The tale of a warp, Part 4: making an infinity wrap

When we left our saga of the process of handweaving, I had cut the woven cloth off the loom and was going to wet-finish (i.e., wash) it by hand before I sewed it into an infinity wrap.  The fabric is 100% 8/2 Tencel (trademark for lyocell, a sustainable plant-fiber yarn made using the same process as rayon).  Like the silk it resembles, tencel should be hand-washed and hung or laid flat to dry.

After zigzagging the cut ends to prevent raveling, I take small scissors and trim off all the hanging weft threads that are the result of ending one bobbin of weft and starting a new one. 

Then I turn under one short end of the fabric and machine stitch a 1/2" hem.

The next part is the trickiest for me; I have to double- and triple-check that I've done it right every time.  With the hemmed edge facing up on my right I take the other (short) end of the fabric and twist it once (only once!) and pin it to the top selvedge edge of the fabric, with its selvedge edge flush with the hemmed edge.  

Here's a closeup.  I pin it thoroughly and then I try on the piece and double-check in a mirror that the hem is on the inside and that there's only one twist in the fabric.  

Notice that the pinned raw edge is a generous 1/4" inside the selvedge edge of the bottom layer.  This is a shortcut to making a type of  flat-fell seam.  I machine stitch this seam, about 1/4" inside the pinned raw edge.

The next step is to take the piece to the ironing board and open it out.  The hemmed edge is now right side up (at the upper right in the photo) and the long selvedge edge of that layer is on top, covering the narrower raw edge layer of the seam.  We are looking at the right side of the garment.  I press the seam flat and closed, and pin.  I stitch another seam 1/4" in from the pinned selvedge edge, thereby enclosing the short, raw edge inside the new seam:  a kind of flat-fell seam. There are now two parallel lines of stitching along this edge. 

Here's the completed seam.  I apologize that the highly patterned fabric makes it hard to make out the stitched seams.

And here's the finished wrap.  For this one I used a black weft that really makes those colored stripes pop.

When I started this series of posts, I wanted to answer this question:  Why weave?  Why would you make fabric and garments by hand, using slow, pre-industrial processes?  Why should someone pay higher prices for these handmade garments--when it is so much easier and cheaper to buy mass-produced clothing?

Well, for me a large part of the answer is simply that I enjoy the process of weaving.  I enjoy handling threads and fabric, and I enjoy the slow, meditative act of weaving itself.  I enjoy wearing things I've made and I really love it when others enjoy wearing or giving as a gift something I have made.

But it's also an act of quiet rebellion on my part, a pushing back against disposable fashion and the troubling environments in which such fashion is made.  I'm also rebelling in my small way against the fast-paced, automated, impersonal, use-it-and-throw-it-away world we live in.  Now I am the first to confess that I am far from perfect on this score; most of my own clothes are made overseas and purchased from a chain store.  I cannot (yet) weave and make my own blue jeans, underwear or winter coat.  But by weaving a few garments I hope to remind myself and others that it is possible to be more mindful in our choices as consumers.  Just as we might choose to buy organic food from a CSA (community-supported agriculture) because we value healthy bodies, a healthy earth, and local food production, so we might choose to buy a handwoven garment that can be enjoyed for years because we know that it was made locally, in a safe environment, from sustainable materials.  We can see the hand of the maker in these things, and we know where they come from.

To see more of my recent work, click here for my website. 

The tale of a warp, Part 3

For the past two weeks I've been sharing in excruciating some detail the process by which I design, warp and weave a garment. When we left our tale, I had finished "dressing" the loom and tied up the treadles.

Now I begin the fun task of choosing the weft color--the thread on the bobbin in the shuttle above, that is thrown back and forth, interlacing with the warp on the loom.  It is throwing the shuttle, in combination with pressing the foot treadles, that actually constructs the woven web of fabric.  I always include at least 18" of extra warp when I plan a project so I have room for sampling various weft colors and treadling patterns that would change the appearance of the fabric.  I'm often surprised at how the weft color changes the appearance of the warp.  In this case, the customer who ordered this wrap specified a dark gray for the weft, so that decision was made. In the photo below you can just make out a couple of different treadling patterns I tried, with the Ms and Os pattern closest to the bottom being the one I used.

I always weave with my shoes off--allows my feet to feel the treadles and move between them more smoothly.

As I press the treadles in sequence, the shafts of my counterbalance loom raise and lower, and a shed opens--the space between the raised and lowered warps--into which I throw the shuttle.  For this Ms and Os pattern, with the threading and tie-up I'm using, the treadling sequence is 16161616 53535353.  Even though my loom has six treadles, to make this pattern I need only use four. 

And that's how it's done, over and over again.  For this piece, I wove about 72" with 20 picks, or throws of the shuttle depositing one weft thread, per inch.  About 1400 throws of the shuttle in all, taking about 3 hours.  I usually break up the weaving into shorter sessions spread over a few days to save wear and tear on my arms and shoulders. 

