Weaving Green

There are a lot of fun weaving structures in the world, but having tried Summer & Winter once, I have had a strong urge to keep playing with it.

I used another name draft to come up with this pattern, but then one of my weaving reference books reminded me that I can use different tie-ups with the same threading to make lots of variations on the same design.  Since I am on a table loom, I don't actually use tie-ups at all, but rather make the variations line by line, as I am doing the actual weaving.  This really opens up a myriad of possibilities for me, and as such, I decided to make a bit of a longer warp and do five different towels.

I am about halfway through the first one, and really can't wait to see how the rest turn out!

Fire & Water

I started just playing around with different colour combinations, since I have a lot of colours to work with, this year, so I made a scarf with a combination of red/orange/yellow in the warp.  I was going to do the whole weft in a lighter yellow (as you see in the bottom right of the photo) but decided that the light colour was washing out all of the vibrancy of the warp.  I plopped some orange stripes in there, and that helped, so then I switched to some darker paprika stripes and liked that too.  For the darkest colour, I also shrunk the width of the stripe, just to keep things interesting.  I think the way it changes looks pretty cool.

Then I decided to try something with a greenier tone, so I put a couple of pale greens and a yellow in the next warp and wove it with a light blue and a darker blue/green, in an unequal ratio.  The combination of colours makes me think of Aquaman, though I'm sure no kids today would even know who that is.

It's Time to Light the Lights

Two more scarves for the kids:

I was looking at an example of the clasped weft technique in one of my old weaving magazines, a while ago, and had an epiphany, that I could use it to make a cool zig-zag scarf.  It didn't take long to get from there to the idea of a Kermit the Frog scarf, emulating the little green pointy collar he has around his neck.  The technique worked perfectly and was so easy!  Maybe I'll use it again sometime to do something more harlequin-y.

Having done a Kermie scarf, I thought the pink and purple one I followed up with might suit Miss Piggy, since it made me think of her purple opera gloves.  I chose a bunch of colours for evenly spaced stripes in the warp and then did a two-colour stripe for the weft.  It's nicer than this, in person, I just couldn't get the colours right in the photo.

More to come!

The Season for Scarves

So it's that time of year again, where I occupy my weaving loom (Miss Bennet) with a whole series of quick and fun and colourful scarves for donation.  This year I inadvertently started out with a bit of a Disney theme, since my first inspiration was to weave a scarf for all the little girls who want to be Elsa, from Frozen.  I just picked a handful of representative colours and did the warp randomly, and the weft in little stripes of two colours.

Then my next thought was of a recent favourite Disney lady of mine, Merida, from Brave.  I did a tartan-ish design (she's Scottish, so duh) and used the colours of her dress and hair to weave it.  I really love how it turned out, particularly since I was lazy about it and just used two of the colours for weft, when there were so many more in the warp.

My third inspiration was Maleficent, from the recent movie version with Angelina Jolie.  I used a bunch of darker colours in the warp (and again two in stripes in the weft) but this time did an inlay technique with a couple of shades of green (like green misty magic.)  Well, the two shades of green turned out to be a bit too close, since they look pretty much like the same yarn, and the mist might look more like PacMan, but I still think it's really cool how it turned out.

I have another scarf on the loom right now, but am always looking for inspiration, if you have any ideas...

Snowflakes in Red

Every serious crafter knows you'd better have your holiday ducks in a row by the time the leaves start changing, or you'll be caught in a mad panic, come December.

I'm pretty well on top of things this year (it helps that I don't really participate much in exchanging gifts at the holidays) and am just enjoying this cute set of striped towels before I get serious about working on my charity weaving.

Don't you just love 'em?

Celebratory Towels

So it's just another photo-heavy post to show off the completed, washed & dried & ironed towels, because I'm so delighted with how they look, both individually and as a set.

More Twill Towels

For the fourth towel, I changed to a different set of weft colours.  This one had less contrast again, with a blue and black weft.  What a change in tone from the previous three towels!  All the colours are still there, but much more muted.

Then I brought in the brightest colour of them all, the light green, and made the fifth towel with all the contrast, in black and green.

Then I did the last one in green and blue, a little less contrast and tonally more similar.

But wait!  I finished the sixth and final towel only to realize I had tons of warp left on the loom.  When I initially planned out the pattern, I thought the magazine allowed for an unnecessarily long warp, and upon getting to this point in the weaving, I realized that I easily had room for another towel.  My first thought was to use the last of each colour to do a really variegated stripey weft, but I was sort of done with swapping shuttles and winding bobbins.  I couldn't bear to waste such a pretty warp, though, all ready to go.  I decided I'd use some spare 10/2 cotton I had, in white, without any stripes at all.  This made something completely different and a bit unexpected and I really really like it.  The colours are softened a bit, and the blocks look like changing transparencies of glass over the stripes of colours.

