Friday, July 13, 2012

Warping the loom

I've just about got the loom warped up and ready to go. Yesterday I put each thread through the reed, to spread it evenly on the loom.




And then this afternoon I threaded the heddles. Each individual thread goes from where I had it spread through the reed, and then through an individual heddle that will lift it up when I'm weaving. Which of the threads get lifted up at any one time determines the pattern I end up with.


After that was finished, I wound the threads onto the back beam.


And now you can get a hint of how the finished fabric will look like. I think it will be gorgeous!

5 comments:

  1. I'm in awe of your work, wouldn't know where to start with this!

    It's so interesting because I was reading up a bit on ikat fabric for my latest blog post. Turns out, it's made by a rather complicated (to me at least!) method of dyeing the threads first before weaving into fabric.

    This is so amazing! And as a total noob, I have no idea what the finished fabric will look like.

    Can't wait to see the finished product. :)

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  2. Ikat would be fascinating to try. I'll get to it one of these days. It is a much more deliberate process than this warp painting though, what with blocking off sections of thread so they don't get color and dying it in stages. But some of the effect of having sections of color blending into each other is similar to what I've done here in painting the warp.

    My plan is to weave this together with a unobtrusive blue weft thread, in plain weave, so the color changes really take center stage. More to come after I get to weaving today.

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  3. Wow! That looks like a lot of hard work. I love your color choices, I'm sure the result will be lovely.

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  4. Thank you for giving us a glimpse of the warping process. What an incredible amount of patience you must have to string each thread! Love the colors, and I'm sure the finished fabric will be gorgeous.

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  5. Thanks, everyone!!

    I just posted some pictures of the finished project. After the fiddly bit of the warping, the weaving went quickly and smoothly. I am super tickled with how it all turned out.

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