Sunday, November 29, 2009

Placemats part II


Second colour/yarn combo


Three yarns bundled together to make up the weft

It was so much fun weaving up the placemats I just kept on going until the cone of soft red cotton was all used up. I have no idea how many place mats are on the beam - when I got down to not-enough-bobbins-to-weave-two-placemats I just finished off the yarn making a table runner about 32" long under tension.

And then I grabbed the large cone of varigated cotton flake, combined it with some cottolin and the solid lighter red cotton flake for weft for the rest of the warp.

No, I'm not having any particular problems winding the three yarns together. If I'm going to do a lot I'll set up a doubling stand, but since two of the yarns are on spools instead of cones it's easier (what can I say, I'm lazy!) to just take them off this way.

I always set up my tubes to wind off counter clockwise - no particular reason except I started doing this nearly 30 years ago and it's now my default position. :} After all, if you can't be perfect, be consistent!

But now it's back to transcribing and tomorrow - colour gamp warp winding. I really needed a break and it's been great fun weaving the placemats.

ps - the yellow ribbon pinned to the mat is actually a measuring 'tape'. I love using ribbons because they are so easy to pin into and because this is not actually a measuring tape but simply marked out in 12" sections I can cut the ribbon to whatever length I want. Here it's 20" for placemats (Thanks Tien - really nice!)

2 comments:

Sharon Schulze said...

I found some acrylic raffia - actually kind of a large cone of it - and in a moment of weakness bought the whole thing. Do you think something like that would work for placemats? I'm anxious to use it but I can't seem to find the right thing... :-/

Laura Fry said...

Sure - should work up a treat. :)
I'd give it a go and see if you like it or not. An unmercerized cotton warp might be good, and if you're not really happy with it showing up much as weft, I'd do something warp emphasis to tame the raffia.

Cheers,
Laura