Who needs to think?

Weaving anything I am learning takes a great deal of yarn. For example, this third project used (conservatively) 940 yards of worsted weight alpaca and 200 yards of mohair. The warp was 112 inches long and there were 162 warp threads. This means the warp required approximately 500 yards. The weft required 16 inches for each pick and there were roughly 8-9 picks per inch. This means the weft required approximately 440 yards.

For the warp, I decided to make a wide red stripe on one side of the scarf and then smaller grey stripes. There just was not enough red to make a second wide warp stripe and I also wanted the stripes to be a bit irregular because I was going to be spontaneous about where to add grey or red stripes in the weft. To figure out exactly how many strands of each color to use for the warp threads, I took a ruler and wound it with the various colors until I got a pleasing ratio. When it finally came time to warp the loom, I ended up doubling the number of red and grey warp threads.

The red and grey stripes in both the weft and the warp were doubled yarn: a sports weight yarn and a strand of mohair. This made these yarns roughly the same weight as the aqua alpaca.

To weave the weft, three shuttles were necessary so I had to improvise a third using a strip cut from one of my old campaign signs.

I used the full width of the loom — every slot and eye — and this actually is not a great idea because it makes winding the warp on the back beam tough because sometimes the side warp yarns fell off the paper which was supposed to separate each layer of the weft to keep the tension even.

I have learned that even tensioning across all the warp threads is critically important so when you move the heddle the threads move up or down to create a clean shed (a shed is a triangular space between the up and down weft threads through which you pass the shuttle carrying the weft yarn). If you don’t have a clean shed, you can get floats which are very annoying to correct if you catch them. So far, I have discovered 3 different floats which happened in the first 12 inches of weaving.

Lesson: don’t use the full width of the loom.

When weaving the stripes, I tried carrying the grey yarn along one side against the dark aqua, as was recommended by a couple of different experts. But for me, carrying the unused lighter color on the side created an unsightly edge. So after trying this for three stripes, I cut the carried grey yarn in the middle at the selvage and sewed the ends into the weaving so nothing would unravel. But carrying the aqua weft threads up and over the grey and red stripes looked fine because the aqua weft blended into the aqua warp selvage threads.

Making this decision meant that for the grey and the red weft stripes, I had to hide the ends in the weaving so that meant I started weaving odd number weft picks so the tails were tucked under alternate sides and not the same side. I feared if all the tails were on one side, the entire weaving would become lopsided.

The weaving took time but was calming. Once I established a rhythm, it almost became as soothing as knitting.

When the weaving was done, I cut the loops off the back beam and untied the knots on the front beam. Then came the finishing, which must be done carefully and precisely so the ends look good. This time I knew I wanted to have a twisted fringe. I grouped the weft threads in groups of 4 and tied knots very close to the weaving. The grey and red weft threads became their own knotted group. Then I tried twisting but the twists would not stay until I ran my fingers up and down the twist several times which made the fibers mat and keep the twist.

Two hours later, the shawl was ready for a bath in very hot water with a tiny bit of soap in the bathtub. This bath in HOT water relaxes the yarn and allows it to fluff up, meshing the yarns into something more like cloth.

Once the water had cooled, I squeezed out as much of the water by hand and then laid it out on towels spread on the guest bed to dry.

The next day, I tied the knots at the ends of each fringe twist and used a tape measure to ensure the knots were roughly at the same spot. The last step was cutting off the excess yarn and again a tape measure was involved.

My SH really loves the stripes of this and wants one of his own but in different colors and narrower. He wants to wear it with his father’s boiled wool German overcoat which makes him look like a dignified Herr Doktor Professor of the old world.

Said our daughter as she saw me weaving on my rigid heddle loom. Except, thought my pedantic self, Penelope would be weaving on an upright loom. My SH liked this comparison because by extension that made him the wily and intelligent Odysseus.

That comment got me thinking. What kind of loom would Penelope have used? I always imagined her sitting down to weave.

