Sunday, July 06, 2025

Big & Little Brother Blankets: Design Ideas

While waiting to get more yarn, my mind began to explore design possibilities. My first idea was using the variegated yarn for stripes, matching the yarn colorways so that by starting with the same color on multiple skeins and pulling them out to wind onto my warping board together, I could have roughly matching stripes. The solid green would separate these. This would work for the warp, but the weft would have to be one skein at a time so that each weft thread would be a different color. Not good or bad, but I'm trying to figure out if I could keep the weft stripe colors together like in the warp to create a more block-like look. I might could do it if I used multiple shuttles, but eek. 

Another idea I'm entertaining is shadow weave, alternating the colorful variegated yarn with the solid green. Interesting patterns can be created, although the color changes would be unpredictable. 

Then I'm thinking about log cabin; similar to shadow weave but creating a specific pattern looking like woven ribbons. What I learned from previous experiments is that the overall effect of using variegated yarn for log cabin depends on the frequency of the color changes. 

I did find the store shelves restocked with the colors I needed, so no problem there. Now I just need to settle on what I'm going to do with them. I probably ought to do some samples! Since time is not on my side (so to speak) in the summer harvest and canning season, I may have to decide these will be Christmas presents, rather than for the late July family birthday bash. No sense rushing myself and then not being happy with the results.
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Sunday, June 29, 2025

Big & Little Brother Blankets: Planning Problems

 So the actual yarn turned out to be finer than I anticipated, more like sport weight than a worsted weight knitting yarn (terms they don't use any more). 

Worsted weight works well at 8 ends per inch, but I will need a higher sett for finer yarn. Since I bought all they had of the colors I chose, I need to do some calculating to decide what to do.  

Wraps per inch was 14. I found some helpful charts at The Woolery website, that classified it as sportweight or fine yarn and suggested a sett of 10 dents per inch. So I need to recalculate.

Of the variegated yarn I have 2262 yards.
Of the solid green yarn I have 1131 yards. 

This comes short of the yardage I calculated at 8 e.p.i., and with a closer sett I'll need even more to get the same width and length. So I either need to find more yarn in these colors, or add another solid color. Hobby Lobby is just down the road from the library, so I'll pop over there later this week and see what I can figure out. 
© 2025 by Leigh at Leigh's Fiber Journal

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Monday, June 23, 2025

Big & Little Brother Blankets

 This is a project I've had in mind for my grandsons. The "big" brother is 3 years old and the little brother is 1 month old. I doubt either one will actually appreciate the gesture, but a handwoven gift from their grandmother is something I want to do! And with the Glimakra set up with a new treadle tie-up system, I'm anxious to see how that goes.  

I've done my yarn calculations a bit backwards. Rather than start with a finished size, I'm starting with an on-loom size. I have an idea of the draw-in and shrinkages, and the final size really isn't technical; in the ball park baby blanket size will do.

Warp
  • on-loom width: 40 inches
  • sett: 8 e.p.i.
  • on-loom length: 40 inches
  • crochet edges so no fringe: 3-4 inches between blankets
  • loom waste: 28 inches (I'm never sure about this with the Glimakra)
  • Total warp yardage: 2960 yards
Weft
  • length for each blanket will be same as width, 40 inches
  • on-loom width 40 inches x 8 p.p.i. = 320 inches for 1 inch of fabric
  • on-loom project length: 80 inches
  • 320 x 80 = 25,600 inches = 712 yards
Total yarn for project (warp + weft) = 3672 yards

Not included in the above yardage is the crochet edging. I will edge each blanket in a different color, so I'll wait on that.

I want to use Hobby Lobby Baby Bee Sweet Delight because it's cuddly soft and washable. And this week it's on sale for 30% off, so now's the time to buy. Hopefully, I can find enough skeins to pull it off.

© 2025 by Leigh at Leigh's Fiber Journal

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Sunday, June 08, 2025

Treadle Tie-Up From the Top: Installing the Texsolv Cords

8 bunches of 10 cords each

This will be the last time I will have to get down on the floor and hunch over to thread the treadles and lamms! Once I'm done, the cords will be a permanent fixture and easy to arrange from the top on a comfortable seat. No more backache!

Each cord is threaded through the bottom of each treadle hole, where the pony bead secures it.

up through the lower lamm holes, 

then up through the upper lamm holes, and knotted at the end so they don't slip back down. 

Here's what it looks like with all the cords in place.


Next, I need a warp on the loom to try out my new tie-up method. I have a project in mind, but harvest and canning season is heavy upon us. Warping the loom will have to wait until I have some free time. 

