Second Verse: With a little Help From Your Friends 🎵 🎶

 A second helping of an annual towel exchange that honours the memory of Wayne Nicholson or Padre Wayne as he was known on weaving groups at Ravelry.    It's been a lot of fun exchanging towels and making new friends and that was the heart of Wayne's inner light. To reach out and touch people in a light hearted way.    He and I swapped towels, samples and conversations so he would have just loved this.

This time, my towel swap partner was Nari in San Francisco who sent me this lovely towel of all over Swedish lace; sett 18 epi and has an 8/2 cotton warp and cottolin weft.   For a relatively new weaver she did a lovely job with nice selvedges and lovely finishing of the hems.

Nari tucked in some goodies: English Breakfast teas, a chocolate rice krispy bar and a box of Meyer Lemon Shortbread cookies from Rustic Bakery. My husband spotted those right away and so we'll be counting them out over cups of tea.

This was the 7th annual exchange at the group and there will be many more to come.   The group is at Ravelry and called  Woven Dishtowels .  There will be another exchange next year and you have 2-3 months to weave, exchange and then post your exchange towels.   

Reverend Wayne Nicholson 1948-2019   🕯️

With a Little Help From Your Friends 🎶

 Some of you long time readers may recall my memorial for a friend Rev. Wayne Nicholson. He died tragically in June of 2019.  He was a friend to many, an active weaver and fibre enthusiast, and husband to Harry.   He touch a lot of lives, especially through his good works at his church.

His posts at Warped Weavers, a group of weavers that carved out a (large) niche at Ravelry endeared him to many all over the world.   One group, the Woven Dishtowels hold an annual towel swap in his memory, as Wayne loved to weave towels and gift them.  The rules are simple: advertise you would like a swap partner and someone teams up with you. Normally it's one towel but you could agree to swap more. Some swap with one other weaver, and this year I'm shaping one towel each with two weavers.  One of my towels has arrived in the mail, just in time to help cheer me up after our recent family events.

Wayne seated at my Woolhouse Tools loom  and having fun!

My towel swap partner, Jessica, in Vancouver BC sent me this lovely set of goodies and canvas weave towel.  Jessica says she has been weaving 5 years and I must say that her weaving is lovely!   Great choice in colours that all pair nicely.

 

The goodies?   Premium Earl Grey loose tea from the East Vancouver tea company.    Sachets of ginger tea and divine shortbread cookies from The Bench Bakehouse, half dipped in white milk chocolate to nibble on. They were yummy!

Jessica is taking classes from Jane Stafford's on- line weaving school, and given Jane's love of colour, Jessica has taken to it very well! I hear back from weavers world wide about the classes and they seem to really make a difference from being a newbie who is hesitant, to a more confident weaver who embraces colour and gets a good grasp on weaving theory.....all at your own pace if you follow the videos sequently.  I sure wish this had been there for my start back in the 1990's!  There was only in person classes, books and helpful friends then. The internet has opened weaving up to a much wider audience.  Take a look at the link and see if it's right for you.

A warm thank you to Jessica! Your towel will be along soon....  😁 🌺

Helping Hands Act 3 🎭 Megado Finale

I had hoped to have this post up sooner but a combination of out of town company and all the related activity, plus a death in the family sort of sidelined things.  I found having a stack of towels to hand sew the hems quite a comfort actually. Something about a simple task that takes your mind away from things.   I was sorry when the sewing came to en end.

So we'll start with a similar picture of a stack of towels, in the same order, except this time they are washed, hemmed and well pressed..... and photographed. We actually had some much needed rain and cloudy skies in a long season of drought and I had to wait for the sun to return. It's back again, and we're very hot once more.

So working from the top down, here's the front and back of each towel.   Drafts can be found at this post

To repeat: the warp is 8/2 ring spun cotton in natural, sett 24 epi. All coloured wefts are 8/2 cotton by Brassards, and I was stash busting. 

