Wednesday, May 27, 2026

Leaf Motif: A Different Draft

 So, my original leaf motif draft didn't work. But before giving up on leaves altogether, I did some hunting around to see if there was anything out there that would work. Here's what I eventually found.

Eva Stossel's Networked Weaving Draft 2

I originally found it on Pinterest, but with no link or credit to the designer. The uploaded image was small anyway, so I kept hunting and eventually found the source. It has everything I'm looking for:
  • leaf motif (so I can keep my idea of seasonally colored leaves)
  • 8-shaft point twill threading (which I'm already threaded for)
  • 8 treadles (I have 10, so that leaves 2 for tabby)
  • treadles single shafts only (!)

My only concern (besides whether or not it would actually work) was the 5-end floats. But I figured I'll give it a try and see what I thought. 

© 2026  by Leigh at Leigh's Fiber Journal

Sunday, May 24, 2026

Leaf Motif Draft: There's a Problem

I found the leaf motif draft on handweaving.net. The original draft for this was 8 shafts and 30 treadles. (The links in the caption are to document the source. This will take you to a drawdown if you don't have an account. You have to have a paid account to see the full draft.)

Original: Draft #80360: 8-shaft version of 79845, 2004-2026

Someone later reduced it from 30 to 10 treadles.

Modified: Draft #80362: 8-shaft version#80360; reduced to 10 treadles, Ruth Barbour, 2004-2026

The reduced version requires pressing two treadles per shed. My problem is the mechanics of the countermarch loom, where the shed (opening in the warp to pass the shuttle through) is created by lifting some shafts and lowering the rest. Each shaft is tied to each treadle to go either up or down, depending on the tie-up pattern. In this leaf draft, the treadling pattern requires using treadles simultaneously that have shafts tied opposite. I can't raise and lower a shaft at the same time!

For some reason my brain did not catch this. It feels like it should have been obvious, except it wasn't. I think it's one of those things I had to relearn. (After a 17 year break from weaving, I'm finding there are lots of things in the relearn department.)

So. 

It would probably work on an 8-shaft jack loom, because on a jack loom only the rising shafts are tied. Except I don't have an 8-shaft jack loom

I could try a skeleton tie-up. Except I'm not sure I could manage to press four treadles at the same time. 

I could look for a different draft. Which is where I'm at now. The warp is already on, with a point twill threading, so I need to find a draft that will work with that and requires only one treadle at a time!

Stay tuned. 

© 2026  by Leigh at Leigh's Fiber Journal

Wednesday, May 20, 2026

Lamm-Top Treadle Tie-up

At last, the Leaf Motif warp was on the loom and it was time to tie up the treadles. For a countermarch loom like my Glimakra, that used to mean many back-breaking hours on the floor hunching over the treadles. It meant rearranging and rethreading all the treadle cords for each new draft. I have a step-by-step in this post -> Dressing the Glimakra B2F Step 5: Tying Up the Lamms & Treadles.        

Then I learned about a method of tying up countermarch treadles from the top of the lamms. I had to give it a try. Here are my blog posts about what I learned and how I set up my loom for it:

And here's a photo of what it looked like when I was done, ready to tie up the treadles.


This is a permanent arrangement. I no longer have to change all the cords according to length for each draft. Attaching the treadles to the correct lamms is done from the top.

I've always tied up the treadles as the last step in dressing the loom, so the warp already tied to the front. With the lamm-top tie-up it's possible to attach the treadles before securing and tensioning the warp. So this time, I had to do my tie-up from the back of the loom, where my bench was already set up for heddle threading. It probably would be easier if done from the front, with the cloth and knee beams removed for easy access to the lamms. I'll try that next time.


I made a grid on an index card and diagrammed the tie-up from the draft. On the diagram, I numbered my shafts and treadles, and made a note for the marks on the cord


The marks indicate where to put the anchor pegs. 
  • Shafts 1, 2, 3 use the top mark.
  • Shafts 4, 5, 6 use the middle mark.
  • Shafts 7, 8 use the bottom mark.



They can be adjusted as needed for an even shed. Here's what it looked like when I was done. 


Next, I'll pull the locking pins from the countermarch and make sure everything is level. Then I'll be ready to start weaving. I have two weights of weft yarn, so I'll be sampling those first. 

