Archives

2,500 picks

width of the shawl, on the loom

Every endeavor has its own language. In weaving, a pick has 3 components:

  1. Step on a treadle to open a shed (moving threads up and down – presumes a floor loom; table looms are a bit different);
  2. Throw the shuttle, sending the yarn through that shed ;
  3. Pull the beater bar forward, packing in the yarn.

According to my calculations, I wove about 2,500 picks yesterday. Whew! I could only do that because I did no volunteer work for the Weaving Center, no babysitting, no posting on blog or Facebook, no grocery buying, no cooking.

After I got the two shawls woven I had a bit of extra warp and decided to weave what I could for length and see if I could make a cowl. I got about 22″ woven, and this is how close I came to the end of the warp.

wnd of the warp

This morning I cut the woven fabric off the loom. Then there are several steps to be done. First is a visual inspection of both sides of the fabric, looking for any treadling errors or skipped threads. I only found a few, thank goodness, because I hate needle weaving. Here’s what it looks like when I have to do it.

needle weaving

Then I have to pull out my sewing machine and sew a line of stitching close to the edge of each piece to stabilize the threads before cutting them apart.

machine stitching

Although I machine hem my towels, I hand hem all of my wearables. First pin, then hem.

pinning the hem in place

hand hemming

After that it’s into the washer & dryer. Then, with most fabric (but not rayon chenille), a hard press finishes the weaving process.

I’ll try to get a few pix of the finished shawls in natural light tomorrow.

4 comments to 2,500 picks

  • Peg Cherre

    Thanks, Alma & Cindie.

    Theresa – The 22″ was under tension on the loom. Much shorter after. Anyway, I decided it was too much bulk for one cowl, and cut the length in half & sewed into a tube. The width of the piece (now length) is about 24″. I haven’t decided what I’ll do for closures. I need to ponder it for a bit. Looking at Pinterest sounds like a good idea.

  • Lovely shawls Peg – love those colors.

  • Beautiful Peg, those will be some lucky people who got those! 22″ is plenty for a cowl. You could even put snaps, buttons or a cool zipper to close it. Pinterest has a lot of ideas. Maybe some woven ties?

Leave a Reply

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>