Anyway, the blog. Still here after all these years. I tried to fill in some of the gap with pictures, so if you want you can scroll back to see them. I got out of blogging because basically I didn't think I had anything to say anymore. But apparently I do.
I am taking a weaving course in the big city. There's nothing available locally so I am going once a week into Halifax for this course. It's in the evening and the class itself is three hours plus three hours driving time. At this time of year that driving is mostly in the dark and I am sufficiently old now that driving after dark is not my favourite pastime. Didn't use to bother me but now it does.
So here are some pictures:
This is the warp, on a 45" counterbalance loom. It is just shy of 500 warp ends of 2/8 cotton (tiny) and it was a huge amount of work getting it all threaded on the loom. The warp is long enough to do 3 tea towels. The plan is a plaid pattern in 2/2 twill. Because I went with 28 ends per inch (epi), it may be a bit stiff to function as tea towels, I probably should have gone with 24 epi which would have meant significantly less threading to do. Oh well.
The main reason I am taking this course is to (re)learn warping the loom. The hardest part of weaving is getting the warp onto the loom, and there are multiple methods practiced by different weavers in different places. I have a loom at home and I've taken courses before but I'm a slow learner (plus I think I've learned a different warping method each time, which doesn't help).
While I am taking the course in the city I am also setting up my loom at home, so here are some pictures of that effort. It's a much simpler project so it takes less time and effort but hopefully it reinforces what I am learning in class.
The project at home is going to be a rug, about 2' x 6'. It's also a 2/2 twill, but in wool at 8 epi. Much more manageable. The loom is a 30" counterbalance, I don't have room for anything bigger.
I forgot to take pictures of my weaving in last week's class, hopefully I'll remember this week. I think I bit off way more than I can chew in 10 weeks, I will probably have to go to the city in December or January to finish it. In any case I have woven as much in class as I have at home but that's not nearly enough. As I said, bit off more than I could chew.
