Between Two Pages

I have been participating in the Guild of Canadian Weavers annual weaving exchange now for some years. They are quite addicting and certainly low pressure. Hostess Lynnette gives the assignment in the early spring and then have until October 1st. to turn them in, with minor postage costs. So far we have done: tea towels, card inserts, guest towels, runners and here, scarves and this year the theme is book marks. Design, weave and send in four and get four back. That's it.

I've never woven anything this small before! I dug out all my books on small drafts and weaving miniatures. Not satisfied there, I moved onto looking through my sample binders at actual woven samples for inspiration. Now I love fancy twills. Their simple threading and intricate treadling runs can produce intricate patterns that look impossibly complex. I found my friend Gudrun's draft and set to finding the right materials. I have a nice selection of 20/2 cottons but I spied a small cone of a fine  gold linen that had been absorbed into my stash from somewhere. No size is recorded and its a bit larger than 20/2. I do plan to use the McMorran balance to determine its yardage and size before I turn my project in. { Edit: I snipped away at the thread on the McMorran balance and came away with 39" which you multiply by 100 for 3900 yards per pound. Not certain which size this corresponds to but....   Anyone have an idea? Please leave a comment. }

So here's the draft again. My warp is 3 yards long, sett is 47 epi and is 2 inches in the reed. Edge threads are black 20/2 cotton and centre warp is my fine mystery linen. The linen will give a nice firm quality to the book marks.

It was wound, beamed and set into the raddle all in under an hour! What a treat!

Everything is quite compact and dense!

This is a 20 dent reed and it's sleyed 2,2,3. So all this was done in quick time.... until we get to the tie up!
I have a cranky lower back and I need a 12 treadle / 12 shaft tie up. The Louet Spring is a light loom and we 'cheat' by lifting her up onto crates:

That pile of ties is only half... the other pile is over to the left. I took a few days to get it done doing 3-4 treadles a day. One reason why I'm planning multiple projects from a tie up!

Calli held the carpet down and kept me company. There is a perfect circle of toys around the loom!

Finally I laced on to reduce loom waste and treadled the network treadling and I really like it! So tiny and compact. The pattern below is only half the bookmark and I wove another repeat, then hemstitched.

Then I wove some using the threading as my treadling (or'as drawn in' or 'tromp as writ') and I really liked this version too. During the second half of this warp, I had a linen warp thread part company. Most likely due to tension. I had a heck of a job trying to find the various ends, the heddle involved and fishing in a repair thread. It was a very tight situation and eventually it called for help from hubby and his head lamp 'cyclops' to brighten up 47 heddles crammed into one inch! We finally found it and got it squared away.

It was all woven and done in no time! I took the warp off and gently soaked in in warm sudsy water, primarily to tighten up the pattern. I left them all linked and plan to cut apart later. Linen doesn't like having its cut warp ends washed and they can get ratty.

Next, I used a rotary cutter and cutting mat for a nice clean edge.

Here's a clean edge.  I went on to cutting it shorter by half again as the fringe looked out of proportion.

So here's the final show and tell and they are ready to go on their way later this fall!  They were fun to weave up and it was a quick project. I also learned about miniature weaving and I would like to explore this in more depth at some point.

Woven network style:

Then woven as threaded, or as drawn in.... and also know as "tromp as writ" from very old drafts.

Now I have a habit of resting my shuttle on the project underway and I forgot how narrow my warp was and somehow I nudged the shuttle and it lurched sideways and it fell point first onto the top of my left foot. It HURT and it developed a large goose egg lump right away and my first  thought was "uh oh, that's gonna bruise"
That was an under statement!

First one shows the swelling and the second the lovely evolving colours!

The whole thing over the last week has turned shades of green and purple and its crept right down into my toes. I can walk okay (for the most part) but there is still a sizeable lump where it impacted and its tender to touch. I have woven with either socks in winter and bare feet in summer and been doing this since 1995 with no mishaps. I know that some weave with shoes on or slipper style shoes but I have portions of my feet that are numb (due to my back injury) so I need to really be able to feel the skinny treadles. I think I will carry on in my usual manner but be extra careful about where I place the shuttle from now on!

I have two completely naked looms! Time to get some threads moving!