Group Weaving

In preparation for the guild's next group project, I was asked to thread the heddles and sley the reed of this little table loom. The warp was beamed earlier as part of a warping demonstration.



It's been years since I've done any of this, and even then, I may have warped a loom, unassisted, a total of 4 times. So what would have taken one of the experienced ladies an hour or two, consumed my entire Saturday.....afternoon AND evening. (A good deal of that time was spent re-reading an old weaving textbook before getting started.) I'm not complaining though, it was a good learning experience and may just get me weaving on my own loom again. I LOVE weaving, but the warping? Not so much. This may help to get me over that hurdle.

After I had the loom completely warped I set to work deciding which rosepath treadling to use. I was up into the wee hours of the morning playing with colored pencils and graph paper until I came up with a design I liked.....and then I didn't use it. The warp is brown and black cotton. I don't care too much for brown or earthy colors in general, so my stash doesn't have much that coordinates with this warp. I eventually decided upon a handspun yarn that I had made when I first started spinning. It's thickish and slubby and completely hides the pattern so I went with a simpler treadling. No point knocking myself out following a difficult to memorize pattern if it won't show in the end anyway!

The wool roving was given to me, and it was rather coarse and dyed in colors I didn't particularly care for (those earthy browns and greens!). Long ago, in an effort to hide its ugliness, I plied the original multi-colored single with a fine, bright blue wool thread. The result was not spectacular, but I set it aside hoping to use it for something some day. I love it in this new weaving!



When everyone is finished doing their 18-20" of the weaving we will cut the warp off and everyone will make a "Lug-A-Mug" bag from their portion. These "Lug-A-Mugs" are to carry a 'real' coffee mug to our meetings to cut down on the use of environmentally unfriendly Styrofoam cups.

So for this project it doesn't matter that the wool is coarse. The color in these photos is not quite accurate. In real life, they are prettier, and should coordinate well with denim fabric and some leftover beads I have. I can't wait to get my portion back!