It's Working

Well, I have the loom all put together and finally have the right version of Fiberworks PCW on my laptop AND have the settings right. The loom works great! (I think I know now how Dr. Frankenstein would have felt after assembling the monster. :-) )


I still have to figure out how to put a pattern on the Compu-Dobby itself or on the cartridge I got with the loom, but maybe later. Running the loom off of the laptop seems very easy and straightforward.

I put on 10/2 white unmercerized cotton, sett at 24 epi, for some playing , sampling and eventually towels. I threaded the warp to a 16 shaft point. (I know I've got 24, why not use them all.) The design is one I saw while taking JoAnn's Diaper class and I wanted to try it out.

Here is a close up of the design. It is really very nice. I'm not sure if it will work for towels with this grist. There are floats that are 5 or 6 threads long. I'll see better after washing.

I am going to try some more designs I am finding in my books while planning some designs of my own. This will be a good time to experiment designing using the "Magic Box". More on that later. I probably need to put something on the Cranbrook so it doesn't get jealous.

It's Together - I Think

I finished putting together the new loom, with all of the electronics, etc. I put a 10/2 white cotton warp in a 16-shaft point pattern to try it out. I have a great flower-like pattern that was part of JoAnn's Diaper class that I want to try out, but thepoint threading will allow a lot of experimentation.

Now I have to figure out the Comby Dobby! :-)

Tis the Season - a Little Late

Finally I've gotten my Christmas towels finished. I wove this pattern about 10 years ago and dug it out again for this year.

I have several IOU's out for presents. At least it will be before Valentine's Day. ;-)

This is an example of an unwashed towel. I used 12/2 unmercerized cotton - natural, sett at 24 epi. The pattern is

done with #5 perle mercerized embroidery cotton.

This is a washed sample.

New Toy Coming Together

I am finally assembling my new (to me) loom. Thanks Sue!

I managed to get this far in one day.

Fortunately the sides were already assembled,
so there wasn't as much to do.

Also everything was well labeled, so even I could figure out

what piece was what.

The frame is all put together. The rest, according to the

instructions is "All down hill."

Blankets, Blankets and More Blankets

I have actually gotten busy after much non-weaving. I am currently working on boy baby blankets. I picked up quite a bit of cotton yarn on my travels this summer and decided to use some of it.

The warp colors range from green and blue green to purple. I have two finished already and still on the loom. The first has a purple slubby weft and looks purple all over. The second is green with slubs of blue, green and pink. The last is underway.

I wrote this up and saved it to draft and forgot about it.

The blankets are all finished. Here are a few.

More Hearts

I finally got back to the loom to work on the huck heart towels. I got four out of the remaining warp - plus on that is short with white and brown stripes. They turned out pretty well and I am going to use them in a towel exchange the discussion group is having.

Here is a little closer look at the hearts. The larger ones have warp floats and the smaller ones, weft floats. The warp was white 10/2 cotton and the wefts different colors of 10/2.

Experiments in Huck

While studying The Complete Book of Drafting for Handweavers by Madelyn Van Der Hoogt with my virtual study group, we finally got to the Lace chapter. I've done huck before, mainly by following someone else's draft and was a bit stumped by the section. So, I decided to figure it out.

I designed an 8-shaft pattern threaded to a point, with shafts 3 through 8 for the pattern. There were huck hearts with weft floats centered on shaft 8 and smaller warp float hearts, centered on shaft 3. The rest is plain weave.

This is the reverse side of the sample:










These picture's don't show the fabric very closely, but the hearts look like hearts and having floats go in different directions and the hearts in different sizes adds interest. I used white warp and white, yellow, pink and dark pink in 10/2 cotton and 12/2 cotton in natural for the weft. I like the white and lighter pink. The darker pink might be create too great of a contrast with the white, but it does show off the huck pattern.

I will probably weave a few hand towels with this pattern all over and as just a boarder with plain weave for the towel. I might get adventurous enough to design new pattern that I can weave with the current threading. We'll have to see what happens.

Happy Spring,
Ingrid