyed warp wool there are less warp threads on two of the blue stripes, but only really noticeable by the slight pattern change it causes.

I also discovered during the tie-up that I did not have enough hooks for this pattern, so had spend a bit of time bending new ones (from heavy wire coat hangers - I can get three from each hanger).  I needed 6 more so should be right now for designs such as this undulating twill.

Suffered my first broken thread (at right in photo), hopefully won't have too many more, but as I have woven about a quarter of the length I guess it's not too bad.

Using hand spun yarn throughout is evident in the photo with a slight striping in the weft threads as the yarn variations kick in,  I'm beating very softly - really just placing the yarn - so it will have to be a 'character' feature in the finished shawl.

I'm due to run out of weft yarn soon, so have been spinning singles ready to ply and will have to make a few more to complete this project.  The scarf (similar colours and same undulating twill, just a lot narrower) project won't require any more spun yarn as I have a lot more of the slightly heavier two ply.

The only real problem I am running into is I have a blackberry thorn in the tip of my right index finger (we pick blackberries most days currently), at exactly the point I throw the shuttle from.  A constant reminder to be more careful while picking...