Here be Elephants

In late January I started weaving again in response to a plea for Linus blankets for CHEO. While the effort described here is not quite going to cut the mustard as a Linus blanket (I have a lot to learn about take up and shrinkage and general size planning for weaving, really, I have a lot to learn about weaving period, but more about that later) it has rather started me down a hopefully long and fruitful path of exploration and ultimately sharing.

I had made a successful blanket in Summer and Winter on the RH almost 5 years ago for a friend's new baby.  Said baby is now in Kindergarten and her Mum tells me the blanket is very well used, as a car blanket, a picnic blanket, floor mat, toy box cover and more.  I'm glad it isn't wrapped in tissue or hanging on a wall, such gifts are meant to be used.  I thought that experience might get me started on the right track.

Summer and Winter on the RH as I do it is really a tapestry technique. Anything I can graph in 2 colours I can weave.  For some reason I was hooked on the idea of an elephant blanket. I just needed a graph. Enter Stitch Sketch for iPad, an app that will import an image and convert it to a graph in as many or few colours as you want. Google images provided several likely candidates.  I finally settled on one that, with a bit of editing and fiddling, produced this graph:

Summer and Winter works in 4 thread units in the warp and 8 thread units in the weft. Each warp unit has 2 "tie down" threads and 2 pattern threads which alternate. On the RH the tie down threads are threaded in the holes of the heddles alternating between the two (i.e. tie down 1 or "x" goes in the front heddle hole, then a pattern thread in the slot, then tie down 2 or "y" in in the back heddle, then the 2nd pattern thread in the next slot).  The pattern threads are controlled in pairs
by a pick up stick.  For each row of the graph you pick up a pair of pattern threads for each filled in pattern square from behind the heddles. For this blanket I used 4/8 cotton for the warp threaded at 10dpi in 2 10 dpi heddles on my 32" Ashford RH loom.

In weaving there are several sequences you can use for the weft which each give a more or less different effect.  I chose x-y-y-x this time based on a sampler I made before I made the first baby blanket. This means that for each row of the graph after I made the pick up I wove the following shots:

1.  Both heddles up for tabby using navy 2/8 cotton (traditionally the tabby weft is usually the same weight as the warp but I wanted this tabby to be less noticeable and Judith said it would work - she's the S&W expert).
2.  Front heddle (x) up, back heddle down, stick forward to raise the pattern threads. Weave with 8/8 cotton pattern weft, in this case, elephant grey. The pattern weft is usually twice the diameter of the ground warp and weft.
3.  Both heddles down for tabby with 2/8 navy
4.  Back heddle (y) up, front heddle down, stick forward to raise the pattern threads with 8/8 grey
5.  Both heddles up for tabby with 2/8 navy
6.  Back heddle (y) up, front heddle down, stick forward to raise the pattern threads with 8/8 grey
7.  Both heddles down for tabby with 2/8 navy
8.  Front heddle (x) up, back heddle down, stick forward to raise the pattern threads with 8/8 grey

Check the graph, make a new pick up and repeat... 147 times. It isn't fast but it isn't really slow either once you catch the rhythm. I used Knit Companion (free version) on the iPad to keep my place on the graph. I used a safety pin with a cleverly designed stitch marker from Clover that holds a little piece of paper for keeping track of what block I was on. Every 10 rows I pinned the marker at the fell line and wrote the row number on the paper.  Every 5th row I put a safety pin in without the note. I leapfrogged the two markers as I went so I could easily count and see where I was.

The tag and marker are at the bottom right of the picture.  This is where I weave, sitting on a pillow on the floor with the loom against the fireplace ledge.  You can also see the iPad with the graph, and two sticks - I always leave the current stick in and use it to guide the next pick up.  When I'm sure I have it right I pull out the old stick.  The heddles are in down position so that the slot threads are on top both in front and behind the heddles.  They show up in pairs, in this case made even clearer because I changed colours every unit.

Since no post is complete without an appearance from the "helpers" here are Seven and Bandit, the newest members of the Helpy Helpers team:

Yes, I can weave with a cat on my lap (well, Seven the extra small one, anyway, not sure Hobbes the extra large would fit), and yes, Bandit is UNDER the loom.  He was pretty good about not trying to catch the shuttle from there.

