Jahanara's E-Portfolio » colour gamp

Colour Gamp in Progress

weavemage — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 19:02:04 +0000

I have done the first round of blue stripes on my colour gamp. As with all new waving endeavors there were a few hiccups in the beginning stages. It’s for this reason that I am eternally grateful to the wonderful folks who created and contribute to Ravelry and Weavolution. It was the great minds and Weavolution that hellped me sort out the issue I was having in getting nice sheds.

The problem was simply that the second and third sheds were not opening neatly. The threads that were through the front slot together were sticking to one another. I began with simply seperating these threads with a second stick shuttle. The worst was the third shed, when the two rigid heddles were pushed down. So I decided, and the decision was confirmed by weavolution users, to use a pick up stick for this shed. Other users pointed out that after a few inches of weaving the issues would likely sort itself out, which is mostly has. There is still a bit of tweezing the sticky wool threads away from each other, but I’ve adapted and moved on, with the weaving going fairly quickly now. I just wove the third blue stripe in under a half hour. Each stripe is the same width as the warp stripes, which are just under 2″.

Here’s a photo of the gamp with just over 5″ woven.

Whew!

weavemage — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 09:34:38 +0000

Last night, after a few deep breaths I was able to get all the thread rolled onto the front beam. So now all the threads are in the right order and the proper width for my colour gamp shawl!
I began tieing the threads onto the back beam this am, but still have a few groups to go this evening! after that it’s just threading the front heddle, hopefully without error and weaving away!
Before I start weaving this shawl I must finish at least one of the two baby blankets! I wove 5″ on Arrianna’s blanket last night, so only 23″ left!

I’ve got it!

weavemage — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:25:46 +0000

Thanks to YarninmyPocket and all those who helpd answer my questions on Weavolution and Raverly! I finally got my head wrapped around the 2/1 rigid heddle twill. Thank goodness I asked for help when I did. It only took me one evening to redo the first half of the stripes, plus I got another one too! So i’ve got 9 stripes through the back heddle. The front heddle should go even faster!

The crazy thing is that once I stopped thinking of it as a rigid heddle draft and strated thinking of it as a normal draft it all clicked! I’ve got to say that I would love to be able to attend regular local guild meetings, but in the absence of that Raverly and WWeavolution are really just as good if not better, because they’re always there!

Rigid Heddle & Twill Questions

weavemage — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 18:55:54 +0000

I’m posting this every where I can in the hopes that someone more experienced than me will answer my questions. I’ve scoured my weaving books and the internet for how to create a 2/1 twill on 2 heddles. This is a simple 3 harness pattern, but every time I think I’ve got it down, I seem to just confuse myself. I should probably just jump in and finish warping my loom and see what happens, but I’m terrified of doing it wrong!

I’ve got the basic concept down I need:

a thread that goes through the back slot and the front hole

a thread that goes through the back hole and the front slot

a thread that goes through both slots.

I even know how to manipulate or “treadle” the heddles once the warp is done. Here’s my problem I have a thread that my sources say should be sett between 12 and 18 epi for a twill pattern. I have 8 epi heddles and 2 10 epi heddles. I understand if I used the normal threading for two heddle I get twice the density, but it look to me like this isn’t exactly the normal 2 heddle tie up. So I have 2 questions.

1) when threading the back heddle do I need 2 or 3 threads per slot initially?

2) what will my epi be 1.5 times the heddles epi or 2 times or somewhere in between? Thanks for any help that can be given!

Thanks to anyone who reads my blog and can answer this question!