Sunday, May 17, 2026

Leaf Motif Draft and Tim's Treadle Reducer

So, the treadling for my leaf motif draft looks a bit complicated.

Not one I'll be able to memorize! Is it possible to simplify this? That's where Tim's Treadle Reducer comes in handy. It takes the tie-up of complicated treadling patterns, analyzes it, and offers a simpler way to tie up the treadles which should simplify the treadling sequence.  

Here are my results:

They're exactly the same! LOL! That tells me that the original treadling sequence was way more complicated and that what the draft offers is a skeleton tie-up for the draft. Even so, I'll need a way to keep track of where I am in the sequence.

Onward. 

© 2026 by Leigh at Leigh's Fiber Journal

Wednesday, May 13, 2026

Leaf Motif Random Color Warp is on the Loom!

 Good grief, I never thought getting a warp on the loom would be noteworthy on a project, but I've had so much trouble with this warp that I'm celebrating that it's finally accomplished!

What took so long? Besides not having unlimited amounts of time for weaving anymore, I made so many threading mistakes! Threaded the heddles, checked the threading and found mistakes, corrected the mistakes, checked again, and then found new mistakes! What's annoying is that it's not a complicated threading pattern: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 7 - 6 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - repeat. I can't believe I had so many errors. And I wasn't even listening to a book while I did it. 

And then there were the tangles. What a mess. Changing the color for every warp end to create a random color warp was a disaster. I picked up a different color yarn for each new end which meant there was a lot of crossing over on the first and last pegs on my warping board. I think this was the major reason for the tangles. I've never had so many tangles! In fact, I'm a little surprised that I didn't give up and throw the whole thing away. Perhaps it was the unwelcome idea of having to start the warp again from scratch that was the deterrent. My random color idea didn't work the first time, so likely it wouldn't work a second time either. I just started thinking of it as a puzzle to solve.

Ironically, the very project I hoped would be a relaxing distraction from the several stressors in my life, became a stressor itself. Anyway, it's on the loom! Yay!

Next is tying up the treadles. I'm trying a new system here, and if it works as well as promised, I'll be ready to actually start weaving soon!

© 2026 by Leigh at Leigh's Fiber Journal

Saturday, April 11, 2026

Penguono Sweater Progress

 Heddle threading has been slow. In fact it came to a stop last weekend with a trip to the emergency room with what turned out to be a blood clot in the leg Dan had surgery on. So, we've had various tests and doctor visits this past week, which has given me more knitting time. 

Of the sweater, I've got the right shoulder and front done now, and am working on the left front. 

In looking at the above photo, I'm not too sure about the dark brown section on the edge of the right front. I may choose to re-knit it in a different color. Even though my color changes are spontaneous, it still has to look "right" to me. 

I'm not on a time schedule, so my pace is relaxed. Hopefully, I'll get back to heddle threading next week so I can move on to the next step in that project. 

Wednesday, April 01, 2026

Leaf Motif Dishtowels: Random Warp Notes Part 3

The warp is sleyed, the reed is in place, and I'm on to threading the heddles.

The thread ends are in random color order in the reed, and I have two ends per dent, so I can choose one or the other for the heddle order. I'm just trying not to put the same color in adjacent heddles. 

Not that it would be disastrous, but to keep anything that looks like a stripe from standing out visually. I just have to keep an eye on the next reed pair of colors as I make my choices. 

To warp front-to-back, I'm able to lower the seat on the bench and put it inside the loom.

That makes it easy to reach everything. Fortunately, it's an easy threading pattern.



Saturday, March 28, 2026

Knitting Progress

Here is my waiting room knitting progress.

working on knitting the right front

If you missed that post, it's a sweater designed by Westknits. With Dan in recovery mode from surgery, our routine is different, including the time I have for writing, reading, and computer work. I've been doing Dan's chores and all the driving, plus spending more time in companion mode, which means watching more videos than usual, and that means more time for knitting. 

This particular sweater is a pattern test for me. I dutifully read through patterns before I begin knitting, but most of the time they don't make sense to me until I knit to each point and can see it in my hands. But I needed a project quickly and so chose acrylic yarns in colors that I'm not especially fond of. In other words, it won't be a disappointment if I make mistakes or it doesn't turn out satisfactorily.

