Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Undulating Shadow Weave 1- Weaving

By Leigh

Weaving on the undulating shadow weave has been progressing nicely. It has a fairly long treadling sequence which has the potential to be confusing. But actually it's been easy to catch on to, and fun to weave. The colors I'm using are quite dark, but I hopefully the subtle pattern can be seen in this photo:

Undulating shadow weave in 8/2 and 16/2 cottons.
I'm especially happy that the warp tension is even and the fell is straight. I have struggled for years with tension problems, but it hasn't been until I started experimenting with warping back-to-front that I actually made progress in conquering them.

My first plan was to use this fabric for front panels for a jacket. However the more I weave, the more I see a table runner appearing before my eyes. I didn't hemstitch it at the beginning, but perhaps I can do this before the whole thing is cut completely off the loom(?)

My other news is that I have had a slight set back in accumulating more half gallon milk jugs to fill with water for warping weights. Since this warp, my goal has been to have more weights so that I can have smaller bouts as I beam the warp. With the help of my almost-no-longer-a-teenage son who still likes milk on his cereal, I've been able to save a few more. Then I saw this:

Catzee and her newest toy.Yes, she's trotting down the hall with it in her mouth. Here's a close-up of what she did to it:

The punctured milk jug, useless for my purposes.I can't fathom what is so attractive about it unless her super kitty smeller detected the faint odor of milk, which certainly must be rather sour by now. To me it just smells like plastic. Or maybe 5 months is an age when kittens teethe. I don't know. I just know that I'll have to find a safer place for the next ones.


Related Posts:
A Weaving Setback - What else Catzee did
Shadow Weave Profiles
Undulating Shadow Weave 2 - Hemstitching
Undulating Shadow Weave 3 - Finishing
Shadow Weave Samples 1 - Begins the series of samples

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lovely weaving! It'll be a beautiful runner...Like Sue has said, I've hemmed the front end of a project after weaving. Not quite as good tension, but still, better than doing it off the loom. Perhaps you could weight it off the back with some milk jugs....um, well....tooth-free ones....!

Leigh said...

Thank you Sue and Cheryl. I probably would have tried the hemstitching after the fact anyway, but it's a relief to know that it has been done successfully by others.

Anonymous said...

I don't know about cats teething - but I *do* know that they learn to carry things at about that age... Hopefully, she will grow out of it.
My kittens have carried socks, pens, empty youghurt cans... one kitten, one speciality.
Good luck!

Kerstin in Sweden

Meowmepurr's Mumma said...

I got to your site through Rascal and Catzee, and I am really enjoying it! I don't have anyone who carries milk cartons, but my (5 year old)"kitten" still totes balls of yarn. I got her when she was 4 weeks old(!), and we lived in my studio until she was old enough to climb stairs and generally be out in public. Therefore, most of her baby toys were of the yarnly persuasion, and it's an addiction she's never grown out of.

I am a knitter, mostly, and I dabble in weaving, crochet, sewing, cross stitch and needlepoint. If you don't mind, I'm going to try the Miniature Leaf and see where I get with it.

Your Shadow Weave is just beautiful!
Rascal and Catzee are a lot of fun, too!

CygKnit said...

The Undulating Shadow is just beautiful, so much so that I was *almost* tempted with learning to weave. Almost.

As for the kitty, mine carries anything she determines is a toy. At 3, she has never grown out of it. Hope yours isn't too destructive!

Anonymous said...

Ha, ha, well done Catzee. She is just too cute.

Leigh said...

LOL Yes, Peg, she's still alive. I agree with the others that she was so cute that I had to grab for the camera.