Diamond Twill weaving is a go!

It is always a bit nerve wracking to throw the first pick of a weaving project. In this case, I spent about 15 hours getting the loom all warped up. Now, did I make any threading mistakes? Is the tension even? Are the threads spread out at the proper spacing? Do the colors work together? Deep breath. On your marks....get set....

It worked!! And now, the reward for all that picky warping work. I get to crank the music, open the window, and dance on the loom. Here comes the fabric!

And the loom is warped!

When last I left you all in my warping process I was threading the heddles on my loom. This took awhile. Really. About 6 hours all told. Each thread needed to be pulled through its individual metal heddle, which will control when I raise up that thread during the weaving process. But I tell you what: I quickly found that I need to get my eyeglass prescription updated. The light helped, but I still needed to focus that closely. Yes, yes, I'll call the eye doctor soon.

But eventually, I did manage to get all 1020 threads put in their place.

And then, I tied them on to the back apron rod.

And with a friend's help cranked all 14 yards of thread onto the back beam, under nice even tension. It will wait there until I'm ready to use it.

I've never had someone help me with the beaming process before, but I've heard it is easier so I thought I'd give it a try. I had Brian man the back beam, turning the crank and inserting sticks in between the layers of thread. I was around at the front of the loom, keeping the threads from tangling and evening out the tension. It only took us about an hour to beam on the warp, which I think is about half of what it would have taken me alone. So, cranking on the warp is in fact easier with two people. Thanks, Brian!

Now, I've finished up the rest of the fiddly warping bits this evening. With any luck, I can start actually weaving tomorrow. Yes, that is right. I'm 15 hours into this project, and now I can 'start' weaving. Folks don't realize that by the time you're throwing the shuttle back and forth, you're already half way done with the project, and all of the creative planning and figuring is already done. Now, if everything goes smoothly, I get to sit back and just enjoy the rhythm of the loom, watching the fabric finally form under my fingers.

Warping the Loom: Threading Heddles

I'm threading heddles today. Each of the 1020 individual threads in this dress fabric project needs to be passed through a hole in its own metal heddle. This way I can raise up the threads during the weaving process. Only one problem...I only have 1000 heddles. I've ordered another 100 which should be here by the end of the week. Here's hoping they fit the loom. Otherwise, I'll have to adjust the project by taking 10 threads off of each side, and making the finished fabric a bit narrower. (Estimated time to thread heddles: 6 hours.)

(Glad I checked how many heddles I had before I started threading, so I could get the order in ahead of time!)

Sleying the reed.

Ok, I've been up to my eyeballs with modeling for life drawing classes the past few weeks, but I've finally had the chance to get back into the studio to get cranking on the fabric weaving project I've got. My deadline is the end of the month, so I need to hop to it.

This week? I finished measuring out the 1020 threads, each 14 yards long. I chained them up to keep them organized, and moved them to the front beam of the loom. I temporarily wrapped them around the front beam, so I could work with them from there.

Someone mentioned that it looked kind of like Rapunzel had been here. We decided if that was the case, Rapunzel was a Smurf. And had eight sisters.

It made me giggle.

Today I took the next step of warping, and passed the threads through the reed to spread them out evenly.

I want there to be 30 threads per inch of fabric. I have a reed that has 15 openings each inch, so I figured this would be a snap. Just put two threads in each slot, and I'm good to go. Except? I didn't check if my reed was wide enough for the fabric I had planned. Nope. Half an inch short. Luckily I checked that before I started threading!!

Instead, I pulled out my 12 dent reed (12 slots for each inch), and wandered around the internet to find the best way to still get 30 threads per inch. Yes, I could have done the math. But I'm lazy, and Google works. It turns out that alternating 2 threads per slot and 3 threads per slot does the trick. No problem!

Unless, of course, you are rocking out to Meatloaf songs and not paying attention to what you are doing. In that case, you forget to alternate one time. Which of course messes the pattern up. And crams a few threads too close together, which may or may not show up as a faint stripe in the finished fabric. Luckily, I caught that one only about 3 inches of threading further on. It took me about 20 minutes to fix the goof and  finagle each thread into the proper order, but it all looks correct now. Here's hoping!

Next up? Threading the heddles, so I can raise threads to create a pattern. But that will have to wait. I declare a weekend!

