Weaving

O N    T H E    L O O M    A T     L A S T 

It feels like it has taken me forever to get onto the loom for this project. Unfortunately I have experienced some set backs! As the project has felt quite rushed so far, it has been tricky to organise my chaotic ideas and colour pallet so quickly and this has lead me to be a bit delayed. This week I finally chose to weave a narrow fabric, around 4 inches wide. I also chose to weave using two warps to make a brocade. I was trying to design something that would allow me to try several different things as at this very early point I didn't want any ideas to be set in stone and I wanted to get as much from my warp as possible.
On Monday I began by making my cream warp using a 260's silk, which was easy enough and it only took a couple of hours to wind all 8 yards of it. However, I knew I was going to be rushed for time on the second warp as I had previously arranged to meet Ismini in London on Tuesday for the interview for my placement. When I arrived back Wednesday, the set backs began. I started to wind my black silk warp on and halfway through, the yarn ran out. I then spent the rest of the afternoon and next morning trying to source a yarn of the same thickness and very similar colour. I eventually borrowed the end of another yarn but it ran out yet again. After discussing my plans with the technician, I decided that instead of finding another yarn and wasting more time, I would swap my design around a little bit. In my first warp plan, I had chosen a larger black section and a small blue section, but as the black ran out, I swapped the colours around. After this I moved on to make the third colour of pale turquoise. When I wound yarn on the mill I noticed that it was snapping a little but it was too late to alter my plans again and so I continued. 

Threading up took me 2 days in total. I used two ends through each heddle and 4 through each for my brocade, I decided to design it this way so that my brocade patterns would show up against the background. 

Threading up my loom

Once I had threaded up, the next problem I came across was tying on. I hadn't considered this would be a problem, but because of the different thickness of yarn through each heddle, I needed to do it in tiny sections and make sure it was even. I had to weave a section, test the tension and then re do it a few times until it was flat all the way across the width of my fabric.

Above, attempting to get as much out of the blue brocade as possible, (left) but eventually gave up with the broken ends (right)

After this, samples were going smoothly, until I wove some designs using my blue brocade. The blue warp was a nightmare, it was constantly snapping and I was spending double the time fixing the ends and untangling it than actually weaving. I used all of my three colours for a couple of days, but the broken ends began to test my patience and I ended up cutting out my blue warp. After this, everything ran smoothly again and I caught up on a few samples.