Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Making Plans

One of the warps that has been on my to-be-done list for a rather long time is a production run of rayon chenille scarves woven in Diversified Plain Weave.

I first came across this weave structure in a copy of Weaver's Magazine where it was referred to as Diversified Huck because the threading system was a single end huck progression.

This wasn't necessarily the easiest approach in terms of threading/weaving and people played around with it and came up with the theading below.



I'm going to futz with it a bit more and change it again because of the way I thread to this:



I'm right handed and find that if I thread the end furthest away, then the thread nearest me my body likes that a whole lot more. (See the threads on shafts 1 and 2)

But no matter how one twiddles the threading, these sorts of threading systems are not simple or easy and setting the loom up will take a fair amount of time.

Which is why I'll put on a fairly long warp so that I can amortize my time over as many scarves as possible. And use up a significant amount of my all too generous stash of solid coloured rayon chenille yarns!

Right now I'm thinking 40 yards - 40 turns of rayon chenille on the big beam, and 80 turns of 2/16 bamboo on the smaller second beam.

The beauty of this threading system is that the tie up can be changed so that I don't have to weave all of the scarves in the same pattern. What I've shown here is just a very simple twill progression that will make chevrons but that's only the beginning.

I did afghans in this weave structure last summer and really liked the quality of the cloth. I think it will make great scarves.

4 comments:

Sandra Rude said...

Can't wait to see the finished scarves! This is a very interesting structure - I've seen a lot of different approaches to the threading. Just remember to take it easy once you start weaving again :-)

Laura Fry said...

That's going to be the tough part - I've missed it soooo much! :}

Cheers,
Laura

Bonnie said...

On my loom, the older threading is preferable because I only have to lift half the shafts for each tabby pick. Your tie-up shows one treadle lifting all but one shaft. My lower back will not let me do that more than a few times per day. But you have assistance with lifting, I recall, and it will surely be handy when you can get back to the loom.
Speedy recovery!
Bonnie

Laura Fry said...

That is certainly a consideration if you are treadling yourself, but since I do have air assist, I prefer to make the threading a bit easier and let the loom do the work. :)

Cheers,
Laura