Now to finish them up!

A Set of Twill Towels

I don't know if it's just because of the change in the weather, but I got a real case of startitis this week, and began a second pair of socks for gifting, an out-of-the-blue artsy knitting concept, and I really have my eye on a new slouchy hat for fall... maybe some fingerless mitts... not to mention this baby from the new BrooklynTweed collection.

But before I get to any of that, I should catch you up on my weaving.  I did get the skully napkins off the loom (seemed like they took forever) but I haven't gotten to hemming and finishing them yet.  Instead, I got really distracted with these babies, a set of dishtowels using a bit of colour and an irregular twill weave to add interest.

There are six colours in the warp, and I chose two of those for the weft of each towel.

The first towel had a red and pink weft.  The two colours didn't have much contrast, but it still looks quite nice:

Then came a towel with an orange and red weft:

Then one with a pink and orange weft.  It looks quite similar to the last one, again since there isn't much difference between the red and pink, but there is still a different tone to it:

That last shot shows the design most clearly, since it's nice and close.  There are warp stripes in six colours, weft stripes in two, and the overall pattern is an alternating 3:1 and 1:3 twill.  The places where the twill changes is offset from the colour stripe changes, which makes the whole thing much more interesting and gives more colours to the eye.  I can't wait to see how much better they all look, once they're washed and ironed.

Next time I'll show you the other weft combinations!

The Big Reveal

Not much more to say about this project - I finished the dukagang towel (but ran out of warp so it's one repeat shorter than the other towels) and had a minor disaster (or two) with the loom right at the end, while weaving the last hem, but it all turned out ok.  I just have to do a bit of loom maintenance and we're good to go.

I was really feeling a hand-sewing vibe, so rather than machine zig-zagging between towels, I hand stitched a blanket stitch at the end of all the hems, and then turned them twice and hand sewed them all down.  They look super tidy and I am really happy with them.

Then a quick toss in the washer and a few minutes in the dryer, followed by a final ironing to dry them out completely...  and they look great!  The threads all tightened up a bit and made the designs much clearer and they look so lovely.

Now for the weaving porn - showing both the light and dark faces that give the fabric its name.  They're all the same... but so different!

Let Me Rock You, Dukagang

And so today I began the final treadling for the Summer & Winter towels - this one is a Swedish weaving design, called dukagang (doo-kah-gong), which leaves columns of colour, as you can see.

The vertical element of this particular treadling is very strong, since both the green and white blocks have a vertical stripe.  I feel like this takes away a bit from the overall radial symmetry of the design, but I still like it a lot, and I can't wait to see the other side, which will be mostly white with the design in green.

This is the fourth and final towel, so hopefully only a few more days and I'll have these ready for the wash and then we can see what they all really look like once they're finished!

Third Treadling

It's funny that, having done that bit of sampling at the beginning, I chose the pattern I liked best for the first towel.  Funny because I actually liked the pattern in the second towel better than the first, once I started weaving it.  It's even funnier that I like the third treadling (which I assumed would be my least favourite of the four) even more than I liked either of the first two.

I'm not sure if it's because the colours are more distinct (due to the different way the little contrast-colour-dots are laid out) or the way everything is tidy little squares, but I have been enjoying this treadling a lot.  The only unfortunate thing is how blurry it looks because of the alternating threads at the edges of the blocks.  Well, to be fair, the other unfortunate thing is that the picture is also just blurry.

A New Treadling

As I mentioned last time, I decided to try a different treadling for each towel, so it's time to show the beginning of the second towel and see if you can spot the difference that the different treadling order makes in the pattern on the cloth.

At the bottom of the photo is the original treadling on the first towel - looks like little white Os on a coloured background - and at the top is the new treadling for the second towel - now it looks like little white Xs on a coloured background, and you can see how the little Xs connect together at their legs to make a design more like a lattice.  Pretty!  You'll have to imagine the back side of the cloth, for now.  It will be a light background with green Xs and Os.

It's fun to start the second towel and see how different it looks, but a bit of a challenge to keep the new treadling straight, when the first one is so ingrained already.

Beginning of Summer (& Winter)

In an attempt to break myself of my recent addiction to knitting nothing but a succession of quick and simple stockingette socks, I decided to start a new weaving project.  It's a set of dish towels in a weaving style called Summer & Winter.  The name is reflective of the light and dark contrasts in the cloth - one side of the towel will have a light pattern on a darker background, and the other side of the towel will have the reverse of the same pattern, this time in dark on a light background.