Modeling, Spinning, and Weaving

This is just a post filled with bits of this and that. First up, I thought I'd show you what I was doing last Thursday. I'm an art model, and that morning I was posing for a portrait drawing class. I had pulled out one of my Medieval costumes, and brought the spinning wheel along with me. Mind you, that style spinning wheel is actually several centuries too late for the style of dress, but the students didn't seem to mind the mismatch. They probably wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't said anything, actually. But I'm a bit of a fiber geek, so I know the dress is appropriate for the 1300's, and the wheel probably for the 1600's and later.

But the art work turned out neat! Both the photograph and this drawing were done by George Palovich, the teacher at TriPal studios. He mentioned that he might use the pictures and the initial studies as a basis for a later painting. I look forward to seeing what he comes up with.

Speaking of spinning, while I was at Estrella I found what was billed as a 100ish year old Russian supported spindle for sale. I remembered recently seeing this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxY8rPwMjbY&list=FLv-qbOJU3XYu6wnRipxqDDw of a woman from the Himalayas using a similar spindle. Since I tend to collect old fiber tools, I snapped it up. And then I walked across the street from the event and gleaned some cotton out of a straggler plant in the ditch that the farmer had missed in his harvest. I spent an afternoon pulling the seeds out of the cotton by hand, and learning how to use the spindle. I'm starting to get the hang of it. I think I want to pick up some cotton carders though, to make the fibers a little more regular for spinning. But it is fascinating how you can spin right from the cotton boll, right off of the plant!

And finally, I'm starting a project on the loom again. I'm working on enough cotton fabric in a broken diamond twill to make a Medieval style tunic. I'm using the same 10/2 cotton from Webs that I used for my warp painted napkins that I made for Christmas presents. I thought then that the yarn would make lovely dress fabric, so I'm going to give it a try. Currently I'm working on measuring out the warp. At 1020 threads, 14 yards long, 32" wide in the reed, this is going to take awhile. More on this project as I go along.

Estrella 2013 wrap up

I'm back from Estrella War, which was a week long historical recreation event put on by the Society for Creative Anachronism. There were about 3000 of us this time around, and I had a blast!!! I can't wait for next year when I can do it again. Perfect weather, wonderful people, great activities...I got so lost in the Middle Ages that I never wanted to come back. Estrella reminds me of the story of Brigadoon. A town arises out of the desert once a year, goes about its business, and disappears back into the dust.

Again????

I was too busy enjoying myself to take a whole lot of pictures, but I did get some of a small selection of the great amounts of arts and crafts that were being worked on, used, and displayed. Most of these were at an arts display on Saturday afternoon, with some around town heraldry, and a few shots of the felt boot class I taught. So, here is a small taste of the artistry that is being created in this wonderfully crazy group.

Looking so forward to next year. I never wanted to come back.

Making metal loops in a coal forge

As I mentioned, I've been making these fabric painted heraldic panels, to mark the entry way to our Estrella camp this year. (estrellawar.org) Now, while I do great on the fiber side of things, I turned to my husband to figure out a way to display these panels. We decided that he'd make some rebar stakes with metal rings on them, one for either side of a panel, and I'd sew ties to the sides of the panels to attach to the rings.

Hmmm. We had some old rebar, but we didn't have any metal rings. We did however have a bunch of metal rod.

And, we have a small coal forge in the side yard. He cut the metal rod to the appropriate size, and fired up the forge. I thought it might be fun to take pictures of how he transformed the rod into rings, so you could see what he was doing too. It is a neat process!:

He took the piece of metal rod, and stuck it down into the hot coals.

Then he cranked the blower to force air into the forge, to heat things up.

When the metal was hot, he fished it back out again...

...and used a handy hole in the legs of the forge to help him bend the metal rod.

The metal cools relatively quickly, so it went back into the forge to heat back up.

He fished it back out again...

...and this time used another set of pliers to help him bend the metal the rest of the way around into an approximate loop.

One more time into the fire. (I just like these fire pictures, actually.)

He found where the loop was hiding under the coals, and brought it out one more time.

Then he used a hammer and anvil to do the last bit of shaping.

A few more taps, and it is done.

Time to let it cool with the others. He ended up making 42 rings total. That ought to do us!

Once the rings are cool, he can take them into the garage to the welding station, and weld them onto the pieces of rebar.

Yup. That ought to do the trick!