Yet again it's been a month or so since I wrote anything here. Mainly because I've been weaving a lot and knitting a little. I find it difficult to find suitable blogging time for some reason. Anyway, my progress on Kearsarge has been steady, and now I just have one sleeve to do, along with the neckband and seams.
I've made some modifications to the raglan shaping, since I didn't like how the decreases were spaced in the pattern ie. decreasing every 2 rows x times, then every 4 rows y times. This gives a strange shape to the pieces. I recalculated the shaping to give a smooth slope to the raglans which I prefer. If the sleeve looks a bit skinny, it's because it is knitted in mistake rib which contracts when left alone. It has lots of stretch and goes round my arm fine.
I took the scissors to my piece of green stripey wool fabric having sewn a zigzag either side of the cutting lines. This turned out to not be necessary as the fulling was enough to hold it together. I made a long bag with pockets on the outside for the shuttles. Inside is plenty of room for the heddles, warp rods and pickup stick. I had trouble getting a picture of the whole thing, but here are the pockets.
My sewing machine grumbled a bit about the multiple thicknesses, but we made it. I took the lengths of tapestry wool left over from the warp (the ends of skeins which weren't long enough for a warp length) and plaited them into a thick drawstring for the top.
Since then I've woven a scarf using patterned all wool sock yarn which I overdyed first, because it was too bright. I warped in stripes with the colour repeat staggered. I'm puzzled about something though, why did this scarf increase in width when washed? The weft was slightly finer than the warp. I've never heard of this happening. I tried hemstitching for the first time and find it much easier to do than tying matching knots.
I've also been playing with a narrow band, the sort of thing you make on an inkle loom, this was fun. I used DMC Petra pearl cotton size 5 for this.
Last but not least, experiments using two heddles: first was a fine 2 ply wool. It was difficult to keep the edges even on this, and the finished fabric has a strange texture all over. I assume that I was getting the wrong length of weft. I think I was trying to avoid extreme draw in by using plenty of weft and got it wrong. Still, it's consistent and feels nice.
After that was a sample piece using crochet cottons. I found
this from the Schacht website, and I just had to try the patterns.
This is half of it. I was trying different thicknesses of cotton for weft. Towards the end I was trying 1/3 twill and even had a go at 2/2 twill (last pale blue bit on the right), using a pickup stick and string heddles and a dowel rod to make the 4th shaft. Verdict: fiddly, but possible.
Currently, I'm pushing the possibilities with 1/2 and 2/1 twill, but that will be for next time.
With this setup, six different sheds are possible: front heddle up, rear heddle up, both heddles down, giving weft dominance and the opposite: front heddle down, rear heddle down, both heddles up, giving warp dominance. The patterns you can get are not what you expect to see on a rigid heddle loom. Yet again, I'm using up oddments so my trademark eclectic colourways are in evidence.