But a google image search of Homeric weaving yielded this vase. Look at this depiction of two women weaving.  They are standing upright and beating the weft upward into the warp threads. The weights at the back of the loom tensioned the warp threads. Or so I learned by reading Susan T. Edmunds’ article on weaving in the Homeric age. Click here for Susan T. Edmunds article

But now after making numerous weaving mistakes, I have a new appreciation for Penelope’s skill at unweaving. Remember that one of her delay tactics for the amorous (greedy) suitors was that she would choose one of them to be her husband when she had finished the shroud which she was weaving for Odysseus’s father Laertes. She wove the shroud during the day and unwove it at night. For a scholarly discussion of Penelope’s deception and its symbolism, see Steven Lowenstam’s article “The Shroud of Laertes and Penelope’s Guile” from May, 2000 Classical Journal.  

Sidenote: Lowenstam has an interesting interpretation of the shroud based upon its description as shining like the sun and moon. I highly recommend reading the third part of the article if you don’t have time to read the whole thing.

So far I have finished two projects, but I have had to unweave several casts of the weft (weavers call these picks) to correct mistakes. These mistakes are created when you don’t press all the weft threads up or down completely. If  you cross your weft over the wrong warp thread, you create a “float.” For a plain weave article, a float is a bad thing. In some types of weaving, floats can create designs. Click here for some examples.

See if you can find the mistakes in these two pictures of a plain weave plaid item:

The mistakes are hard to spot until you know what you are looking for. But you have to look for them. Sometimes I did not find the float until I had finished 8 picks! 

Undoing the weft takes time, patience, and bright light. If you don’t press down all the threads, when you run the shuttle back, you can create another tangle. Then you have to undo that in order to correct the mistake you spotted originally.

So how on earth did Penelope manage to unweave all those picks at night? She had no candles. She only had torches.  Or moonlight. Or maybe Athena gave her special light. She was always helping her favorite Odysseus out so why wouldn’t Athena help out Penelope?

I know from even the little bit of weaving which I have done that unweaving takes more time than weaving. Unweaving is more tedious. 

What did Homer know of weaving? When did he see women weaving? Was it something they did in the public rooms? Writing this little blog post makes me ask questions I never would have asked before about life in Ancient Greece.

Here are the mistakes in case you did not spot them!

The new loom came with two stick shuttles. All well and good until you want to use three different colors for your weft design and you don’t want to wait for the order to come from Webs and you don’t want to drive an hour to a shop in Skippack, PA.

So I am walking the dogs this morning and coming back home, and I see a stack of my yard signs from my failed 2016 commissioner campaign. Maybe one of those might just work….

So I brought one in and laid it on the kitchen island. I took a real wooden shuttle, laid it down, drew around it, and cut a plastic shuttle with the kitchen utility scissors.

I notched the center (next time make the notches deeper) and rounded the sharp ends. I wound the red yarn around and tried it out. This home-made shuttle worked just fine. Maybe I don’t need to order those wood shuttles after all.

Something that has proven a most absorbing and entertaining activity during the two-week winter break which my school gives everyone.

My SH of 30 years gave me (per a request submitted by a secret unknown informant) a 15-inch rigid heddle Schacht loom. Like I did not have enough hobbies to occupy myself when not teaching English. He is quite indulgent.

First it was unpacked from the box and I had to set it up. This required reading the enclosed directions, consulting my new bible, Syne Mitchell’s Inventive Weaving on a Little Loom, and viewing the Schacht video about threading apron strings.

Side note: Looking for a link to post for Mitchell’s book, I discovered she has a blog and that she has written science fiction as well as lots of articles, etc about weaving. Check out her blog: Syne Mitchell: Writer, weaver and all-round curious person.

Then it was time to dive into the stash and find some yarn to use for the first experiment.

Nothing was labeled, but it was all wool.

I found a ball of forest green fingering weight wool, some left-over handspun brown wool, and then a skein of a knobbly thick and thin multicolored wool.

Let’s go!

After a good bit of patience, the 10 sett heddle was threaded and after consulting Mitchell’s book again, it was time to start weaving. To finish the ends, I twisted 4 ends together and tied a knot at the bottom and then at the top very close to the last weft thread.