Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Up for air

Thank you for weekends and public holidays, whoever invented them. It gives me time to catch my breath and to create.
A few weeks ago, I had a 5-day weekend and managed to get something on my loom. I have upgraded my 2 shafts (harnesses) Saori loom to 4 shafts. I did a lot of things that were new to me. I put the new hardware onto the loom (it now has 6 treadles). I wove with silk, in both warp and weft. I put my warp on to the loom from front to back. I was very satisfying knowing that I had enough time and did not have to rush! I enjoyed the process.
I used my new toy, the Saori cross box to keep my threads in order while I sleyed the reed.
I turned the reed setup around so that the chain of warp threads was at the front of the loom.
I threaded my heddles from the back of the loom and then wind the warp around the back beam.
I have never woven with a silk warp before and had some tension problems. There is almost no stretch in silk. Wool is a lot more forgiving. 

I started weaving and thought, this pattern does not look like what I had in mind. Maybe the variegated weft made it difficult to see the weave structure. There was a nagging feeling but I could not pin it down. Halfway through, I checked my tie up. I had done it correctly with the treadles but had forgotten to fix it to the same sequence at the shafts. Duh!
I liked the pattern though and decided to run with it........... 

I love the look and feel of the silk. I had enough warp for 2 pieces. The second one has a single solid colour weft and a straight forward twill weave structure. It looks and feel so different.
These are both Christmas presents so I will show images of the finished items next month.

4 comments:

Meg said...

I've begun to think it's time for me to start using silk. I'm still a little intimidated by it. But this gives me an extra push!

neki desu said...

i was getting seriously worried about your lack of presence here.
working with silk can be very rewarding, so have fun!

Leslee said...

How wonderful to have all that time
to focus on getting your loom set up.

Looking forward to seeing your finished gifts!

sampling said...

Yes, Meg, silk feels intimidating but Neki is so right that it is very, very rewarding!
I am really happy with the first piece, just need enough time to finish the second one.
Leslee, I will post photos of the finished pieces as soon as they are both ready!