After each pick, I grab the beater containing the reed and pull it against the fabric, pushing that just-woven thread up against the fabric underneath it.  I have to use a consistent beat in order for the woven density of the fabric to be even --if I beat more gently some times and more firmly at other times, it shows in the fabric as looser and tighter sections, and I've learned the hard way that it can't be repaired later.  A consistent beat is something that comes with hours of practice and with maintaining a regular rhythm in treadling, throwing the shuttle, and pulling the beater.  It's physical work, but it's rhythmical too, a bit like dancing. Once your hands and feet learn the dance, your mind is free to wander a bit, if the treadling pattern is not too complex. Of course if your mind wanders too far you make mistakes. 

I also keep an eye on the edges, or selvedges of the fabric, where the weft thread wraps around the edge warp thread before making its return trip across the fabric.  I want to make sure the selvedges don't draw in too much, or have loose loops of fabric protruding.  Loops can be fixed, laboriously, but draw-in cannot.  Again, practice and an even rhythm make a huge difference here.  
 

In the photo above where I'm using the beater, you can see a slip of paper pinned to the edge of the woven fabric--this is where I periodically record the number of inches I've woven since the start.  When the woven web grows closer to the beater, I advance the warp by winding the cloth beam forward.  Measuring and recording the inches I've woven as I go is the only way to know where I am in the project.

I almost never weave just one project from a warp, so I also wove another piece on this warp, using the same pattern and a black weft.  Next week we'll look at how different the gray and black wefts appear against the bright stripes of the warp.

And then, when the weaving is all done, comes the hugely satisfying moment of cutting off.  There is no fringe on this project, so I can cut the warp fairly close to the edge of the fabric. 

You may be thinking, But there's lots of warp left on the loom!  There is always a certain amount of loom waste in a project, warp that remains unwoven. Because of the way the loom is constructed there is no way to insert the shuttle in a shed right up to the end of the warp .  On my loom I usually allow 26" for loom waste.  These leftover warp threads are known as thrums, and weavers have endless discussions about what to do with their thrums.  For now I'm just throwing mine in a basket where they collect dust.  

And then I pull the fabric off, and it unspools from the cloth beam in, I hope, all its glory and with no glaring errors. 

Remember how I tied on all those little bundles of warp ends to the front?  Now they have to be untied, and the shoelaces I used as warp spreaders before I started weaving can be removed too.

Next I will machine zigzag stitch the cut edges of the fabric to keep it from raveling, and then handwash the fabric and allow it to hang dry overnight.  Then I'll finish constructing the infinity wrap. 

Thanks for joining me on this journey--and tune in next time to see the finished projects.
P.S.  Let me know if you have any use for my thrums.  Free to a good home!

The thrilling tale of a warp, part 2

Last week, I started a series of posts about the steps involved in making a handwoven garment.  In the first installment we saw how the warp yarn is measured out and "beamed" (wound between layers of cardboard on the loom's back beam). The warp forms the lengthwise grain of the fabric.

The next step is threading, inserting each thread one at a time through a metal heddle attached to one of the shafts.  A moment for vocabulary:  the shafts or harnesses are wooden frames that move up and down as the weaver presses the foot pedals, or treadles, of the loom in sequence.  The combination of threading and treadling sequences creates the woven pattern seen in the fabric.

You can see in the photo below that the heddles, about 200 on each shaft, are attached to metal bars at the top and bottom of each wooden shaft.  My loom has four shafts, allowing for a wide variety of patterns, but many looms have 8, 16, or even more shafts, allowing for an almost infinite variety of increasingly complex patterns. 

I am inserting each warp thread through the center "eye" of the correct heddle.   The heddles are threaded in a particular sequence (in this case 1234 1212 3434 1234 1313 2414 repeated 14 times--a traditional pattern called Ms and Os) on the shafts to produce a pattern.  Weavers tend to mutter long strings of numbers under their breath; there is a lot of counting involved in weaving.

Above you can see that most of the warp has been threaded through the heddles and I am threading the last remaining  warp ends.  Below all the heddles have been threaded. 

After threading, the warp threads must be inserted through a comb-like reed that spaces them evenly for the full width of the piece.   The stainless steel reed (with bright blue top and bottom edges in the photo below) sits in the beater, a wooden frame that the weaver uses to "beat" or press each weft pick into place in the fabric (more on this next time).  At this point I have to re-configure the loom, taking away temporary tools like the raddle and putting back in place the beater and the breast beam that I had removed at the start for easier beaming and threading.

The threads must be centered in the reed, so I measure half the width of the fabric out from the center of the reed (here, 9-1/2") and start inserting the threads, or sleying the reed, there.  I use a long hook to pull them through each slot in order. In this case two threads are pulled through each slot for the proper density, or sett, of the fabric (here, 24 ends per inch).