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Thursday, May 29, 2025

Treadle Tie-Up From the Top: Preparing the Texsolv Cords

 To set up my 8-shaft Glimakra for tying up the treadles from the tops of the lamms, I need 80 lengths of Texsolv cord. The first step was to determine their length. 

The measurement from floor to the top of the upper lamm is 23 inches. Then I need to allow for knotting the cord at both top and bottom. Using the Vavstuga idea of securing the cords under the treadles with pony beads . . . 


 . . . requires about 4 "buttonholes" of cord, which is about 2 inches.

I'll also need to knot the cord at the other end, to keep it from slipping back down through the upper lamm hole. That takes about 1.5 inches. The other option would to be to put a peg into the end buttonhole, which could be moved if the lamm was needed. Anyway, I added 3.5 inches to my measurement of 23 inches. Plus, I need enough cord to grab it and work with it, so it looks like Jean's measurement of 28 inches per cord length sounds about right. 

If I make my cord lengths 28 inches, then my 55 yard spool of Texsolv cord will give me 70 lengths. My partial spool gives me 4 more. Scrounging around in my box of Texsolv cord scraps, I found the remaining 6 that I'll need, so I'm good to go!

To measure and cut the cords, I used a board with two finishing nails as a jig. 


Total length is 28 inches, which includes half a buttonhole on each end.

Both Kati and Jean tell you how to mark the jig for marking the cord to pin for each lamm. Since I used Jean's 28-inch measurement, I also used her marking recommendation. You can see the chart at her website. 


The placement of the marks is for anchor pegging the cords to the lamms, which I'll show when I get to that step. After I mark each cord, I'm attaching a pony bead to the treadle end.

I'm cutting 8 bundles of 10 heddles each. Then I'll secure a pony bead on the end of each one and can begin to insert the cords through treadles and lamms.

The other thing that occurred to me is that I don't actually need an anchor pin for every hole on both lamms. Each treadle is tied to only one lamm, either the upper or the lower, so technically I'll only need 80 anchor pins. It would be convenient to have a set for both upper and lower lamms, but this way I won't need to buy more. Nor will I need to get push pins. I can live with that. 
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Saturday, May 24, 2025

Treadle Tie-Up From the Top: What I'll Need

 Even though I understood the concept in my head, the particulars of the "from the top" tie-up (aka "Top O' the Lamm") were a bit puzzling at first. I have both Kati Meek's Complex Weaver's Journal article and Jean Elizabeth Studio blog post (see my resources post for details), but even though they were both using Glimakra Standard looms like mine, their measurements vary just a bit. 

The first thing I did was to measure my loom from the floor to the top of the upper lamm.

23 inches from the floor to the top of the upper lamm.

The idea is to cut the Texsolv cords so that if a treadle is resting on the floor, there is still enough length above the top lamm to pin the cord as needed. Kati cut her cords at 25 inches, while Jean cut hers at 28. 

The next step was figure out how much Texsolv cord I'll need. The cords will run from the bottom of the treadles, up through the lower lamm holes and then the upper lamm holes, with enough cord to secure each so that it doesn't slip back through. I have 10 treadles with 8 holes each (one for each shaft) so I'll need a total of 80 cords cut the same length. 

If I go with the 25 inch length, I'll need 55.5 yards of Texsolv cord. I have a new, full spool which is 55 yards! Sheesh. But I also have a few yards left on an old spool, so I should be good to go there.

I'll also need 240 Texsolv pegs (pins).

Texsolv "buttonhole" cord and anchor pins. They also make an
"arrow" pin, but these are the ones I have so that's what I'll use.

I'll need one for each of the treadle holes, lower lamm holes, and upper lamm holes. After removing all of the old treadle cords, I find I have only 105! At $16 per 25 anchor pegs, I'm considering alternatives for at least some of them.

Jean used pony beads to secure the cord under the treadles (see her blog post for photos). If I do that I'll only need 160 anchor pegs. But also, I found a video on how to use push pins to make substitutes.

Texsolv Cord Pegs - Weaving Hack! Alternative to Pegs

Push pins are certainly less expensive, and there are a number of places I can substitute them. 

After I get some pony beads and push pins, I'll be ready to get started. 

© 2025  by Leigh at Leigh's Fiber Journal

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Tuesday, May 20, 2025

Treadle Tie-Up From the Top For My Glimakra: Resources

 As much as I love weaving on my countermarch loom, tying up the lamms and treadles is a real pain. Or at least it's extremely uncomfortable as it involves crawling around on the floor and contorting to connect everything in the right pattern. So when I ran across a video series on how to tie up a countermarch loom easily from the top, I was immediately interested. This post is to list whatever resources I found on how to do it.