The welts were new for me and fun to learn. He has a video on how to make them, which helped.

knitted welts

I think when I make one with my handspun, I'll make the welts with fewer rows so they don't stick out as much. 

The other thing I want to experiment with is sleeve length. The pattern features short sleeves, whereas I would prefer long ones.

All in all, I like the way the sweater is constructed. There will be no pieces to sew together. All rows are finished with slipping the last stitch with yarn in front and then knitting them on the return. That makes a very nice selvedge for picking up stitches for the next section. 

Another plus is that it's almost all in garter stitch. Except for the stockinette stitch welts and the back panel which is in seed stitch, there has been very little perling! So it's quite easy and quick to knit. Garter and seed stitch make for a thicker, warmer fabric too. 

I was a little hesitant on spontaneous color selection at first. But once I got knitting it started to come easily and I could see what color I wanted to use next and how much. I think it will be a good project for using up small skeins and leftover balls of my handspun.

Tuesday, March 24, 2026

Leaf Motif Dishtowels: Random Warp Notes Part 2

 Sleying the reed has begun.


I want 20 ends per inch and my closest reed in 10 dents per inch. So I'm sleying two ends per dent. 



It's been fairly quick. I wound the yarn onto the warping board in a random color order, so now it's just a matter of making sure I don't have two of the same color in the same dent. 

© 2026  by Leigh at Leigh's Fiber Journal

Saturday, March 21, 2026

Leaf Motif Dishtowels: Random Warp Notes Part 1

At last my first leaf motif warp measured and I have thoughts.


Measuring the warp presented some challenges.


Designing a random warp. Previously, I mentioned the challenges of designing a random stripe warp, here.

Winding a random warp. Thoughts and ideas here.  

Threading Order and the cross. Weavers rely on the cross to maintain the threading order. This is true of both the threading cross and when warping back-to-front, the raddle cross. Orderly threads means no tangles! Stripes with groups of threads in one color are typical, but my random warp meant each end was a different color. I chose to not cut each thread and tie on a new one when I changed the color.  Instead, I just set that color aside and continued with the next color. That meant that my threads crossed one another at the turn of the cross. 

It didn't take long to realize that because the various colors passed over the other colors each time I used them, warping back-to-front wouldn't work. So I'm opting for front-to-back, where I can choose which thread goes next. I may have to shake out a few tangles when I wind the warp onto the back beam, but it will prevent tangles at the raddle cross due to crossover of the threads.

That probably doesn't make any sense! So let's just say I'm having to adjust my technique to address the circumstances. 


Conclusion. Even though I get better warp tension on my Glimakra by warping back to front, if I do another random warp from scratch in the future, I'll warp it front to back. I don't have it all figured out, but it wasn't a waste of time because I learned a lot.  

For my four seasons color motif, the next warp (spring) will be tied on, which will make things much easier.

Next up is sleying the reed (and seeing how well I do with my random color for that).

Monday, March 16, 2026

Treasure Chest

 I recently inherited my stepmother's old cedar chest. As I thought about arranging my newly remodeled weaving room, I knew exactly where to put it.

Cedar Chest in its new home under the front window.

It's not something I recall seeing at my paternal grandmother's house, so I'm assuming it was passed down through my stepmother's family or perhaps purchased for her or by her when she was a young woman. 



I couldn't find a date on the chest, but I was able to find information on the manufacturer. It was made by the Ed Roos Company which operated between 1918 to 1951 in Forest Park, Illinois. By the 1930s, it was the largest cedar chest manufacturer in the world, employing 400 people and utilizing something like three million feet of cedar annually. The chests were popularly sold as hope or dowry chests and were shipped all over the world.  

What treasures am I keeping inside it? 

Quilts!

Many of these were made by my great-grandmother. I remember as a very little girl, I was allowed to play with her 1-inch quilt squares. She was bedridden in the latter years of her life, and my grandmother said that her quiltmaking was a lifesaver. It kept her productive and creatively engaged until the end of her eighty-five years. The first four quilts shown here made by her.

Wreath of Leaves
My grandmother penciled the name of the pattern, the quilt
 maker, and the date of completion in the corner of each quilt.

