Weaverly

Unearthed

While dismantling a tapestry loom for temporary storage during my move, I unearthed a tapestry I wove a year ago but never cut off. I had left the warp on the loom because there was still enough for a second tapestry, which, as sometimes happens, I never got around to weaving. The tapestry was hidden inside the continuous warp loop, so really hadn't been viewed by human eyes for a whole year. Actually, its very existence had been forgotten.

So-o-o, cut off day arrived and this nice surprise emerged. To tell you the truth, I don't even remember having woven it. But it is my loom, and those are my handspun yarns, so I'll claim it as mine. Lassie come home, and all that.

Bag Clip

This Baltic style band is now long enough so that I can undo it from the cloth take-up roller and use a bag clip to secure it to the breast beam. I find this a more flexible solution to the tension issue.

The reverse side of the band is different from the face, but also attractive.

The following picture is from under the loom:

In this weaving limbo I seem to be inhabiting, I have had the opportunity to do a lot of reading. Here are some recent reads:

An Elegant Defense: The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System, by Matt Richtel;  The Weight of Ink, by Rachel Kadish; and Somewhere Towards the End: A Memoir, by Diana Athill. 

All interesting in their own way. 

Pattern, Pattern, and More Pattern

Last month I saw this beauty online and was intrigued by the technique of burning designs on wood by passing an electrical current through the wood. Long story short: I ordered this band loom from Chuck Jones on Etsy, and have been experimenting with warping and weaving methods since then. Ideally, using a rigid heddle for band looms should be done with a backstop setup, to give the warp some room to adjust from the wide sett at the heddle to the narrow width of the woven band. But I knew that good locations for backstop weaving were not in my future, so off I went on another tangent. So glad I did. I've been totally absorbed. Here's my second band. 

A closer look at the band in progress. It's a Baltic style band, in cotton and wool, and I'm indebted to Susan Foulkes for her excellent publications and videos for my instruction. The pattern in this band is based on one of Susan's, but I have tweaked it a bit. I like the idea of weaving what looks like A's, which is my initial.

The heddle is a Sámi style heddle with long and short slots. This one is from Stoorstålka, and has seven pattern slots.

The Sámi heddle or "gehpa", also from Stoorstålka, has an interesting shape. It is used as yarn storage, beater, and pattern picker all in one.