Becka’s Project Journal

If you read Andy’s blog, then you got a behind-the-scenes sneak peak of these in progress.  These are two of my new items for the holidays!  Tiny weaving loom and drop spindle ornaments.

Weaving Looms: The looms are about 1 5/8 in high x 2 1/4 wide, warp and weft from sock yarn.  The tiny shuttle is wound with the remaining yarn and attached to the loom.  They will hang from loops of perle cotton.

Drop Spindles:  The base of the drop spindle is almost exactly the size of a nickel.

Both are made from bamboo, laser cut by Ponoko.com.  Andy designed and set up the file, sent it off to them and we got a whole sheet of laser cut bamboo a few weeks later.

These will be for sale in my etsy shop in just a few days and available at the Textile Center in November & December.

I had the enormous pleasure of attending a networking meeting with the regional arts council that was also a hands-on art activity, namely weaving on a floor loom.  First a huge thanks to MRAC and the Weavers Guild of MN for putting it together and sponsoring it.  You guys rock!

Our workshop was based on the Weavers Guild’s “Try It” classes.  You show up, a very kind volunteer has “dressed the loom” (aka warped it) for you and you get to just sit down and weave.  What a deal.  These were warped with Harrisville Shetland wool.  There is a whole wall of it in the Guild in gorgeous colors.  We had a few minutes of instruction, a demo and then chose a loom. Mine was set up with stripes of blue-violet, raspberry pink and two shades of green.  The weft yarn was a heathery purple.

The warp threads were set up at 10 per inch and our goal was to weave 10 weft threads per inch, to make a balanced weave.  That meant that your woven piece should look like a windowscreen.

Believe it or not, that was actually easier than it looks.  So we wove and wove.  I think I worked on my scarf for about 3 hours.  I chatted a lot while I was doing it.  When I took it off the loom it felt like burlap.  Yeah, I know.  Yuck.  But never fear, I saw finished samples and they were totally amazing.  Why the burlap feel?  The yarn is full of lanolin and it makes it feel kind of yucky and scratchy.  I suspect it makes it easier to weave with because there’s not a lot of fuzz to get caught on the other threads as you go.  So then I took my scarf home and gave it a bath.

Warm soapy water.  Squishing and scrunching.  Within half a minute the yarn is already softer.  The goal now is to “full” it.  Letting the fibers shrink a little and fluff up to fill in those holes you left when you wove it.  Why make holes and then fill them up?  Why not just weave it tightly?  The answer is drape.  If you pack it tightly together, your scarf is like a board when you get done.  The looser weave lets it be soft and drapey.  Mine started out about 8 inches by 75 inches.  It’s now 6 1/2 by about 66 inches.

Out of the bath, roll it in a towel and squeeze out the extra water.  Then I spread it out on the guest room bed and brushed it.  I used a nylon nail brush.  Brushing the surface fluffs the fibers up even more.

The bottom part of this has been brushed, the folded over part not yet.  See the ugly orange yarn?  That’s the fringe.  We wove about a dozen rows of that from an acrylic yarn that doesn’t shrink.  After brushing everything, then we unravel those fringe ends.

The last few rows of the wool yarn (before the ugly orange stuff) is a little extra tight, to make a stable edge before the fringe.

Finally, I stretch it all out to dry.

Inkle looms are a little picky about what makes good warp. Whatever you use it has to be smooth.

Good warp:
I often use something called “rug warp”. That’s pictured on the left. I can get it at the Weavers Guild of MN, which is located in the Textile Center. Super convenient. It is strong, ultra smooth and comes in all kinds of colors. About $4.50 for a spool.
I have also used perle cotton 3/2 weight. Again carried at the Weavers Guild. You can get it at craft stores and use the little skeins. Have done that in a pinch, but it is more expensive that way. Perle cotton has beautiful shine.
Embroidery Floss. Works great. The little skeins don’t go very far, but everyone seems to have them lying around.
Bamboo/Tencel yarn. I made a couple of scarves on the inkle with blends of bamboo and tencel. Nice drape, really pretty result.

Bad warp:
Anything with fuzz. I have tried sock yarn. It works ok, but due to the way you move the threads as you weave, any little fuzzy bits that stick out get tangled together and you do a lot of picking fuzz out of your weaving and prying things apart. Some experimenting with sock yarns might get you the perfect thing. Merino yarn is a disaster. I tried a single ply lace weight and it just plain didn’t work. Wrong kind of yarn for this kind of loom.

Probably good:
I haven’t tried but I imagine that cotton yarns would work great, smooth nylon ribbon yarns too.

I had several comments from my last giveaway asking for help with inkle looms. So here is the start to a series all about what I know! First things first, we need to start with vocabulary. Weavers have all kinds of strange words to describe the parts of looms.

Inkle looms are small tabletop looms used to make long narrow bands – up to 4 inches wide, 9 feet long. Mine comes from Beka Inc and I love it. I am the keeper of 18 of these for the kids programs at the Textile Center and these ones are durable!

Shed – the opening that you pass the shuttle through when you are weaving. On an inkle loom, you move one set of strings up and down, creating the shed.

Heddles – hold down every other thread. On an inkle, one set of threads stays in place, one set moves up and down.

Warp – the long threads that you put on the loom. Inkles make a “warp-faced” weave, which means you only see the warp threads in the finished weaving. This inkle has a continuous warp, which means it is one big loop, with all of the separate colors tied to one another.

Tension Bar – this is the only moving piece on this loom. It can be loosened and tightened to adjust the tension in your weaving.

Weft – The thread that you weave back and forth through the warp. You carry it on a shuttle. It passes through the shed. On an inkle, this thread hardly shows in your finished piece.

Shuttle – a thread holder for your weft thread. You also use the shuttle to press or beat the threads tightly together as you weave.

I wove enough on Saturday for two belts and a smattering of cuff bracelets. (Maybe I will do a giveaway!) There weren’t as many kids as anticipated at the Craftstravaganza, so we ended up doing more demonstrating and less hands-on. I did a ton of weaving. This is one of the pieces I finished. It is about 1 1/2 wide and 5+ feet long. Andy snapped a picture of me and Jen while we were hard at work. Jen was spinning fine merino-alpaca yarn in a kind of earthy colorway.

Weaving a coaster
An absolutely lovely tutorial featuring the weaving project I did at family day at the Sun Valley Center. What a nice compliment! Thank you!