donderdag 16 september 2010

Even more hobbies

Here is my last new hobby: my new-to-me loom, the Louët Spring, 12 shafts, 14 treadles.
It is a countermarch loom, so it creates a great shed.
 I picked it up  about 180 km away from us and when we got home I took it apart, so I could make sure all parts were hanging and standing right. I was lucky to get the booklet with it.

I warped it with some yarn I got from an old lady, it was perfect for this job.

I started with a sample using only 4 shafts, always start simple ;-)


Th picture on the left is the result, it's all kinds of simple twills, I didn't have to tie the treadles again, because of my 14 treadles, I did all kind of tie-ups in the first place. The selvedges on the different twills have a different draw-in.




Then I re-threaded and re-sleighed so I could weave Summer and Winter, with some different variations also with different thickness of yarns.












Once again I cut it off and re-threaded to 8-shaft, at least some of the threads, so I could try to weave my name.
It was difficult, but it was only a sample, but at least I succeeded.
I like to make dishtowels with the name of the receiver on it, so this was something I had to try very early in my weaving adventures.

Then I tried some weaving-software on my computer and created a draft, I warped my loom again an started to weave, it is an 8-shaft pattern with a tabby-pick between the pattern-picks:


I warped un-dyed tencel, not very thin, 10 threads per cm (25 epi, approximately) on my warping-board, enough for two shawls and dyed it with procion dye.
When the shawls are ready ( I am going to treadle the second in a different way) I am going to dye them again, each a different colour.
I can't wait to see how it looks.








In the mean time I am still spinning an want to make enough yarn to weave a handspun shawl.
I dyed merino roving in three colours an spun random pieces.
I'm going to make a 2-ply.