All of Great-grandmother's quilts are completely handmade and it is remarkable that she hand-stitched eight to ten stitches per inch.

Desert Flower 1952
  
Rose of Sharon, or Garland Quilt. 1943

They're all in good shape, except a little dirty from use. My grandmother felt that they were meant to be enjoyed, so instead of keeping them packed away in a trunk, she would change them out periodically for the bedspread on her's and my grandfather's bed. When my grandmother passed away, each of her nine grandchildren were given one of these quilts. Plus I had one given to me previously, and received the one given to my stepmother. 

Although I have mostly applique quilts, my great-grandmother also made pieced quilts. This one is my childhood quilt, made for me by her, and one I loved dearly as a kid.

This one is dirty and badly love-worn and has no date. 

Other quilts in the cedar chest are of unknown origin.

Simple beginners quilt given to me by my grandmother. Either I don't
recall who made it or perhaps she didn't know, but someone in the family.

I believe the next several came down from my stepmother's family. There are no names or dates on any of them. 

a log cabin quilt

a tied quilt

double wedding ring

Lastly, there are a few made by me. Quilt making was one of my first adventures into textile arts (after learning how to sew and embroider).

My own beginner's quilt, 'Moon Over the Mountain' in phases of the moon with unrelated 
scraps of fabric. It was hand-sewn and hand-quilted. I used an old blanket for the batting.

This was my next quilt, hand-pieced and hand-quilted.

The crazy quilt I made for my dad and stepmom.
The story behind my crazy quilt is that it began with a series of embroideries I made over the years for my dad and stepmom as Christmas and birthday gifts. (You can see photos of the individual bird embroideries here.) Eventually somebody said they ought to be made into a quilt, so I agreed to make it. I got started on it but it was set aside when I had two small children to tend to. Years later, the quilt still wasn't done and it became quite the family joke where my dad would call and greet me with "how's the quilt coming along?" 

One day Dan and the kids said, "you've got to get it done." They agreed to do all the cooking and housework to let me work on it and finish it. Finally it was done! My folks got to enjoy it on their bed for many years, which I'm glad of. I'm also glad it came back to me. 


As you can see, my quilt collection pretty much fills up the chest. Heirloom quilts are indeed a treasure, and so perfect for a treasure chest. 

Tuesday, March 10, 2026

Waiting Room Knitting

My husband had a knee replacement yesterday. In preparation for waiting room waiting, I decided on taking a book and a knitting project. At first, I thought I would knit some socks, but after leafing through my sock knitting books, I just couldn't work up the enthusiasm for selecting a pattern. Then I saw a sweater our librarian made, and she directed me to Westknits.com. I'd found my project. 

Source: Westknits

The pattern is perfect for scrap yarn, of which I have a lot, especially handspun. But I couldn't quite visualize how it would work out, plus I'd like to go for a longsleeve version. So I decided to knit a trial sweater with some of the worsted weight acrylic yarn I've collected over the years. 

Picking up along the edges of the seed stitch back panel to knit welts.

The yarn is worsted weight and the needles are US8. As a trial sweater, I have several advantages.
  • No swatching to fuss with. Size and fit aren't terribly important here.
  • I'll be able to experiment with the sleeve length. 
  • It's using up yarn I don't like to work with anyway (acrylic). And I'm not especially attracted to those colors, so I'm not emotionally attached to it. It will be easy to gift to someone who likes it
  • I'm not very good at serendipitous color knitting. I feel I need to follow a plan because I want to know how it will all come together, but in my mind a sample sweater doesn't matter. I admit knitting the entire back panel with one variegated colorway wasn't very creative. Hopefully I'll get freer with color choices as I go along.

The surgery went well and he spent a lot of time dozing afterward, so I pretty much had the entire day to indulge myself in knitting. It's a small town hospital and so neither overcrowded nor noisy, so it was perfect for contemplative knitting.  

