2/2 twill with plain woven selvage. Image created in Iweaveit on my Ipad.
The Finnish mantle warp is on the loom and I’m ready to start weaving! Here are all the details on that process or you can skip over that part and go straight for the weaving eye candy as I have a largish gallery of photos documenting the process.
Here is the draw down that I used for the Finnish mantle piece. As mentioned previously, the body of the mantle is a 2/2 twill. The selvages are threaded in plain weave and will be hand manipulated, so don’t take the draw down literally for the selvage. The weft thread passes once through through the selvage to every 2 passes through the body.
I have an 8 harness loom so was able to thread the selvage on the 5th and 6th harnesses. This is not the only way you could thread this pattern. You could definitely weave a Finnish mantle or apron on a four harness loom. To do that, tie up two extra treadles for plain weave. Weave the selvage threads then switch sheds for the 2/2 twill.
Measuring the warp and sleying the reed went very quickly. Threading happened over the course of several evenings. The longest time went toward adding in my other 4 harnesses. Such a fussy task on my counter-balance loom and it really put me behind schedule on warping the loom.
Alpaca is an interesting fiber to work with. It sheds like mad, binding warp ends together, but its so silky that you can get it to slide apart pretty easily, unlike wool. Beaming the warp went beautifully. It was very quick and rarely had to stop to fiddle with the reed or heddles. The yarn iswonderfully soft and yummy. I can’t wait to get my hands on the the resulting cloth.
It seems like I am doing a better job of keeping my Facebook readers up to date on the daily progress of the mantle. If you’re looking for a daily dose of A Magyar Jurta for project updates and interesting links for the re-enactor or weaver, that is is the place to be.
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- The yarn I will be using for this project. The gray alpaca wool is for the main body of the mantle. The orange and yellow wool is for cardwoven embellishment.
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- The warp, measured, choke tied and in chains.
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- Sleying the warp ends through the reeds. My spouse made the reed stands for me.
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- A close-up of the reed and the sleyed warp ends.
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- View from the back of the loom showing the threaded warp ends.
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- The front of the loom showing the warp ends through the reed and heddles.
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- Another back view. Tied on to the apron of the warp beam with the lease sticks positioned.
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- Hanging for the breast beam are the warp chains ready to wind on the warp.
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- The warp has been wound on and is tied to the front apron bar.
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- The selvage ends have been separated warp weighted.
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- My warp weight solution: 8 oz lead fishing weight, zip tie and carbiner.
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- Problem solving the shed. Must fix those twisted threads before weaving.
A dear friend shared your blog with me today and I’m delighted!! Your work is exquisite and I look forward to learning more. 🙂
Thanks! Glad you found me.