interlude 1: warped thinking
I hate warping for tablet weaving. Lots of people do. But I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube videos, and Elewys of Finchingefeld warps differently from a lot of people. She measures directly onto her loom, then threads each card and ties it off. (I prefer to use fishing swivels to release tension, using a taut line hitch to adjust the tension of each card, so that adds a step, but it’s really no big deal.)
I… I may hate warping a little less now. It was only twelve cards, and I used 10/2 pearl cotton, but it wasn’t that bad. If I’d focused on it, it would have gone very quickly indeed. I will be using this technique again.
I got one repeat done last night.
It’s just diagonals. Now that I have the way of it, it goes quickly*. I’m not super-invested in this design, but I’ll finish it and then I’ll have a piece of trim for something random.
*it goes quickly if you remember how to count to five.
I’m waiting for some 60/2 silk thread that I ordered to come in so I can warp that up and see how wide it needs to be for one of the Laurel Challenges I’ve decided to do: weave 12 square inches of brocaded weaving, using any loom you like. So… tablet weaving.
I might have to do quite a lot, depending on how wide my band ends up being. The merchant I bought the silk from tossed in 300 yards of 260/2 silk thread (she called it spider silk) for me to try out as structural warp. I’m a little concerned that this will compress the length of the band, by not taking up as much space vertically, and make it so I need to do twice as much work in a very short period of time.
Right now, this band in 10/2 cotton, with 12 cards, using a commercial sewing thread weft, is 3/8” wide (scant 1cm). I would have to weave a band 30” long to make 12 square inches of weaving.
If I was to use this same warp thread to do the pattern I plan to use, which has 27 cards, the band would be slightly more than 1-1/4” wide, and I’d only need to do about 9-1/4” of weaving.
Math matters.
I’m really tired today. Work has been really busy, and I don’t sleep too well anyway. I’m glad I don’t have a deadline right now.
I’m going out to get my sewing machine from my friend. I lent it to her three years ago, and now that she’s moving out of the kingdom, it’s time to get it back. I don’t see myself using it anytime soon, but it will be nice to have it in the house again. Later, y’all.