More Shafts, More Possibilities

There is absolutely nothing like a multi- shaft loom to make weaving magical.  Recently, I bought a used 40 shaft loom from a friend.  I already had a 24 shaft loom which was and is perfectly fine, but the 40 was on my bucket list and available, so I bought it.  It had to be torn down to be transported and after a few days of anguish thinking that my husband and I might never get it back together, it started to come to life again.

 

My first warp was on a straight draw threading and some so-so cotton.  I looked in the Handweaving.net and found some liftplans and wove off napkins - each in a different design.  All the while, I'm thinking to myself - I don't know how to design for this many shafts!  Then, another warp for scarves.  This time I played around with designs and  used 32 shafts and a four shaft basketweave selvedge.  Fun - yes, but I was still not making my new loom sing. 

 

Finally, I got out my copy of Marian Stubenitsky's Echo and Iris.  Her designs only go up to 32 shafts so I knew that I  was going to have to absorb a lot of the information in her book and make it my own for 40 shafts.  My first task was to do a skeleton double weave tie up for 40 shafts.  Trying to keep everything correct for 40 shafts and 80 treadles, proved to be an eye-boggling task.  I finally discovered that I needed to make a straight draw threading and then convert it to a parallel threading, use my skeleton tie up and a straight treadling sequence and look at the draw down.  Errors in my tie up stood out in the draw down and I was able to fix them and then go to the next step.  Turned taqueté and turned samitum were easy design work.  The four color double weave was a bit more challenging. 

 

I warped the loom, using my tension box and spool rack in four colors.  The sequence was red, blue,  green and yellow.  My designs had three echoes in the threading.

 

As I watched what was happening on the loom, I was totally enthralled.  The four colors moved around in the pattern and interacted with the weft color or colors.  I finally felt that I was starting to utilize the power behind all those shafts.

 

Since this warp, I've been designing for the next one.  This time I'll use just one echo  with two colors in the warp and a variety of double weave tie ups.  I'm feeling back in the swing of things and have more ideas than time.  40 shafts are lovely indeed!

 

  

 

Weaving with Easy Dye Cotton

 A friend and I bought some of the new Easy Dye cotton yarn from the Woolery.  I bought several pounds of the 10/2 cotton and now wish I had purchased at least one pound of the 20/2 as well.  There are instructions online on how to paint or dye the cotton, but actually there isn't much to learn.  The cotton is treated with some magic that allows it to accept dye - any dye, without the chemical assistants we usually have to use. 

My first warp  was a 15 yards of black 8/2 rayon, sett at 30 epi.  Too close a sett, but live and learn for next time.  I wove 5 scarves, each with a different treadling sequence.  In order to paint the design, I mixed up a selection of fiber reactive dyes - no soda ash added, just the dye.  I also mixed up a bit of sodium alginate for a thickner, so the dye would stay put when I painted the scarf.  Then I washed the scarf in warm water, rung it out as much as possible and started painting.  After the surface looked good, I flipped it and painted the other side.  Some of the dye had bled through, but not enough to look good.  Therefore, the front and back of the scarf are not exactly the same.

This is the second painting attempt.  I put the scarf in yellow dye and let it sit in the sun for a while.  The black rayon bled a bit and the E-Z Dye cotton sopped up that dye, making the whole scarf a bit greenish.  Then I painted it with reds and greens.

This is what the unpainted blank scarf looks like.  Someone bought one of these because she wanted the black and white look (well, actually shades of gray because of the weave structure).

 

I understand that you can use acid dyes (without the acid), union dyes (but then why would you bother) and natural dye extracts.  I tested a bit of old cochineal dye on the cotton and it took without any mordanting.    One last piece of information about these dyes.  Once the scarf is dyed, there is no dye bleed.  I put mine out in the sun for 30 minutes, but I suspect I wouldn't have had to do that either.  Which leads me to another thought.  I wouldn't want to use this cotton for napkins or towels.  They would pick up every stain, although this might make for some abstract design work.  Who knows?

 

As an addendum to this post, a friend found this link to an article that explains the process used to treat the yarns.  It's a bit technical, but wade through it if you are interested in using Easy Dye cotton.