The premise was to have the same 16 shaft point twill threading, and use different tie-up's and treadlings on the Megado's compu-dobby and get a variety of patterns. It's a nice way to try out new drafts with a view to future projects. It's also a fun way to just change up weaving as doing the same thing for 9 to 10 yards can get boring quickly. All drafts can be located at Handweaving.net (with one exception)

I have four more towel projects either just started, or under way, or hanging waiting their turn and all of these warps are shorter for 6 towels. Its good to know your limits or attention span 😉

#79845   Leaves

#34281 Pandora's Boxes

#34777 Stars & Flowers

#34861 Chevroned Diamonds

# ??     Modified from a straight draw draft

#78102 Interlocking Diamonds (or Trellis?)

#56518 modified 

#56518 modified

 

Thanks for hanging in with these 3 part stories for the two versions of the Helping Hands.  My final thought on the gadgets?  They are certainly helpful and I have no regrets buying them. They will be a regular part of my warping process going forward. It's good to try new things and new ways of doing things as it keeps things fresh!

 

A Second Helping : 2 ~ The Performers

 This is part 2 of a "Second Helping" where I'm discussing a towel project using the Helping Hands from Lofty Fibers for the Louet Megado loom.  If you haven't already, maybe read part one first. 

Click on the pictures to enlarge.

So this is a picture of a nice stack of towels. Eight of them and every one is different. That's the beauty and fun part of a computer-dobby loom.   No getting down to change a tie up.    You can play with different drafts. The constant is your threading. (although you could change that too if you wanted to!)  The tie up will be topped at 16 shafts, but the treadling can be any number.

Let's go one by one from the top down and view the actors.  That is all the look you'll get for now as they have to be washed and hemmed and will be shown fully finished in part 3.

The warp is ring spun cotton, 8/2 and sett 24 epi. The wefts are 8/2 cottons as well. The loom is threaded for a 16 shaft point twill. The top towel was in a pattern I think of as 'leaves'. Could be dragon scales.....what ever comes to your mind.  As you can see it uses something like 54 treadles!   You can find this draft ( and most of the rest) at https://www.handweaving.net/ and their corresponding numbers are shown for you.  Handweaving.net is a wonderful resource of over 75,000 + drafts for weavers and any number of shafts. They ask a subscription fee but it's worth every penny!   They are constantly adding new draft collections.... and you can even add your own too.

#79845

Towels two is an old friend I call Pandora's Boxes as the first time I wove it was during the early part of the Covid Pandemic.  It's a satin weave.    

#34281

The third is one I have also woven before, but that time as a scarf.  I call it Stars and Flowers.

#34777

Number four is one I call 'interlocking diamonds' and the light lime green was perhaps not the best colour to show the pattern. Its lovely anyhow.

#78102

Towel five was another favourite from the last time I did a variety of towels like this. I think of it as 'chevroned diamonds'.

#34861

Now we come to towel six and I have no identifying number to give you!   It came from Handweaving.net and was originally threaded as a straight draw as shown below on the right . I played with it to see what it would look like as a point twill.... and 'zig zag trees' came to be.  Its visually striking  and you can invent your own name for this turned twill. 

No # (yet! 😊)

Towels seven and eight:  well, I had woven some old drafts I have woven before and I wanted to try something new.  I found this draft below.  See the point twill right at the start?  Now run your eye down the treadling row and see the pattern created by that one 16 end point twill.

#56518

This modified draft below will help to visualize it better. I've added a total of three point twills and created a separation from the main draft.    So I'm using the tie up as shown, and also treadling as shown. The threading is the existing 16 shaft point twill.  This created the bottom towel number eight.

#56518 -modified 1

There is a lovely little zig zag that looks like flowers and ivy where there is a treadling run of 1 to 16.   This repeated sequence became towel number 7.   (Yes I have reversed the towel  order, but doing it this way makes it easier to show you.)   You can play with any draft like this and that's the beauty of weaving programs. I'm using Fiberworks Silver + . I have sometimes put a warp on and then found I didn't like it, so the program comes to the rescue.

#56518- modified 2

So those are the Performers and now they are waiting for my out of town company to depart on the 31st and them hemming can begin.    Then it will be 'lights and camera' time.....  See you again in August!

