When weaving with a smooth yarn I prefer to overlap my weft joins at the selvedge.
If the weft is overlapped in the middle of the cloth like this....
...the overlap looks like a slub in the cloth...
...like this...
The thicker part where the weft overlap occurs will look much more obvious in the middle of the cloth than it will at the selvedge. There is also the added benefit (if one might claim it) in that the selvedge tightens up more due to the draw in which will make the overlap more secure (as far as I can determine - I stand to be corrected on this).
Regardless, I do try to make the overlaps as unobtrusive as possible by keeping them at the selvedge.
Unless, of course, I'm weaving with a textured yarn as I am in the body of these towels. In this case any overlap will be totally invisible, buried amidst the general slubbiness of the weft anyway, as you can see in the photos.
As a further aside, I'm trying to use up what I have so the weft for the hems of these towels is lighter than I would choose if I had a darker blue/green 2/16 cotton I could use. But I don't so I'm making do with the lighter value green shown. This will make the hems a little more 'visible' than I would prefer, but begger's can't be choosers. Since I have to place another yarn order I could have ordered some in - in fact I probably will be ordering some for future use, but these towels are on the loom now and I can't (don't want) to wait for 10 days until the yarn order comes in.
And people call me patient! :^)
Studio music so far today - compilation cd of past Juno Award winners - Diana Krall, Celine Dion, Holly Cole, Sarah MacLachlan (sp?) and many more
4 comments:
I made some waffle-weave towels recently, and if I use the same weft for plain-weave hems (8/2 cotton), the hem is much too wide after wet finishing. How fine a thread would you recommend for that situation? (I ended up doing the hem in waffle weave so it would be the same width, but it was very bulky.)
I don't use plain weave for waffle but twill for hems. I'd use 2/16 for hems with 8/2 for warp. OTOH, I just submitted towels to Handwoven where I wove 'stripes of twill in the same yarn as the rest of the towel at intervals to create a shrinkage differential effect throughout the towel. :)
cheers,
Laura
Using twill, another 'shrinking' structure - great idea! I have only 8 pedals, but prefer using only 6 when possible. I'll see if I can 'share' any of the tie-ups between waffle and twill.
True - you will run into a treadle problem. :( Well, you can still use plain weave and that will give you even more shrinkage differential - like I say, repeat the plain weave in bands throughout the towel to make it a design feature!
cheers,
Laura
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