Taking Another Path

I like to check in with the new owner of my old Megado and see what they are up to to.  Some months ago Jessica had some happy bright towels on and the pattern was very pretty!   It resembled a flower and she shared the draft number from handweaving.net with me.   16 shaft twill as shown below.

So I worked up  a draft in some colours to hand and was quit excited about the project.  612 ends, 24 epi and approximately 8 yards long.  A big commitment!   (colours below are much brighter than the actual ones used. I get lazy and use something 'close enough' and don't fuss about in Fiberworks)

 

# 79714

Once I got started I noticed an issue right away with a very long float, coming from shaft number 5 and about 10-12 pics long! 😳   I immediately checked the threading and all was correct.  I checked the shaft to see if it was floating.... nope.  I checked my dobby to make sure all the solenoids were firing as they should and all was working well.      

I thought about it for a few hours and decided that it simply wasn't worth the time and aggravation to track it to the source and so went looking for another tie up to use.    A year ago when my loom was brand new I wove up the draft below # 79912.    I did a test run and it looked great and so that's what I went with.

I used the threading from #79714 and the tie up from #79912 and went down another path entirely! 

                                    I used only the tie up only of #79912

A test run to see how they meld together....   All 8/2 cottons from Brassards, of Quebec.  Sett 24 epi.

And after a time, 8 yards came off the loom.    I had woven all 7 towels differently in some way.

This one with the window panes is my favourite.

This one I wove colour in the small stripes and white elsewhere.

Here a colour block followed by a same sized white.

Next up I simply wove all white weft so the warp stripes are more dominant.

The window pane effect was colour and then white for all small cross stripe.

This towel has alternating colour blocks in sequence and no white weft at all.

Then all white but with a border at either end: periwinkle, turquoise and salmon

Same again but this time with: periwinkle, pink and salmon.

So my kitchen towel Christmas war chest is nicely full!    I have a total of 23 towels on hand now.  I'm still planning another 8.5 yard herringbone twill towel warp though as they are very popular.   Times are going to be hard and money tight this next year or two.....   I'm trying to check the crystal ball  and read the tea leaves here....  Results may vary! 

Cabbage Rose Shawls

I had a  long painted warp from Carr Park Artisans  patiently waiting for me to bring it out to play.   It's called "Cabbage Rose" and what you see below is all that's left of it.      I finally found a pretty draft that I thought would do justice to the soft pastel shades. 

It's this 16 shaft one by Rebecca Logan and you can find it at Handweaving.net #81232.   Rebecca has 4 shaft point twill in the middle section and I modified that to 8 shaft and played a bit with the far left and right borders.

Both of those were solid 8/2 tencel Ecru.   The green section was 8/2 olive and portions are alternating olive and lemongrass.   Sett is 24 epi.

The centre section is all the painted warp and I used ecru as my weft yarn for both shawls.  No other colour did it justice. White just bleached out the pastels even more.

 

Some pictures of the project underway.  The transitioning was a very interesting effect!

Here's a close up of the green border on the top side.

Photographing it outside was not a good option with the high intensity sunlight.  So I tried in the studio and then again in a brighter part of our home.

This one on the mannequin was sold very quickly to a houseguest.   I was glad to have woven up two!

Here it is again in more natural lighting.

The pattern simply supports the  soft pastels and the border frames it.  The border in the picture below is the reverse side .   Its pretty either way!

Below you can see the pattern's 'x's and o's .

So I think it was well worth the wait.....

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We have been having a quiet summer at home.  Very grateful that we are not directly affected by extreme heat domes, drought (although we do have water restrictions) and wildfires (though we did have lightening strikes start some up island).  Our new heat pump we installed last December was the best investment ever!

We have been doing a lot of small improvement projects around the house.  Replace this, paint that, plan to get carpets and furniture steam cleaned and...... we bought all new appliances.   It was time and actually beyond time.  They were all dated 2006 and so 20 years old.  The dishwasher worried me the most as when they fail, it can be a devastating 'inundation'.  😳 The washing machine was plain annoying and I had to babysit it through the wash cycle as the dial got 'stuck' and the machine would grind on and on.....   The dryer was more like a cool fluffer.... not much heat at all.    We got a new fridge as well as the other was either too warm or too cold and froze our (expensive) veggies. Frozen lettuce anyone?? 