The first resource an article by Kati Meeks in the October 2017 issue of Complex Weaver's Journal. I found back issues available on the Complex Weavers website, and ordered a copy. This is the article that started the system.

Next is a link to a blog post at Jean Elizabeth Studio:

Top O’ The Lamm Tie-up

And here is a list of videos from Jean Elizabeth Studio. These were made to clarify the blog post:

Top O' The Lamm Tie Up for Countermarch

Top O' The Lamm Tie Up for Countermarch Part 2

Correction for markings on Texsolv for Top O' The Lamm Tie Up for Countermarch  

More Top O' The Lamm Tie-Up and Sleying the Reed

Also, I found a few more pictures at: 

Kay Faulkner's blog, A convenient treadle tie up method for countermarche looms

Kati Meeks blog, I am re-draw-loomed And having a blast!

So that's what I have to work with for instructions. If I find additional resources, I'll add them too.


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Friday, May 02, 2025

More Spring Color Palettes

 Spring will soon give way to summer, so here are several late spring color palettes.

Redbud

Redbud color palette

periwinkle
periwinkle color palette
blue flag iris

blue flag iris color palette

Japanese maple

Japanese maple color palette

honeysuckle

honeysuckle color palette

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Wednesday, April 16, 2025

Stuck In Indecision

There are several factors involved here:
  • Spring. So many seasonal chores on the homestead: garden prep, planting, kidding, haying, spring cleaning, getting ready for new chicks. Plus maintenance jobs that are best done before the hot summer weather arrives, such as giving the barn a new coat of paint.
  • Being able to weave on the Glimakra is up in the air due to Dan saying he needs to get started on that project in the room, but not actually getting started. It will be a dusty, messy affair, so I'm reluctant to get a warp on that loom, even though there are some wider 8-shaft projects I'd like to get started on.
  • A non-related research project, which is taking a lot of my free time but needs to be done.
That leaves the table loom. Choices:
  • I talked about doing some early American overshot samples, but can't make up my mind on a pattern. Plus I can't find navy blue wool yarn locally, which hasn't helped in the enthusiasm department.
  • Bathroom rug, which I've been thinking about forever (or so it seems). My t-shirt rag rug attempt wasn't satisfactory, so I've abandoned that. But I have yet to find an idea that I really like. 
So in the meantime, I'm doing some mending and hand sewing, all the while thinking I'd rather be weaving.

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Tuesday, April 01, 2025

The Runner Rug Is Done



This was a tie-on project, using the remnants of the warp for the Dornik Herringbone throw rug. I used the same yarns to coordinate with the throw rug, but I wove this one plain weave instead of as a herringbone twill. 

The stripes were created by tying green yarn at the beginning and end of each threading section


So green was tied onto adjacent 8 and 4 threads (both even) and the 1 and 5 (both odd). In plain weave, all even numbered shafts lift together and all odd numbered shafts lift together. So the green ends look doubled in the fabric. Sounds complicated using words, but it was really pretty simple.

Yarns: 4-ply cotton
Structure: plain weave
Finished size: 23" by 68" excluding fringe

Eventually, it will go beside my Glimakra. I say eventually because my husband has a major renovation project going on in that room, so except for the weaving I manage to get done, the room is pretty much out of commission!

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Friday, March 21, 2025

Nature's Color Palettes: Spring Colors

 It's funny because I always used to think of natural colors as being muted and subtle. With flowers, however, this is not the case! As you can see with these color palettes.

Azaleas

Azalea color palette

Daffodils

Daffodil color palette

Irses

Iris color palette
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Sunday, March 16, 2025

Minor Obstacle


 Even so, my runner is now hemstitched and off the loom. I need to twist the fringe and wash it, and then I'll be able to see how it turned out!

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Monday, March 03, 2025

Quick Update on the Runner Rug




It's plain weave so it's going quickly. I was thinking using variegated yarn for warp and weft would create a more plaid-like look, but the shorter sections of colors don't lend themselves to that. But I like it nonetheless. 
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Monday, February 24, 2025

Runner Rug: Glimakra Warped and Header Reveal

I've been plodding away through the planning, measuring, tying, threading, and tensioning process, all the while wondering if my woven fabric will turn out like the idea in my head. Often it does not! So I was a little excited to finally get the warp on the loom and start weaving the header.


My idea is to use the threading of the Dornik Herringbone Throw Rug to create a design feature on a coordinating runner rug using the same threading. The throw rug was twill, but I noticed something when I did a plain weave header for it.


The runner header reveals that, indeed, my idea works, and also that I will get the somewhat plaid like look  I wanted by using the variegated yarn for both warp and weft. 