I did a bit of sampling before I started, since there are a few treadling variations in Summer & Winter.  I elected to use one of the variations on a so-called X-treadling.  The little Xs aren't totally apparent in this design, at the moment, but having done a couple of repeats of this pattern, I'm thinking that maybe I'll do a different treadling for each of the four towels.  Once I do another towel in a different treadling, it may be easier to see the differences that different treadlings make in the cloth.  Or maybe not.

The weave is a bit open right now, under tension on the loom (that's why the coloured spaces look like little green brick walls) but hopefully once it's not under tension and has been washed, the cotton will shrink a smidge and the weave will close up a bit.  Time will tell.

Aphid Scarf

Getting all those placemats done opened up Miss Bennet for a new weaving project.  This time it was a lovely (and quick!) alpaca scarf.

Last winter, I made an alpaca scarf for my HLM, and I had someone at work admire it enough to offer to buy it from me.  Well, I could hardly give away his scarf, so I had to refuse the offer.  Since then, she's hinted a couple of times at wanting a similar scarf, something in houndstooth, in unorthodox colours...  So I decided to take her up on it and weave her a little something.

This scarf is made of sport weight fair-trade alpaca from Frog Tree Yarns, in a pale lime green and a cool grey brown, woven at 15 epi.  I chose an 8-shaft houndstooth, since I felt like it makes a bolder statement than a 4-shaft houndstooth would.  The houndstooth draft is a 4/4 twill, which gives long floats and lots of bias movement in the final cloth.  I fulled it a bit in the sink before laying it out to dry, to make the cloth more cohesive, and of course alpaca will naturally felt together with use, to stabilize the fabric even more.

It is light and soft and airy in the hand, but will be warm and cozy on her neck in the cold winter months.  Needless to say, I got myself enough yarn (in dramatically different colours, mind you) to make myself a similar one.

Herringbone Scarf

My latest weaving project is a very simple herringbone scarf, woven in a beautiful heathered wool-silk blend. I have had the idea for this project in my head for a year or so, and after playing around with different twill weaves with the facecloths, I finally decided it was time to bring this scarf to the top of my weaving queue. I know I haven't even shown you the facecloths, yet, but that's just how quick it is to make a scarf, on the loom.

I actually got the yarn last Wednesday, and immediately measured out the warp and dressed the loom. I did a bit of sampling of the herringbone first, to establish how hard I needed to beat the weft in order to get a consistent 45 degree angle in the twill, then began to weave the delicious scarf itself. I wove it in a pretty leisurely manner for the next couple of days, when I wasn't at work. By Saturday night I had finished the weaving, then I twisted the fringe, gave it a bit of a soak with some mild agitation to full it ever-so-slightly, and hung it to dry overnight.


I think the photos capture, a bit, what a gorgeous heather this yarn (Jaggerspun Heather 2/8) is. The colour is darker, called Walnut, and closer to the finished photos, further down, but you can see in these lighter photos that there is some red in there, and copper, and some cooler shades. It was so enjoyable to watch the herringbone pattern grow, with each meditative pass of the shuttle, back and forth, in such a shiny soft and pretty yarn.


As the fabric grew, it took on a soft fuzzy halo, which didn't obscure the herringbone pattern, but felt lovely to the hand. I agitated the scarf against itself as I hand-washed it after it was complete, to build that halo a bit more, and also to full the threads together to make the fabric more stable. The yarn fluffed up a bit with washing, as well (especially, I think, because it came off a tightly-wound cone and not out of a more relaxed skein) and softened a bit more. The twisted fringe also softened and fluffed up. I trimmed the fuzzy ends, below the knots. I wonder if I should have made the fringe thinner -- twice as many at half the size? Perhaps that would make it look more professional, less rustic.


After hanging to dry, the scarf was soft and fine, but definitely warm. The fabric still has some give on the bias, and is so supple. You can see how it flops and folds, in the photo. Such a simple scarf, but classic and beautiful.

Weaving a Sampler

Knitters often complain about making gauge swatches, about wasting time and effort and yarn to make something that isn't part of the project itself. Personally, I do make them, because I think they're an important precursor to a successful project. Weavers have a sort of counterpart to this, in the form of a sample. A sample is a piece of cloth that is woven purely as an educational exercise, or as an experiment to see how a particular design will work in a particular yarn or colour combination, or at a particular sett (the measurement of threads per inch.)