My new LG washer and dryer set are apparently smarter than me and I may set the cycle I want but then it jiggles and weighs my clothes and adjusts the water level and  then locks me out to do its job.    The dryer insisted the dryer vent was not open.    We called in a company to check and apparently, the dryer was right and it was 80% reduced by lint.   Not a good thing!    So AI in my dryer helped to prevent a house fire. 

Gee Whiz....      Go check yours now....... 🏠🔥 😳    

First Anniversary! 🎉

 My Megado 90 arrived in boxes one year ago today! I think we have bonded nicely and been making some nice cloth together and in that time we have made:  

• 4 shawls, 
• 7 scarves,  
• and 20 kitchen towels in the last year. 

I'm also 4 towels into another set of 6 or 7 ... so

It took me about 7-10 days to put her together and I only needed some help with the bottom rails due to back issues.  Nothing helps you to understand a loom, the parts and how they work than putting one together!

Do I miss my larger 110?  yes.... there are some project widths that push the limits of the 90.  Maybe one day my 'future' living space will allow for a larger loom. Until then Maeve and I will continue together.

Handweaving.net :: A Weavers Resource

 Such a wonderful resource for weavers of any level, and any number of weaving shafts!

As featured in the summer issue of Handwoven 2026

Handweaving.net draft #78116, original design by Ingrid Boesel

16 shaft, 28 epi,  20/2 silk warp and tencel weft, 

woven by Susan Harvey on a Louet Megado floor loom 

Painted silk warp (centre) by Carr Park Artisans (on Etsy)

Solid dyed silks by Treenway Silks

8/2 tencel from Webs

A warm thank you to Kris Bruland of Handweaving.net for inviting me to submit photos!

MacLaren Tartan : a multi country experience 🇨🇦 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🇺🇸

 I just discovered today that I have yet to post about a finished weaving project. Clean forgot all about it with all our summer activities! 

Every so often I get the urge to weave a tartan and go cruising at Handweaving.net for inspiration, along with a list of available colours in my stash. This time I was wanting to use some of my 10/2 cottons.  A tartan with not too many colour changes .... and this time I chose Maclaren.   Now the draft below is much brighter than the authentic tartan would be.  Also brighter than my actual cottons but I just quickly went for 'close enough' colours for the draft.     I also spread the draft over 8 shafts from 4 so I would have enough heddles per shaft.   Moving heddles on a Megado is a real bear!

My sett was 28 epi and I used a 14 dent reed.    The colours used were all Valley cotton:

• nautical blue
• porcelain green
• autumn blonde
• red
• black 

I put on 8 yards and got 7 generously large towels.  Rather than weave each towel separately, I wove continuously for the full length and would cut apart later.   I felt it gave me less to consider other than to keep weaving and not worry about where an ending could be. 

Here's the warp being beamed and it was  bright and cheery!  I found that the warp used most of my stash of the blue and green. I got another nautical blue from Webs but they were out of the green.   I put out a call on Ravelry's Warped Weavers Marketplace and had  Nancy from New Hampshire come to the rescue with a cone of porcelain green.   It would work nicely as the warp was all from one cone and the weft would be from another.  They would blend together just fine.   *phew*    Same thing for the blue cotton.

Here's a picture of the weaving underway. I was able to carry some colours up the side, by wrapping when switching shuttles, and some I had to cut off and change.    There was very precise number of pics so I was counting constantly.  No doubt about it, it a slow weave..... but once you get into the rhythm of it, it moves along. Not having a boundary set of a certain number of inches for a towel length meant you didn't need to keep track of that..... just keep on working to the next colour.    I just kept going until I saw the rod at the back of the loom come over the back beam.

Here's the freshly cut off the loom warp all laid out.... all 8 yards. There was very little yard waste.

And a closer view. Not that its relaxed, the squares all look square!

I found that 37  or 38 inches (can't recall which right now) occurred at a regular spot in the pattern, so serging apart was straightforward.   No big table for me but a cluttered desk will do.  It works and I just take my time as I go.

They were washed and dried and here I'm about to snip all the tails off prior to steam pressing them.    Hems were turned, pressed and pinned. I had a few evenings where I hand sewed all hems. I quite like the hand work and you feel productive as you watch the telly.

Now for some beauty shots....

They measure 22 inches wide and approximately 30-32 inches in length . Yes, there was a lot of shrinkage plus the hems.

A nice satisfying stack of softness.   Once again, thank you to Nancy of New Hampshire for the cross border assistance. Weaver are wonderful everywhere!    🌎 😊