Wednesday, March 04, 2026

Tips for Winding a Multicolor Warp

 
Random winter color theme warp

While struggling to figure this out on my own, it occurred to me to search 'how do I wind a random color warp?' Some of the advice is for multicolor warps rather than specifically random color warps, but the ideas sort of belong together, so I've made notes of the suggestions I learned.
  • Some people cut each color when it's wound and tie on the next one to the cut end. Since I'm changing colors for every warp end, that did not appeal to me. At. All. 
  • Madelyn van der Hoogt, on the other hand, doesn't cut. In her article, Ask Madelyn: Winding Multicolored Warps she states, "I never cut and tie as I change colors. Just wind the ending thread 4 or 5 times around the peg where it ends to secure it (either the start peg or the end peg). When you need to use that color again, simply pick it up and continue, leaving the windings on the peg." That's close what I've been doing, except at the raddle end, where I need everything to be the same length for the end stick.
  • From Glimakra USA: "If you want to wind warps with random colors or textures, you can warp back to front by placing the warp bouts on a table and mixing the colors and threads in the raddle or pre-sley a reed to use as a raddle."
  • Ideas suited for warping front to back:
    • Wind each color separately in its own bout and either sley each color separately, or select colors while threading the reed. I'm thinking this would work best for a planned color order.
    • Wind all colors together as a group, then select colors while threading the reed. I'm thinking this one would work for my next seasonal color warp because I plan to tie it on. 
  • Then there was this idea from Rock Lake Weaving's video, Changing colours while measuring a warp. The picture below is a screenshot from the video.
She threads the yarn ends through a reed to keep them from tangling. See the video for details.

I thought this a very clever idea and tried it when I started bout #2. But because I'm not cutting each color when it's wound and tying on a new one, I still had tangling. This time it was all above the reed, so that I couldn't rearrange the cones to sort it out. I'll abandon it when I get to bout #3, unless it becomes too tangled to proceed as is. 

So that's the notes from my research so far. If you have suggestions for preparing a multicolor warp (especially a random one) I'd love to hear them. 

Sunday, March 01, 2026

Begun! Leaf Motif Random Warp: Winter Colors

 I've started measuring my warp! The last of the construction details are done in my weaving room, so I can finally start on this project. I figured out a way to hang my warping board on my Glimakra and have made a start on my random winter color warp. This post is to document my start date, observations, and notes for next time. 

first 30 warp ends in 8/2 cotton

I'm following the checklist I created last month with random color generator

My checklist. Working with groups of five helps
 me keep count of raddle groups and threading cross.

Things that help:
  • Deciding beforehand that it would be a slow process. 
    • In other words, be patient.
    • Accept that the yarns will tangle and take the time to sort them out frequently.
    • Know that I'll figure it out as I go along. 
  • Label my colors with the color names on my check-off list
  • Good lighting. The colors are close in value, so the browns especially are harder to tell apart.
  • Check off each color on my checklist as I go along. 
  • Don't worry if I think I'm making a mistake. It's random color order anyway, so, so what?

scraps of paper with the color names have been helpful

I don't have as much time for weaving as I used to, but making progress makes me feel good. 

© 2026 by Leigh at Leigh's Fiber Journal

Monday, February 23, 2026

Progress

While no actual movement, measurement, or manipulation of yarn has taken place, I'm still calling it progress because, at last, all the dusty, sloppy, messy jobs are done in our front room remodeling project, and the dust covers are off the loom.

sneak peek

There is still dusting, rearranging, and organizing to do in the room, but I can now actually see myself getting started on this warp. What a blessing.

Sunday, February 08, 2026

Decision About the Random Stripes

I laid out my thought process in my last post, which was helpful as it gave me a chance to organize my thoughts and look at my options for comparison. I decided to go with using a random stripe generator and warping back to front. 

The generator gave me both a visual chart of what the stripes will look like, plus a list of the color order by color names. Since my yarns don't have color labels, I'm going to have to assign them names in order to know which ones to wind as I follow the list.


My actual yarns I would call brown, beige, gray, and khaki. The closest picks I got from the generator were called Camel, Mocha, Mushroom, and Meadow. Gotta love those descriptive color names. They look good on labels but are pretty meaningless when trying to find substitutes or describe something to someone else. 

As an aside, I just finished reading a book entitled Where We Meet the World: The Story of the Senses by Ashley Ward. It will likely come as no surprise that scientific researchers have determined that people don't all perceive color the same way. We don't see the same color when we look at them. We may identify something as green, but how that green appears to us may be different than the person standing next to us. Makes me wonder if my fussiness about color only matters to me. 