After sleying the reed, the front ends of the warp will be tied on to the front of the loom so that the entire warp is held under tension from front to back.  Luckily the warps can be tied on in little bunches, not individually!  I tug each bundle three times, working my way across, to make sure the tension on each one is equal. 

Don't they look pretty all tied on? 

Next I spread the warp by weaving in some waste yarn, to bring those bunches closer together.  I like to use shoelaces since they are easy to remove later and can be re-used.  I have heard of folks using all sorts of things for waste weft, including toilet paper and plastic bags!

Once the warps are fairly evenly spaced, one step remains before I can finally start weaving.  I need to tie each shaft in the correct combination to the treadles below, to yield the woven pattern I want.  This is called tying up.  Referring to my handy cheat sheet, I get down on the floor and tie up the heddles appropriately.  Here you can see that each treadle has two shafts attached to it.

When I was first learning to weave in classes at the Chattahoochee Handweavers Guild here in Atlanta, it took me five weeks of class sessions (out of the 8-week class) for me to get the loom completely warped.  I remember complaining, "I don't know why anyone would choose to do this more than once!"  All I wanted to do was start throwing that shuttle and weave!  Nowadays I can wind a warp and warp the loom in a day, though usually I spread it out over a day or two. 

Tune in next time for the exciting conclusion to our tale--actually weaving! 

P.S. Many thanks to my dear husband Sam for taking the photos in this series of posts.  

The tale of a warp, Part 1

When I was in grad school I made a lot of artwork using paper I made myself.  I was describing the work and the process of papermaking to a friend, and she looked puzzled and said, "You know, Molly, you can buy paper now."

I get the same reaction about handweaving sometimes--why would you ever spend all the time and effort it takes to weave cloth and make garments by hand when you can buy these things so readily and cheaply?  Beautiful fabrics abound and "fast fashion" is so inexpensive as to be disposable.  Why weave?  Is it merely a harmless and rather peculiar hobby like, oh, building scale models of the Eiffel Tower out of toothpicks?  And why buy handwovens?  Why pay $75 or $95 for a scarf when you can snag one for $12 at Target?

I thought one answer might be found in looking at the process of making a handwoven item from start to finish.   How do I get from here. . . .

to here?

The first step in weaving any project is preparing the warp (the lengthwise threads that are stretched under tension on the loom).  The first step in preparing the warp is measuring it out.  Actually, before I can measure it out I have to determine how long and how wide the finished piece needs to be, in order to do the math to determine how many threads will be in the warp and how long they must be.  In order to do that I have to have a weaving draft, or pattern, in mind.  Every woven piece starts with at least a couple hours with graph paper, worksheets and a calculator.  (I've just purchased software that will allow me to bypass the graph-paper drafting I've been doing.  So much faster!  Woohoo!) 

 Here I'm winding the warp for this project, an infinity wrap ordered by a friend. This warp will be about 5 3/4 yards long (enough for two wraps) and 348 threads wide. The warping board allows me to easily measure and keep in order all this thread.  Fun fact:  One scarf contains 1500-2000 yards of thread--about a mile, more or less, every inch of which passes through my fingers twice before I'm done.

  

Before I can remove these measured threads from the warping board I have to tie them in several strategic places to keep the threads in order and keep them from tangling.  Then I form them into "chains" (like chain stitch in crochet, using my hand as the hook), to make them short enough to move around easily.

Here are two warp chains already wound and draped over the back of the loom, waiting for the last warp chain to be finished, so they can all be "beamed" or rolled onto the warp beam of the loom.  (The warp beam is wrapped in white canvas and tied to the apron rod with black shoestrings.)  The chains are resting for now between the nails of the raddle, that long piece of wood rubber-banded to the back beam, with the nails spaced 1" apart.  The warp was wound in one inch sections, so I can easily distribute the full width of the warp evenly all the way across.  

The next step is to position the warp chains in some temporary tools that allow me to get the warp onto the beam with minimal tangling, swearing and tears.  Below you can see how I've spaced the warp across the raddle in one inch sections.

You can see me holding two long lease sticks, positioned so as to keep the threading cross (never mind) in place. 

 Then comes the winding:  a process of standing in front of the loom, shaking and strumming the warp threads to encourage them to lay parallel to each other, and then tugging them all to put tension on them. 

Then I wind the warp onto the beam using a handle. I alternate shaking and strumming the threads, and turning the warp beam, several times, proceeding about a yard at a time, until nearly all the warp is wound on the beam.

I've inserted a roll of cardboard that winds on between the layers of warp thread on the beam, again to keep them from tangling and to keep the tension consistent. 

No matter what the fiber technique, it always comes down to controlling tension, doesn't it?  In the thread as well as the maker! Next comes threading.  A task for another day. . . .