Years ago a friend, now deceased, who manufactured women's housecoats (does anyone use that word anymore?) gave me a cone of red cotton tape, the kind used to applique fancy collar designs. I've used it for the many tying jobs in the studio, like holding lease sticks together, putting chokes on warp chains, etc. Actually the studio is now full of these little pieces of red tape, doing their job to keep me organized. And every time I see a glint of that special red, I think of my friend.
Work is going forward on the yellow warp. I misspoke myself when I said it was 300 ends; it's more like 450. I spread it in the raddle on my Louet 16-shaft loom.
At first I found the Louet raddles oddly positioned, on top of the castle, but I've gotten used to them.
Beam me up, Scotty. Now the tying on behind the heddles.
Order out of chaos. Lots of red tape here!
I never fail to be amazed when I get to this point.
This is the threading I'm continuing. For the weave, here's a structure that will give little spots of warp & weft floats in a crude checkerboard effect.
For the weft, I found a cone of 18/2 hemp in my stash. I know from past experience that this yarn will soften up considerably after washing, and I expect to have a nice piece of garment-weight cloth when I'm finished. On the loom it's hard to see the pattern, but with a little bit of sidelighting it shows up.
Interestingly, there is no draw-in while weaving this cloth. That's probably because the hemp is so stiff in its present state. So no temple is needed. It should go quickly.