Baby Wrap #4

I’ve gotten enough feedback from my first 2 testing mamas for sample wrap #2 that I was comfortable weaving the second wrap on that warp.

Here’s what the draft looked like in my computer software.

Although the color is way off, to me, the snowflake image is very clear, although some friends are sure it’s a flower. Whichever your preference, there’s a discrete visual image. Although I didn’t take pictures on the loom, I found the image just as distinct as I wove.

I finished the weaving, hemmed, and threw it in the washer & dryer. Here’s the best photo I could get (natural light not currently available).

The snowflakes/flowers have basically disappeared! Even in a closeup.

Now, I haven’t done the hard press yet, but I can’t imagine that it will make much of a difference. Those distinct snowflakes/flowers turned into blur of lines, a mush of color. Not what I had in mind at all!

To quote one of my male friends, I guess all I can say is, “Hunh!”

Only when I looked at the preview of this post could I identify at least one potential reason. The draft is very square: the draft image I showed you is 4 snowflakes high and wide. I went back to the photo of the wrap and cropped again to get an image that’s 4 snowflakes high and wide.

As you can see, it’s far from square. Much higher than wide. I thought I had done a good job of calculating how much I needed to pack in that weft to get a square when the tension was released. Obviously not.

I’ll take this as another learning experience and move forward.

Once I can get some decent pix of this and a series of pix of sample wrap #1 & #2, I plan to put them all up for sale on my Etsy page. I’ll let you know when they’re there.

For now, I’ve beamed my Macomber with a silk warp that’s 6 yards long, 520 ends wide so I can weave 2 silk shawls that I hope will be good enough for the juries. Then I’ll return to baby wraps, getting down to business on the custom wrap orders I have.