A Second Helping: Megado Version

This post is also about Helping Hands, but this time for the Louet Megado loom, and again, the post will be in two, possibly three parts.  1.) the Helping Hands set up and use.  2.)  Point twill drafts used and the various tweaks, and 3.) show and tell of the finished towels.     There may be other posts in between as I work through projects on my Spring. 

Click on the picture to enlarge.

This is an 8 yard (possibly closer to 9 yards) warp. I seem to have lost my notes right now.  Its 8/2 cotton in natural and I bought it from a Quebec based yarn store at Etsy, which appears to be dormant now.  It was a nice chunky 3 pound cone of 8/2 ring spun cotton. It appears to be a bit over twisted and so wants to curl up if not under tension. Consequently, it was a bit of a bear to beam but with my husband's help we fought through it.   Now that it's in place and being woven up, I have to say that its lovely and  it was worth the battle.   It does produce extra lint though.

I have attached the Helping Hands to the top of the Megado castle and it's important to use the little "T" widgets in the raddle slot to keep the parts in place and not sliding off and away.  It would seem my raddle is a tad bit long so I had to be careful where I placed them. The loom is a 2001 model and so not the same size as the more modern versions. This caused issues later as you will read.

After setting the warp up on the lease sticks I attached a metal rod through the bottom loops of the warp and drew it downwards to the apron rod. Then you use circular loops of texsolv with straight pegs to close them, and hold the two rods equal distance apart of 1-2 inches.  I have extra texsolv cord and pegs from a past loom so I could make up more up for a wider warp.   Then you lace the metal rod to the apron rod.  Note the security cord around the raddle to keep the threads in place there. 

Another similar view...

Then, here's the view from the front, where I have weights hanging to keep threads  behaving. 

Beaming is under way and I always like this part and the smoothness of the threads.  Hubby assisted me and we took our time as the threads wanted to 'halo' and hold hands, snarl and tangle a bit due to over twist and generally be cranky.   We got through it all with no broken threads which is a miracle!

Then it was time to move the lease sticks and snap the end brackets into the lower parts for threading and that's when I discovered an issue....

It would appear my 2001 model lease sticks are a bit long, but not by much! I was unable to place the pegs into the holes and so had to improvise with some painters tape to hold them.  Hub is going to take off about a 1/4 inch to the end of the original holes, smooth, and then drill new holes.  We're going to try one end of both sticks for now and see how the next warp beaming goes.   There was some flexibility in the parts near the raddle above but not in the lower portion.

Now, these two green 3D printed brackets are from Gingerlocks Handwovens and came too late to use when I tried their 3D brackets to beam the last warp. They attach to the front of the castle and you use them to support the beater  and hold it up out of your way for threading!  *check Gingerlocks out as they have other nifty  Megado tools as well*

As you can see from the of pictures below, it works quite nicely and I'm happy with them.  I don't have the room to physically swing the beater up and out of the loom and then fight to get it back in place. This is so much simpler.     The Helping Hands bracket holds the lease sticks at just the right height ( and there are adjustable texsolv cords to allow for some movement up or down)

The threading is a 16 shaft point twill. So a series of runs up and down, over and over again.   I still mark my progress on a threading guide and shift my mini post it notes and  slip knot each grouping. Its a slow process as the shafts are set close together, and I always live in hope that if I'm methodical enough in my approach and do a quick double check as I go, I won't have any threading errors later to deal with. (Happily, it worked this time to jump ahead in the story)

Threading all done and here I have lowered the beater bar back into position and then used soft tie cords to hold it upright and centered. Note how the ends of the warp bouts have curled around on themselves.   

Then sleying the reed starts, and in the case, 2 ends per dent in my 12 dent reed.  I have taken my total number of ends, divided by the epi of 24 for the total project width. Then I divide that by 2 for the half width. That gives me the start point from the centre. This took time as well as the threads still curled up on each other and I had to extract each one as I went along.

Here's a view taken over the top of the beater to see the sorting of warp ends for sleying.  With a 16 shaft point twill, it's a relatively easy time of sorting two ends per run and then using the threading hook to nab the groups.   I take my time and keep them well sorted. No crossed ends !

So, that leaves us about to tie on and start weaving..... but what are we going to weave?   

That's for next time. 😁