03-26-2021

Decided not to wait and order more. I moved about 16 heddles around from shaft 3 onto shaft 4. Shaft 1 had exactly the right number. From now on I will count heddles needed for a pattern before I start threading the loom.

Robert helped me wind on since I was working front to back. He really dislikes the job and I really need to start warping back to front. Two threads broke during the process and then I had two mistakes to fix as well. Finally got it all sorted out and started weaving yesterday afternoon.

Decided to make the first one using just the treadling on the sampler pdf from JST. I used an all white weft and I’ll use it to top the linen cupboard in the dining room. (A request from Robert to replace the small doily that is there now.) I’ll tea dye it when I’m done so that it isn’t stark white.

The sampler has large square blocks of canvas weave with “chubby tabby” in between. I had more ends than the pattern called for so I repeated the large block, made the tabby sections in between a little wider, and also made the edging a little wider.

Still using the sampler treadling, the second is a dishtowel and it is orange with stripes. The first stripe is red.

03-27-2021

On the third part I mixed up the lace treadling from the sampler with the weft float and warp float treadlings from the lesson pdfs. I also riffed with a section that alternated basket weave and sections of just floats 234-234-123-123. I made the whole towel except the red hems is a slate blue/gray.

The fourth towel is just started. It will be striped with light bands of “chubby tabby” and dark bands of lace. In the middle of the lace bands I have a double thread of red to match the edge stripes. I went to Marguerite Porter Davison for some other treadling examples for the arrangement of the floats.. Note that my threading doesn’t match hers exactly due to the threading of the JST sampler. (MPD uses 3443 and 2112 as the threading blocks, JST is more like the Vertical Stripes of Canvas Weave groupings in the MPD book. I will have to think more about the differences once I understand canvas weave better. But MPD gave me some new ideas to try.

03-30-2021

Here I’m going to document pictures of the different threadings and the different weft patterns I used.

Towel #2: Orange with turquoise and red stripes. This is the standard canvas weave (1221-4334) on the right and “tied” canvas weave (1221-4-1221 and 4334-1-4334) on the left.

Towel #3: Solid gray with red hems. Here I started using the weft float and warp float pattern. The bottom square on the right is a series of weft float picks followed by a series of warp float picks and repeated. On the left is what this looks like on the tied canvas weave threading.

Then I experimented with basket weave and warp and weft float variations.
12-12-34-34
and
234-234-123-123
13-24-13-24
Also
123-13-123-24 from MPD Canvas weave unit threading #X weft picks.

Towel #4: In this towel I experimented with the differences caused by high and low contrast on the same pattern. The first picture shows weft floats and warp floats with white and dark green and white and orange. The second picture shows canvas weave with gray and white as compared to turquoise and white.

Towel #5 Was all turquoise and I experimented with squaring the large canvas weave section and squaring the tied canvas weave section.

Towel #6 In the center I did 1” squares of the tied canvas weave sections and experimented with weft faced/warp faced treadling, basket weave treadling, and a finally this experimental treadling that gave the diamond shape on the front.
13-34-13-24-1-1-13
24-12-12-24-13-4-4-24