A Warped Plan Gets Messy

In 2006 Georgia thought she would have a little time to weave, so she started planning a project. She decided that she would make some kitchen towels. Not just one or two towels, but she would make 20! That would be enough for her and for plenty to give away.

First came the planning stage. Georgia started by seeing which yarns she had in stock. She had a nice linen yarn that would work, but she didn’t have enough of any one color to weave the entire project. Stripes along the length of the fabric were in order. How the stripes looked depended on how much yarn would be needed. It was time for some computer work.

When she was just learning how to weave Georgia planned out her weaving projects by using graph paper and a calculator. The modern age has intervened, however, and now she uses a computer program called “Weave Point” to plan much of her weaving projects.   In the software she notes how she wanted to set up the loom, which order of yarns she will use, and the order of actually weaving the item (the threading including color, the tie-up, and the treadling including color). It even allows her to see how the weaving yarns interact with each other.

 

Because of potentially heavy use in the kitchen, not to mention the tow linen yarn itself, Georgia decided to use plain weave. The yarns would be threaded on a “straight draw” through the heddles on each of four shafts. She would use two pedals for weaving, which would simplify the tie-up.  

 It was time to go to the spreadsheet to figure out the amounts of the different colors available. Georgia plugged in the length to weight ratio for the yarn. Since there wasn’t enough of some of the yarns, she went back to the weaving software. Back to the spreadsheet, and it looked like she had enough of the different colors to proceed.

Measuring the warp came next. Oh no! There wasn’t enough yarn of one of the colors after all! After measuring the rest of the fabric, our struggling weaver went back to the “drawing board” (weaving software) to redesign the stripes. This project was rapidly getting messy.

Some weeks/months/years later, due to work, Georgia was finally able to put the warp onto the back beam of the loom. Next came threading the heddles on the four shafts. Because of the redesign in the middle of measuring the warp, it rapidly devolved into a messy project. Warp yarns crossed over each other in an attempt to put them into their new place. Finally, all of the warp yarns were in place, and it was ready for weaving.

Fast forward to 2010 and selling the Grants Pass house. The warp was only partially woven, which made disassembling the loom much more difficult. Should she just cut the already woven towels off the loom, and carefully wrap the warp onto the beam? Should she try to weave all of the fabric that she could before moving?

Our crazy weaver decided to weave as much of the fabric as she could before she had to disassemble the loom for the move. While the house was on the market she spent every moment she could weaving and weaving and weaving. With the messy warp this also meant untangling warp threads frequently and fixing the ones that had broken.

Finally, she had woven all of the warp she could. That project sure took longer than she had anticipated!

Fast forward again. Randy and Georgia moved into the house, and the sewing center had opened. All of the curtains were finished. Georgia could now finish the towels.

When a weaver speaks of finishing fabric, she usually means washing it (or the equivalent) so that the threads are no longer stiff from the loom. After washing Georgia cut the towels into the appropriate lengths. However, she decided that she would not make quite as many towels as planned. She had run out of the weft (sideways) yarn during weaving, and had to substitute a different color at the end.

In addition to the towels from the fabric she wove, Georgia decided to create some hot pads for the kitchen as well – Christmas was coming and a fancy kitchen set was in order. So, that’s the story of the project that started in 2006.