First Woven Project

After I got the header on my warp, wild elephants crashing through my living room couldn't have stopped me from working on it! 

Originally I was going to do it with olive warp and maroon weft, but after about 3 inches of the red, I decided that it would be fun to change colors and I alternated between 3 inches of red and one inch of olive.  A little Christmas-y perhaps, but the colors go together better than I would have predicted at  first.  You can see that my edges are kind of wonky.  I really didn't understand what I needed to do to keep my selvedges neat, so I tried all sorts of things and none of them worked really well.  You can also see at the bottom of the project where I didn't get my shed quite right and some of the weft threads ended up above warp threads they should have been under.  It took me a bit to realize that ripping on a loom isn't all that hard, but, after I did, I corrected those kinds of mistakes.

It's remarkably easy to get nice, even results.   I did not measure to make sure that the fabric was completely balanced (i.e. the same number of warp and weft threads per inch) but just by eye I'd say it looks reasonably close.  The number of optimal ends per inch (e.p.i.) is determined by figuring out wraps per inch (something that most spinners will understand) and dividing by two.  I think I measured something in the neighborhood of 18 wpi for this yarn, so my 10 dent heddle was pretty close to what it should have been to give me a balanced fabric.

I was surprised when I wove with the olive thread to see how much I liked the way it looked against the olive warp.  The tweediness of the yarn really stood out and the subtle color variations showed up.  It might be acrylic yarn, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have a nice coloration.

The whole project wasn't very long -- just over three feet or so (no I didn't measure...).  I began and ended the project with a wide stripe of red.  I haven't taken care of the ends properly yet, but I will probably just group and tie them in an overhand knot, since this item won't be used in any heavy-duty way.

If John will permit, this will become it's final location.  If not, then I will tuck it away until some other use presents itself.  I think it does a reasonable job of being a masculine table runner -- a much better job than the yarn would have done as socks, I think!

I am, of course, extremely excited about having accomplished my first small project on my loom.  Fortunately for me, the two books I ordered arrived on the day that I finished this project, so I was able to take advantage of their tips and wisdom as I thought about my second project.  It will probably not surprise anyone that my loom was warped again less than 24 hours after finishing this project. 

That project will be the subject of Friday's post -- apologies to anyone who is concerned about the wanton enabling I am engaged in right now.  I'm having so much fun with this thing!  Things come together so quickly.  If I'd knit something of this length it would have taken me several days and been deadly dull.  But this project really came together in a handful of hours -- something that makes the idea of giving hand-made gifts much more approachable.    And like knitting with self striping yarn, I kept finding myself wanting to do "just one more pick" so I could see what the pattern would turn out like.