Contains content related to projects.
Its been a few weeks since I last posted. I was at the part of the project that wasn’t terribly exciting. I finished threading the loom. That took about 6 days of working a few hours each evening. Then came time to beam the warp. Oh. Em. Gee, guys. What a pain! It took me and my helpers (four of them!) about eight hours over three days to beam this thirteen yard warp. Remember…
To find and read all the entries for this project, you can go here. In the last week, I’ve made some important decisions to the plan for weaving the Rus Kaftan cloth and made quite a bit of actual progress on moving the project forward. The first thing I decided to do was to make the warp narrower and longer. This decision was predicated on the desire to reduce loom waste and to make it a…
Started measuring the warp threads for the Rus kaftan point diamond twill cloth today. I am 1/3 of the way done, as I took long breaks to teach a friend some beginning lampworking techniques and to brainstorm viking age food options for some upcoming reenactor events. I’ve decided to weave at a 37 inch width rather than the full width of my reed. I hope it will reduce the time needed for threading and also…
After I cut the linen warp off the loom and cut the towels apart, I hand washed and air-dried one of the towels to see how it would react. That came out well, so I screwed up the courage to throw all the towels in the washing and drying machines. They came out well! The weave and the fiber relaxed into a nice drapey hand. Next step was to press them and hand…
Finished up the linen weaving project tonight. Seven loom-controlled-lace towels complete! They are cut apart, the edges sewn and ready to be washed tomorrow. After that I’ll hem them by hand and they will be ready to use. Its hard to believe that this project was started just a week ago. What a fast, fun experience. I really enjoyed weaving with linen and I can’t wait to do another project. So many plans in my…
Part 1 of this series can be found here. The yarn I ordered arrived today for the Rus Kaftan cloth project. I am very pleased with the colors. The reddish color is exactly the dark maddery red-orange I was hoping it was from the little bit on the sample card. I was inspired to calculate the warp length I will need. My process is a little different in that I work backwards from the amount…
Spent most of the weekend working on getting the linen weaving project on the loom. Saturday, I sleyed the reed and completed threading. Sunday, with some help from a friend, I was able to wind on the seven yard warp and start weaving. The sleying and threading wasn’t all that different from the wool warps I’ve done before. The big difference was in the winding on. It went FAST. No tangling. No fuzzies. No stretching.…
Tonight I made good progress on the linen weaving project. The warp ends have all been measured and are hanging in chains from the hanging beater of my loom (because I have a cat). There are a total of 386 warp ends at 7 yards long. The ends will be sleyed in a 10 dent per inch reed. This weekend, I’m hoping to get the sleying, threading and winding on of the warp completed…
Since I have to wait for the wool for the Rus kaftan cloth project to be shipped from across the country, I’m considering putting a smaller project on the loom in the meantime. Few years ago, when I first got into weaving, I bought a linen towel kit from an online vendor. My thinking then, was that a kit, with complete instructions, would be a gentle way to be introduced to weaving with linen. I…
Now that the big road trip is over, its time to get a new warp on the loom. My next big project is going to be cloth for a Rus Kaftan for my husband. The yarn I’ve chosen is Jaggerspun Maine Line 2/20 worsted wool. I’ve ordered three pounds each of two colors – Sable, a warm, rich medium brown and Bittersweet, which is a dark rusty red. I’m hoping to have a bit of…