Once I chose the colors, stripe width, and number of stripes, I could keep hitting the "generate stripes" button to get different groups of 50 stripes each. 

The visual they gave me looks like this

First 50 random stripes

The colors aren't a good match to my yarns, but it gives an idea of the randomness. For winding the warp I think I'll do best to follow the list and check them off as I go. I'm including the list here in it's entirety, so I don't lose it. 

 Camel, Mocha, Camel, Meadow, Mushroom, Meadow, Mushroom, Camel, Mushroom, Meadow, Mushroom, Camel, Mushroom, Mocha, Camel, Mushroom, Camel, Mushroom, Camel, Meadow, Mocha, Mushroom, Mocha, Camel, Mocha, Meadow, Camel, Meadow, Mushroom, Camel, Meadow, Camel, Mocha, Mushroom, Mocha, Meadow, Mocha, Meadow, Camel, Mocha, Mushroom, Camel, Mocha, Camel, Mocha, Mushroom, Camel, Meadow, Mushroom, Meadow

Mocha, Meadow, Mushroom, Meadow, Mocha, Camel, Mushroom, Camel, Mushroom, Camel, Meadow, Mocha, Mushroom, Camel, Mushroom, Camel, Meadow, Mocha, Camel, Mocha, Mushroom, Mocha, Meadow, Camel, Mocha, Camel, Meadow, Mushroom, Mocha, Camel, Meadow, Mushroom, Camel, Mushroom, Camel, Mushroom, Camel, Mocha, Meadow, Mushroom, Camel, Meadow, Mocha, Meadow, Mocha, Mushroom, Meadow, Mocha, Meadow, Mushroom

Mushroom, Meadow, Mushroom, Mocha, Meadow, Mocha, Meadow, Mocha, Camel, Mushroom, Mocha, Mushroom, Mocha, Camel, Mushroom, Meadow, Mocha, Mushroom, Mocha, Meadow, Mushroom, Meadow, Camel, Mocha, Meadow, Mushroom, Camel, Meadow, Mocha, Camel, Mushroom, Mocha, Mushroom, Meadow, Mushroom, Mocha, Mushroom, Camel, Meadow, Mocha, Camel, Mushroom, Camel, Mushroom, Camel, Mushroom, Meadow, Mocha, Camel, Mushroom

Mocha, Mushroom, Camel, Mushroom, Camel, Mushroom, Meadow, Camel, Mocha, Camel, Mushroom, Mocha, Camel, Mushroom, Meadow, Mushroom, Mocha, Meadow, Mushroom, Mocha, Meadow, Camel, Meadow, Camel, Mushroom, Mocha, Camel, Meadow, Camel, Mocha, Mushroom, Mocha, Camel, Mushroom, Camel, Mocha, Camel, Mocha, Meadow, Camel, Mushroom, Mocha, Meadow, Camel, Meadow, Camel, Mushroom, Camel, Mocha, Camel

Mocha, Mushroom, Mocha, Meadow, Mocha, Mushroom, Mocha, Camel, Mocha, Meadow, Mocha, Meadow, Mocha, Camel, Mushroom, Camel, Mocha, Mushroom, Camel, Mushroom, Camel, Meadow, Mocha, Meadow, Camel, Mushroom, Camel, Mocha, Camel, Mushroom, Camel, Mushroom, Meadow, Mocha, Mushroom, Meadow, Mocha, Camel, Meadow, Mocha, Mushroom, Mocha, Meadow, Mushroom, Camel, Mocha, Meadow, Mocha, Meadow, Mushroom

Mushroom, Camel, Mushroom, Mocha, Meadow, Camel, Mocha, Meadow, Mushroom, Meadow, Camel, Mocha, Mushroom, Camel, Mocha, Meadow, Mocha, Camel, Mushroom, Camel, Mocha, Mushroom, Camel, Meadow, Mushroom, Meadow, Camel, Meadow, Mocha, Mushroom, Meadow, Mushroom, Meadow, Mocha, Mushroom, Meadow, Mocha, Meadow, Mushroom, Meadow, Camel, Mushroom, Mocha, Camel, Mocha, Mushroom, Meadow, Camel, Mocha, Camel