How it’s going

It’s been 3 weeks since I retired and got to start rearranging my time to spend more of it creating. And then I got taken out for 6 days by some funky head virus. Back at it now with that surge of energy you get when you have finally beaten a virus into submission.

I finished the second of three scarves yesterday. Today I began the third one on the same beautiful hand-painted warp. This one may be my favorite. I’m using a thread the color of well worn denim. That silver blue is really showing off the pattern. The first scarf used a saddle brown, the second one is cream.

When I was first learning about floating selvages (these are the outermost strings on either end of the warp) I was shown to throw my shuttle over the one on the right hand side, and then under the one of the left of the warp. These threads aren’t part of the pattern. Their purpose is to catch the weft thread in case the pattern doesn’t.

Yeah, that sounds complex to me, as well. It’s not, but you need a lot of words to explain it. In weaving, some patterns have staggered threads and not all of them go all the way to the edge each time. When that happens, it causes the edges to look all wonky. The floating threads keep it looking smooth.

One thing that caused me grief fairly often was breaking those selvage threads. Reading everything I could get my hands on, I saw a suggestion to go under on the right, over on the left. The opposite of how I was taught. This worked! Far less issues. I was happy.

Today, I was reading a thread on a Facebook group that was asking about going over both, then under both. Instead of over one and under the other. I looked at the responses and the reasoning and decided to give it a try on this third scarf.

I feel like I’ve leveled up! My selvages are beautiful, consistent and I’m weaving faster. It’s just odd how minor changes can make a major difference in the end product and my enjoyment.

That pattern is kinda crazy and a lot of wonderful to weave. It requires attention since the pattern changes every 36 rows. I needed to find a way to keep track of where I am. Most of the pattern goes like this: press treadles 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, 1. I do that 4 times, then it moves up one pedal: 2,3,4,5,4,3,2. And so on, and then back again. My method for keeping track is pins and paper. The orange headed pin is the start of a new section. Green for the next 3. Two sections require more repeats, the yellow are used to mark those. I have those sections highlighted in purple in my paper tracker.

This is the paper I have on my loom to show me which repeat I’m on. The blue highlighter marks my place on the third scarf, that’s how far I got today. The pink pen mark was the first and the purple the second. I had to break down the pattern in this way sounds could easily see where I was, where I needed to go, and to make it enjoyable to weave. And it really is a fun thing. Plus all this concentration is good for my head.

Another day or two and these scarves should be done. Then I’ll be looking at the two commissions that have landed in my lap. Things just keep getting better!