Weave – Page 19 – Fiber Musings

The Fireside Loom has finally been moved into the house and assembled. The guest room has been taken over and transformed into a weaving room. I can’t call it a studio yet because I would need to do a few more things to the room before I can call it that. The room is too small for both the futon bed (even folded) and the loom to co-exist. I must give up all pretense of calling it a “guest room” though.

However, I must admit that the handmade cherry futon frame (made for Martin’s dad and stepmother back in the 60s) and the cherry loom look very nice together…

Back to the loom. Here’s the back side:

And look, the back beam folds up so you can get closer to the heddles while warping front to back!

Yes, those are double back beams you see. And here’s a view from the front:

Not a fan of front to back? Well, here’s something for the back to front…the front beam lifts off so you can get closer to the heddles from the front.

Here’s a detail of the dove joint for the front beam:

What about the beater bar? It lifts right off. I forgot to take a picture of that, but just take my word for it.

Best part of all this manipulation? No tools are required. Just lift or turn. That’s it. Everything is set up perfectly!

And while you are sleying the reed, they’ve drilled a hole through the beater bar and into the frame to hold the beater in an upright position.

Yes, that’s a nail you see where the peg should be. That, apparently is a part that I didn’t pay attention to when I picked up the loom. I’ll ask Rachel about it, but I doubt that she still has it. The nail is utilitarian and jars with the beauty of the loom. I will go to the hardware store and buy a piece of brass and cut it down to size, one for each side. I can probably stick one end into a small piece of cherry block to make it look a bit better, and less likely to get lost.

I pretty much bought the loom based on Fireside Loom’s reputation and my lust for the cherry and hand carved beater bar. I know Rachel (the previous and original owner) walked me through the loom, but I must admit that I didn’t comprehend much of it except some of the highlights — primarily the story of how she came by the loom and had it made.

There are a few things that I didn’t pay attention to…like what dent reed (10. I bought a 12 and 15 last weekend), how many heddles (still need to count, but I think 1000). I will likely add to or swap out the heddles for texsolv. I also don’t like the cords used for the treadles so will likely swap those out too.

Funny. I didn’t think I bought a project.

Huckaback Towels

I made huckaback towels for Christmas. I started with the towels on the left. They were based on the Keep It Simple towels from Top Ten Towels On Four Shafts, I made some slight modifications. I decided to make sibling towels for when I wanted to give a set instead of a singleton.

Huckaback Border

While weaving Keep It Simple, I kept thinking that it would be pretty as a horizontal border. I redrafted it and Â created a 8 thread selvedge in plain weave, so this turned into a 6 shaft pattern instead of four.

For the huckaback border, I started with 2.5 repeats, but switched 3.5 repeats because I think it looks a bit better.

The strangest thing happened in the wash with the huckaback border with plain weave. The plain weave section had these really weird crazed lines all over them. (click for bigger)

I’m not sure what caused them. Perhaps they creased up in the washer in the initial wash and I didn’t take it out fast enough. I was out running errands while it was in the wash. I doubt that it will shift anymore since the spinning oils have been washed out and the yarn has bloomed.

I wonder if this wouldn’t have happened if the sett was a little bit closer (24 instead of 20 epi). I have woven several sets of 8/2 cotton towels at 20 epi and not have had this problem, but then, they’ve always been a twill variant.

Oh well, these towels definitely have a “homey” feel. Â I hope the recipients enjoy using them.

I kept one towel back for myself. Again, while weaving the 2nd set of towels, I wondered what it would look like if I did the border in color and wove the rest in the same color as the warp. I really like the contrast. I would definitely do more of these. The only problem with this one towel was that it was the end of my warp. I had to really work at getting the shuttle through the shed. In the end, I had to finally call uncle at an inch or so short of what I needed to keep it symmetrical. But really, I doubt that my dishes will notice the difference.

Random thoughts of a fiber enthusiast - mostly fiber related, sometimes coherent

Category: Weave Page 19 of 34

Fireside Loom

Christmas Towels

Huckaback