Except.


Except this one green stripe that shows the same plain weave under and over pattern. I'm not sure why! I did correct some threading when I worked out where the stripes ought to be and tied on the new warp. But there was no way to catch this until I started weaving. 

What am I going to do about it? Nothing. It's just the one stripe and for my purposes it doesn't matter. I can call it a design feature if anyone notices, which I doubt they will. 

The finished rug will probably have more white than is desirable for a rug, but I got the yarn for the blue, green, and yellow bits to match my quilted bedspread curtains.

I'll have weaving details in my next post.

 
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Wednesday, February 12, 2025

Coordinating Runner on the Dornik Herringbone Threading

Last summer I wove a throw rug for my newly set-up weaving room. As I wove, I entertained myself with a number of "what ifs" with the same threading. Could I use one of those ideas to weave a coordinating runner rug for that room? For example, something I noticed was when I wove the plain weave header, was that periodically I had two warp threads sharing the same over-under path.


This is because of the threading. Where the pattern reverses, the two adjacent warp threads are either both on even shafts (8 and 4) or on odd shafts (1 and 5).


This is usually considered a no-no for twills, but it works with the reverses in the herringbone pattern. What if I threaded these two warp threads in the same color (green) and everything else in the variegated yarn. I should get a rug runner with green stripes!

For the weft, I plan to use the same variegated yarn, which will give the effect of a pseudo plaid. Will it work? I'm fixing to find out.


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Historical Research: American Weaving

One of the projects I have set for myself is to weave my family tree. i.e., samples of the traditional textiles from the cultures of my ancestors. I already have ideas for some of them (list here), but I'm starting with the most recent group, which is American. Trying to figure out distinctly American contributions to the history of weaving has been a bit of a challenge, because search information tends to be trendy rather than historically encompassing.

The time frame for my American heritage is broad, early 1600s to modern day. With that in mind, I've managed to piece together a somewhat approximate timeline of the relevant highlights.

Timeline of American weaving
  • mid-1600s to 1725 - overshot coverlets and plain weave for garments
  • 1725 to 1825 - coverlets in double weave and summer-and-winter
    • white cotton and dark blue wool
  • 1785 - power loom patented
  • 1800s to early-1900s - shift to primarily industrialized weaving 
  • 1916 - Mary Meigs Atwater founded the Shuttle-Craft Guild to preserve and promote American handweaving.
  • 1950 - Marguerite Porter Davison published A Handweaver's Pattern Book, based on the drafts preserved by Weaver Rose and the women of southern Appalachia.

I feel like this information gives me something of a historical dividing line between early and modern American weaving, with the end of early American weaving being due to the industrial revolution and the invention of the power loom. Large textile mills were built and weaving became a commercial enterprise. The result was that, apparently, hand weaving became almost extinct, except for a few dedicated handweavers. The resurgence of American weaving as an honored art and craft is largely due to the efforts of Mary Meigs Atwater.

So, maybe I'm looking at two samples?

Early American Weaving Characteristics
  • Early American weaving had it's roots in Europe, and according to Mary Meigs Atwater's The Shuttle-Craft Book of American Hand-Weaving included Dutch, Mennonite, Scotch, Irish, and English traditions.
  • Uses:
    • fabric for clothing
    • coverlets
  • Yarns:
    • wool weft
    • cotton warp and tabby
    • linen warp and tabby
    • An interesting note from Handwoven Magazine: Pre-Revolution cotton production was forbidden in the British colonies. This was meant to create a monopoly on British-made cotton yarns, but the result was that American weavers began to replace cotton with linen (aka tow, from flax plants).
  • Fabrics
    • linsey-woolsey - linen (tow) warp and wool weft typically woven in plain weave or twill for garments.
  • Colors:
    • natural fiber colors
    • natural dyes. Especially popular were
      • indigo blue
      • madder red
  • Structures 
    • 4-shaft overshot for coverlets
    • plain weave 
    • twill
    • barley corn weave (later called spot Bronson)
    • M's and O's
    • huck
    • summer and winter

Modern American Weaving Characteristics

Trying to identify specific characteristic of modern American weaving is more challenging. At some point, the focus shifted from utilitarian to artistic expression. Not that people stopped weaving useful items, but modern American weaving began to focus on weaving as an art form. In watching episodes of Textiles & Tea (hosted by the Handweavers Guild of America) I see an amazing amount of innovation and creativity. I have no idea if it's possible to weave a sample that represents all that.

Anyway, my plan is to do a first sample in an early American overshot pattern. I actually have an example of such a coverlet, woven by my 4x-great grandmother. (Pictures at that link.)

