Let's see, this week in the studio was mostly rethreading and weaving the linen fabric, organizing more books, and learning more about huck lace.At the beginning of the week I rethreaded the reed so that I'm at 13 epi (ends per inch) instead of the original 10 epi. The sample I did last had the drape but it didn't feel like something you would wear. It felt more like a lacey curtain in order to give the fabric a bit more stability I knew to increase the sett. At first I was contemplating bumping the sett clear up to 15, since during my napkin test experiment I learned that fatter yarns have a narrow range of setts. And since I really wanted to change the fabric I'd have to significantly change it. However, once I started thinking about the balance between sturdier fabric & still having a fabric that draped enough for a garment I went over to the yarn chart. On the left is 20/2 yarn which is pretty thin yarn for handweaving and on the right is 10/2 a more common handweaving yarn weight. You'll also notice the three numbers at the bottom. These numbers are the recommended setts (epi) for lace, plain, twill fabrics in that order. For the 20/2 yarn the range is 30-48 that's a very large range which means it is extremely noticeable when you have more interlacements (plain weave- ish) versus less interlacements (fancy twills). Basically, you cannot switch between the two styles of interlacements without re-threading your reed to the new sett. However, the 10/2 yarn has a range from 20-28, which means there is a lot of forgiveness when going between more interlacements (plain weave) to less interlacements (fancy twill). During my napkin test that meant I didn't need to rethread anything when I switched from a mostly plain weave to a heavy twill. The difference in draw-in, ppi, and feel was negligible. Now, I said all of that as premise to how I found my new sett:
Yeah that was a brain dump, hopefully, that helps someone else out there. It was a lot of fun for me to write it out, forced me to properly think through my thought process. Which I love the fabric at 13epi, still enough drape for clothing but not flimsy like an old threadbare shirt. And moving on.... While weaving this I also decided I need to practice fixing warp threads during the weaving process. The linen yarn I purchased at the Legacy has a ridiculous amount of knots! I tried to get them all while I was warping but I missed a lot! At least it gave me good practice on dealing with them. While reading Sandra Rude's blog I came across a post about her teacher saying to always take time to fix your warp threads. Which apparently Sandra's teacher's teacher would walk around the classroom snipping warp threads just so her students would practice! Don't think that method would fly in the 21st century but I can still learn from it and diligently fix my warp threads. Well eventually, I finished weaving and was able to hem the edges and toss it into the wash. I usually cut the warp into it's separate pieces before laundering but for this time I didn't think it would matter much since linen doesn't change a whole lot after one washing. During all of the weaving I also continued to upload books. I'm up to 271 books/magazines on Library thing. Pretty sure I have more books than my guilds library at this point, but it's super fun going through them. Oh, and one gem I found this week is an old manual for something called the Masterweaver III, seems like a mash up of a rigid heddle loom and card weaving. All I know is that I want to tinker with it! Finally, I ended the week by starting a file about huck lace and my interpretation of all the information I have gained. I'm thinking it will aid me on my weaving journey as well as getting a file started for the COE I want to enter in 2024.
Welp that's it for this week, Happy weaving! Cheers, Val
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Author: Vader
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