It's funny how I'll knit my gauge swatches without complaint, or even knit all manner of useless and silly items just for the heck of it, but when it comes to weaving, I can't imagine weaving something that is just a sample. I can't imagine spending the time on something that I couldn't use, after it was finished.


After I came up with a few little variations on reverse twill, I wanted to try them out, but not knowing how they would look, woven, I didn't want to commit to something as big as a set of towels. I came up with a compromise between sampling and practical weaving, and decided to make six little eight-inch squares of six different patterns, to see how they looked, and then use them for facecloths. These are woven from the leftover cottolin from the Sunshine towels, using the orange and red for a subtle contrast in the design. The dark red part between the designs will be the hem, and the yellow line marks the cutting line between two facecloths. As you can see, I just finished one that was a fancy looking reversing twill design, and moved on to a simple herringbone. I can't wait to start using them!

A Green Scarf

Although I have been remiss about blogging, I did finish that scarf in no time flat. I dressed the loom on a Saturday morning and did a bit of weaving throughout that day. After I worked all day on Sunday, I came home and finished the weaving, then cut it off the loom, tied some fringe and gave it a bit of a soaking and blocking.


Monday morning I woke up to snow on the ground, so I grabbed my new scarf off the floor and was nice and warm for the walk to work.

The washing and blocking certainly helped to plump up the yarn and hide my uneven beating. While it was under tension on the loom, I could really see the difference in my weaving tension -- sometimes the rows of weft yarn would be spaced closer together or further apart. It's the first time I've woven with wool, so I'm not used to how grabby it is. Cotton or bamboo yarns are smoother and slide against each other, which helps with consistency, I think. Also, I've previously woven at a tighter sett (with the yarns all closer together, with respect to the diameter of the yarn) so I have been more used to beating each weft in pretty solidly. Weaving at a looser sett takes a gentler hand, since you don't beat the weft so much as coax it into place.

It was certainly a learning experience, and I am looking at all of my stash yarns again with a different eye -- not just for knitting possibilities, but also for weaving ones. I have already decided to reassign one big bag of wool from a hibernating knitting project to a multicoloured woven afghan.

I have many other projects on the go, as well, of course. I will get some more photos up, soon.

You Sley Me

Actually, I sleyed the reed. Which is just weavery language to say that today I finally dressed Miss Bennet with her inagural warp, to make a simple little plain weave scarf. I'm using some leftover bamboo I had laying around (from making a hat and a scarf) -- yay for stash busting!


I did a sort of graduated colour change in the warp, from burgundy to light rose and back to burgundy, and I'm weaving it with the teal as weft. Yes, it would have been lovelier and brighter and purer colours if I had enough burgundy to just use that for the weft, but this way I can use the teal up, too, and I don't have to buy any more yarn for the project.

It's sort of interesting how the colours are very greyed out by the combination. Until you look closer, you almost don't register what the different colours are. Another great lesson in the way colours interact in weaving, right?

And can I just say what a real pleasure it is to weave on this loom? No clunky crashy wire sounds, no carpal tunnel, and the action is so smooth and rhythmic. Now, if only I could tidy up those selvedges...

Meet Miss Bennet

After finishing my weaving class a few weeks ago, I knew that I needed to get myself a loom of my own. I spent some time looking at various types of looms online, mostly table looms, since who has the space (or the money) for a floor loom? Not me, anyway. I bid on a couple of used looms on ebay, but didn't win one. Finally I resigned myself to spending the big bucks to get a new one. After some more poking around online, I finally decided on the one I wanted. The Louet Jane is a bit different than the LeClerc Dorothy table looms we used in class, but different in good ways. It's nearly twice as wide, to make wider projects (e.g. rugs, shawls, cloth to sew with) and has twice as many shafts, to make more complex weaves. The heddles are quiet texsolv instead of noisy wire, and the shaft toggles won't give me carpal tunnel. Basically I saw it as a simple and practical loom to learn on, but one that will grow with me, so I won't need to replace it with a more complex loom any time soon. Plus it is collapsible so it won't always take up my whole kitchen table (like it is today.) P.S. I have to give props to Shuttleworks in Calgary, who had the loom in my apartment 48 hours after I ordered it from them.

There are a lot of famous Janes. My Jane loom is as clever as Jane Austen, as beautiful as Jayne Mansfield, as tough as Jane Cannary, as artsy as Jane Siberry (sorry, Issa), as inspiring as Jane Yolen, as no-nonsense as Jayne Cobb.

More than anything, I think my Jane embodies Jane Bennet from Austen's Pride and Prejudice -- she is beautiful, smart, practical, sweet-tempered, quiet, lovable, and always wants to see the best in everyone.

Can you tell I'm in love?