I'll decide about a modern sample later.

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Monday, February 03, 2025

Weaving My Family Tree: Decisions Made

Our recent cold spell interrupted my weaving plans. It was so cold we closed off my sewing room to conserve heat in the rest of the house. So I couldn't get to my table loom. I finally got my bookmarks done, but I lost weaving momentum and mentally set the crackle pine tree table runner aside for now. I'd like to rethink it anyway. The bookmarks were interesting, but for the tree motif, I think I like 8-shaft summer-and-winter designs better. 

Even though I couldn't get to my loom, I had plenty of time to start thinking about my genealogy weaving project. And I made some decisions on how to approach it (my list of decisions to be made is in this post.) 
  • I want to use the correct fiber types for the time period, but I don't want to spin my own yarns.
  • Ditto for the colors. I want to approximate them but without dyeing my own yarns.
  • I'm not going to worry about period equipment, I'll use what I've got.
  • Size of samples will be standard notebook size. The plan is to weave 3 of each sample, and make 3 notebooks, one for myself and one for each of my kids.

Another decision to be made is sample order in the notebook. I plan to start with the present and work my way back. But there is some overlap of years. For example, my American ancestors date from 1620 to present, while my Irish ancestor arrived in Canada around 1825. My Prussian ancestor arrived in 1783 to fight for the British in the American Revolution. So, overlapping of dates. 

There's no time table for this project, but I suspect it will take quite awhile. I'm starting with research for American weaving, but I'll put all that in a separate post.

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Friday, January 31, 2025

Pine Tree & Snowflake Crackle Bookmarks

I had a yard-long warp and managed to weave three pine tree and snowball snowflake bookmarks. Atwater and Snyder called them snowballs, but I changed the name to snowflake because, as you can see, mine aren't solid like their diagrams. 

Fresh off the loom in the order woven (left to right). The middle bookmark is backside up.

Particulars

  • Pattern: Mary Snyder, The Crackle Weave (1961 edition) page 24, which was based on Mary Meigs Atwater's The Recipe Book Series I, Recipe No. 12.
  • Structure: 4-shaft crackle weave
  • Yarns (all cotton):
    • Warp: 20/2 cotton warp in light blue
    • Tabby weft: same as warp
    • Pattern weft: 
      • for the two on the left I used 6/2 in dark green and white
      • 10/2 for the one on the right I used 10/2 in medium green and natural
  • Warp ends: 100
  • Sett: 44 e.p.i.
  • Sley: 3-4-4 in a 12-dent reed
  • Threading: 
  • Treadling: ad lib

Notes and Observations
  • There wasn't a treadling draft so I experimented.
  • I also experimented with yarn weights and colors.
  • Of the pattern yarns, I like the heavier 6/2 better.
    • It made a firmer fabric, which would be more suitable for a table runner.
    • It made the pattern stand out more
  • I had a couple of warp yarn breakages, some of which I didn't fix because the sett crams the heddles so close together, making it difficult to rethread them. 
This was a good project and I gleaned good information for a possible future table runner in an adaptation of Atwater's coverlet pattern.

Pine Tree & Snowball Bookmarks: Planning
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Sunday, January 26, 2025

Nature's Color Palettes: Thoughts & Observations

Continued from Nature's Color Palettes: A Few More

I'm still taking photos to play with for color palettes.

Moss

Moss color palette

By using Gimp photo editor's zoom, I was able to find "hidden" colors, like the orangey browns in the moss. 

Quartz

Quartz color palette

Fungi

Fungi color palette

Interestingly, the fungi color palette is very similar to the natural colors of Shetland sheep fleece.

Handspun Shetland in whites, silvers, grays, fawns, moorits, and blacks.

It also reminded me of one of the samples I wove for my Crackle sampler with natural, medium brown, and dark gray yarns.

Crackle sample #18 - Snyder's Shadow Blocks

Maybe that's why the color combination was so appealing to me.

Then the Shetland samples reminded me of the colors of the natural cotton samples I got at a charkha spinning workshop. 

Palette of natural cotton colors

Observations:
  • My winter season color palettes are primarily browns, grays, blues, and greens
  • The greens are mostly warm greens.
  • Also, I'm realizing how much my eye blends and assumes what colors I'm seeing. When I use the photo editor color picker, I get the color of one pixel which sometimes surprises me because my brain has interpreted the blend of colors differently. 
  • Because of that, I have to admit that these palettes are only possible because I'm using a computer. 
  • And that has me wondering about color blending in weaving, which is a complex topic.
  • Lots more to ponder and explore.
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