And here it is all washed and finished, except for trimming the fringe, which I think I like and isn't a problem if it's a wall hanging rather than a baby blanket.  I will spare you the pictures and commentary of fixing a tabby error I found after I took it off the loom for now.

Weaver's side up

Weaver's side down

It came out a bit smaller than I anticipated.  I was aiming for 28"x52" for a Linus blanket.  I warped full width on the 32" (which is actually 31.5") with 96" of warp.  Draw seemed to be less than 1" either side, but off the loom it relaxed to 28.5" wide.  It was only 62" long and I used almost every inch of warp I had - loom waste was about 4" on the front (to the beginning of the hem) and less than 14" on the back.  Lessons in take up learned.  I also noticed that I beat the beginning less well than the end.  Apparently the threat of running out of warp with 2" to go is a good beating motivator. 

Still I am ridiculously pleased with it.  This simply couldn't be done on a harness loom.  There aren't enough harness nor treadles to control 80 independent blocks.

For my next trick, I'm going to work on a tutorial kit that will thoroughly teach Summer and Winter on the RH.  I'm still trying to figure out a good project, but I am leaning toward a tea towel sampler in 2/8 ground warp and weft with 4/8 pattern weft.  I want to have the kit with yarn, complete tutorial and sampler pattern put together in time for Twist, Fibrefest and the Guild Sale which means a lot of work between now and August...

My loom can do 4 shaft patterns, too

I keep getting asked when I'm going to get a 4-shaft or more loom, as if my RH looms are inadequate or limited.  Well, they do have some limitations, but not nearly the limits previously reported.   I have been experimenting with 4 shaft patterns using 2 heddles and 1 pick up stick permanently placed.  The front heddle controls the 1 threads, the slots control the 2 & 4 threads, the back heddle controls the 3 threads and the stick controls the 4 threads.  The limitation is that the 2 threads cannot be chosen independent of the 4 threads, but it turns out that with a bit of clever re-ordering of threads quite a lot of patterns work quite well.

I present the following examples of the new range:

On the left is a sample done in dishcloth cotton on 2 5 dpi heddles threaded at 5 epi.  The bottom half is waffle, the very bottom is beaten much to hard, far too many ppi.  Even properly beaten it's too loose at that sett.  The top half is Bumberet (I love that name, silly, but true), not so bad but the sett is still wrong.  It was enough to tell me I was on the right track, though, as the weaving sequence was easy and it worked.  On the right is the same thing on 2 7.5 dpi heddles threaded at 7.5 epi.  The beat is right throughout this one.  Much better, but the waffle floats are still a bit long for a Linus blanket.  The Bumberet will work for a Linus, though.

I didn't have enough width to try the Atwater-Bronson variation I wanted from Handwoven Jan/Feb 2015 on the dishcloth cotton so I tried a huck next.  Had to fiddle with the threading a bit to make it work in my system, but I'm quite pleased:

On the loom

Washed one side

Washed, the other side

 

 

 

 

 

 I had quite a bit of warp left over from Judith's class so I started messing with that.  Without changing the threading I tried some Summer and Winter and a 3 shaft waffle:

This is 2/8 cotton warp and tabby weft with 4/8 pattern weft .  The waffle sample is 2/8 for both warp and weft.  Sett is 20epi for all.  Summer and Winter really doesn't show itself to full advantage on the loom. Here's what the other side looks like after washing:

 

Last, I rethreaded the Flip with doubled ends to try that Atwater Bronson Variation.  One of my limitations is the range of setts I can get, especially when I am using both heddles to control threadings that repeat on one heddle.  This one goes 1-3-1-3-1-2 for a bit which means that even with two heddles I can only sett it at the stated heddle dpi, in this case 10dpi.

I love it.  The green weft is 4/8 cotton, but I think I like the doubled weft better.  At this sett it would be great for a teatowel, but I am contemplating dress fabric.  Judith gave me a bit of 2/22 cottolin to sample with.  I think I will try it doubled in the 8dpi heddles. 


Stay tuned, more experiments to come.  Though maybe a little spinning first, as I have an article for Ply magazine due July 1st.