With all the prep finished for the paper towel project described in Part One, I began to weave.
The tape measure is looped, and attached, to the loom,
at the right to keep it from pulling at the selvedge,
and the clips are attached about a quarter inch (.6 cm) in,
for the same reason.
As I was reluctant to cut the Shosenshi paper fibre, I hadn’t done any sample weaving. This was less disastrous than it might otherwise have been, since making towels in plain weave isn’t necessarily precision work. Read more…
Tom Knisley, noted weaver, wrote an article for the March/April 2021 issue of Handwoven magazine, describing his experience weaving with paper.
I’m unconvinced that this makes any sense at all — for one thing, it’s expensive! — but, like Tom, once I knew the project existed, I had to try it. How could I not want to weave paper towels? Read more…
I love my Cricket and SampleIt rigid heddle looms, but I wanted to weave wider cloth.
When I saw this 30 inch (76 cm) Kromski Loom set up at Red Stone Glen on a festive day, I couldn’t resist. Read more…
These aren’t accessories sold by Kromski, the maker of my largest rigid heddle loom, but those I’ve found helpful when weaving on my wide rigid heddle loom. It turns out that the challenges offered by a super-wide loom are a little different, and the habits I’d developed when using my smaller looms didn’t necessarily translate.
When warping my Cricket or Sampleit looms, I typically used a standard spool holder, or, occasionally, a deep metal mixing bowl. For smaller, quicker warps these solutions were not ideal, but worked adequately.
Read more…
It looked like a totally impractical top, but why should that be an impediment?
The Burda top, from the December 2020 magazine (12-2020-127) is basically a sweatshirt-like garment with a looooong attached scarf. What’s not to like? If there’s one thing I can produce, it’s looooong fabric!
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Washing my finished Cat Blanket fabric turned out to be less problematic than I had anticipated. Utilizing the plastic dish tub I’ve always used for previous rigid heddle projects, I rinsed the fabric in a few drops of a mild dishwashing detergent, and then rinsed in tepid water — the only difference being that I put the plastic tub into a full-sized bathtub. That allowed for ease of draining, and also allowed a lot of latitude for gently pressing water out of the fabric.
I use two large bath towels for rolling damp handwoven fabric, and normally handle smaller pieces on a table. In this case, with fabric 30 inches/76 cm by 81 inches/205 cm, I lay one towel on the bathroom floor alongside the tub, rolled the fabric, and then repeated with the second towel.
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The first project on my 32 inch/81 cm Kromski rigid heddle loom was a cat blanket. This was a no-risk proposition, since the end result was doomed to destruction, eventually. Cats love wool, but ours all have claws, and claws inevitably catch on fabric.
Bearing these facts in mind, I warped the loom with a poor quality (and likely vintage) natural cotton. I was not surprised that it had joins all over the place — something that responsible yarn makers don’t allow any more! In testing the joins, though, I discovered that, though bulky, they were tight, hence perfectly fine for this sort of warp.
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