Planning a Woven Project

You'll Never Believe the Maths Involved.....

                Over the years I have met many 'beginner' weavers who have been disappointed in their first project results and sometimes they have been completely 'put off' the craft of weaving. I'm still working towards encouraging these and new weavers to continue and enjoy this rewarding craft. When you follow a knitting pattern you use the thickness of yarn and size of needles recommended in the pattern instructions. Weaving is similar but you are likely to need to work out, for yourself, the size of rigid heddle in the case of Rigid Heddle weavers, or, in the case of table and floor loom weavers, the reed needed to 'spread' the warp threads on your loom.

                        Weaving yarn is not always sold in the small quantities of knitting yarns - 50 -100g.

You may have to buy a cone weighing 500g. Does your intended project need more than this? You need to know before starting, especially if your yarn supplier is not close by!

                       Recently, one of our daughters in law decided she'd like to learn to weave and of course I have encouraged her. I own a portable folding floor loom which I have mainly used for demonstrations at events where I have been selling my wares. So she has no need to buy her own equipment, at least until she is sure she wants to continue. I thought this the perfect opportunity to document the process from beginning to end. 

                       A length of tweed for a shawl is the chosen project.

How much yarn do we need to buy? The chosen yarn is a Shetland type from Uppingham yarns. One that I had worked with before and had success.

                      Their colour chart with small sample skeins was ordered and 4 colours chosen, flannel grey and donkey being the main warp and weft colours, with heron and robin's egg chosen to create a square/check design. BUT how much would we need of each colour, especially the main 'ground' colours of flannel and Donkey? Thank fully I had some 'peacock' left on a cone, wraps per inch 24. A balanced 2/2 twill weave decided upon meant 16 ends to the inch warp and weft.

Now to exercise our brains:-

How long a piece of fabric you we need? 

The piece I was to weave, on my Harris 4 shaft floor loom, was going to use the yarns in my last post 'Yarn De-stash 2019'.

I required 4 yards of finished cloth, 27" wide.

As you weave there will be 10% take up of the fabric width as well as on the length. This is because neither warp nor weft actually take a straight path across or along the length of woven piece, they 'wiggle' up and down as they interact with the yarn at right angles.

So, calculate to weave a length of 4 yards + 10%. i.e. 144" + 15" - for easy calculations 160" long.

BUT, the length you weave will shrink up to 15% in the wet finishing, so you need to weave fabric 160" plus 15% i.e 24" = 184" length weaving.

Hold on!!!! you have to add on your 'loom waste'. That is the length of warp needed to tie onto the front of your loom and the unwoven warp at the end of your weaving when you can't get a shuttle through the 'shed' (space) created when you go to weave another row. In my experience this is 30 to 36 inches in total. 

So your warp needs to be 184 + 36 = 220" or 6 yards long.

 

N.B. These pictures are not of the project being calculate in this post.

HOW MANY WARP THREADS DO YOU NEED?

Warp width needs to be:-

To get finished fabric 24 " wide - add 10% for take up- i.e. 2.4 " = 26.4"

Now add 15% shrinkage = 30.3". For safety 31" wide warp 

Therefore, the number of warp ends needed is 16(for each inch width) x 31 = 496 warp ends.

HOW MUCH WARP YARN DO YOU NEED?

Each warp end needs to be 6 yards.

So, you need 6 x 496 yards of warp thread = 2,976 yards 

BUT to create a selvedge you need 8 extra threads- 1/2" - on each side of your warp i.e 16 x 6 yards of yarn = 96 yards.

Total warp needed 2,976 + 96 = 3,072 yards. 2,835.6 meters.

Uppingham Yarns say there are 2,875m in 500g of their Shetland style yarn!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Given there are 2 colours in the warp then a 500g cone of the main colour is sufficient for this projects warp.

WHAT ABOUT THE WEFT?

We have already calculated that we need to weave 31" width having taken shrinkage and take up into account and a length of 184".

For a 'balanced' twill weave there will be 16 weft threads across each inch of fabric.

16 threads of 31 inches in each of 184 inches of fabric = 91,264 inches of weft yarn =2,340 meters. So a cone of 500g/2,875m is sufficient for this project.

Again, 2 colours are being used in the weft so a cone of each is sufficient.

YARN DE-STASH 2019

DE-STASH PROJECT NUMBER 1, 2019

            I have a lot of yarns left from the time before I started working solely with hand dyed silk. I am doing a lot of spinning at the moment. Spinning yarns to weave with was my reason for learning to spin. The spur for me to improve my spinning was getting yarn of a consistent thickness strong enough for a warp. I have previously achieved this with silk but one can't wear silk all the time!
            Having discovered two things, the first being that organic woollen fibres, mainly merino, don't irritate my skin, the second a great supplier, John Arbon, of attractive fibre and colour blends I am now spinning organic woollen fibres so I can produce lengths of fabric for some clothing.
            Spinning this yarn is taking some time and I am drawn to my weaving shed and woollen yarn that I bought some 30 years ago. Three of those in the photo are some of the 'stash'. The fourth, the peacock blue on the right, is some bought more recently from Uppingham Yarns and left over from weaving a twill length last year.

Well, I'm nearly at the end of a 5 yard warp and I'm quite pleased with the effect. If I finish weaving it tomorrow i will get it in the washing machine to full and hang it to dry on a roller.

Trial weave Design

Trialing a Weaving Draft

     I have spent some time spinning a big batch of fibre tops, from John Arbon again, to fulfil my ambition to weave a length of fabric from my own handspun yarn - the reason I began spinning in the first place! The wound balls below are 'Toot Sweet', organic merino and silk, intended for the warp.

Each of the 21 balls is approximately 50g, 20 wraps per inch, that took me about two evenings each to spin.

    I have carefully measured each one and find that I have more than 4,200 metres, more than enough for a 7 metre warp, 34 inch loom width.

    This basket contains the first of the fibre for the weft yarn, 'Rose Gold' alpaca supreme, again from John Arbon. It will take some time to spin this 1k batch and I am purposely not beginning it until we get back from holiday. I find it can be difficult to keep to the same weight and twists per inch after a long break. If I manage to spin to the same weight as the red I have calculated that my twill warp will need 14 ends to the inch.

    I thought I might be able to do a small sample, to wash/wet finish, on this pin loom to check the right warp sett. Unfortunately, as you can see, a tabby weave would be more appropriate as it is only 12 threads per inch. Hey ho! it may suite a different project!

  

I have a number of woollen yarn cones on my shelves so I decided to try the weave draft I have selected, possibly, for the handspun yarn. I believe it's called 'Wall of Troy'. After weaving over a metre of this I reverted to a simple 2/2 twill treadling in order to get the length off my loom but I've not finished the length yet.

Drop Spindle Practice

DROP SPINDLE PROJECT

    Last year at Fibre East I decided to replace the drop spindle that I mislaid some 18 months ago.

The one I settled on is lighter than the one I had before. Wow are they great spindles! both beautiful and practical.

    I bought 200g of fibre from John Arbon - Tutti Frutti - a blend of organic merino and silk, chosen because, finding other merino fibre uncomfortable to wear, I would be able to make use of any yarn produced.

    I am very please with the end product, even though I didn't produce a yarn of consistent thickness, the singles being finer than I'd ever spun before on a drop spindle. That, in part, is due to the weight of the spindle which is 23 g.

    To spin the singles I use a variation of the method I see most others use. I want to keep the spindle turning for as long as possible to produce the longest length of singles that I can - economy of effort - so I roll the shaft of the spindle up my thigh. This way the spindle spins longer and I can spin over one metre without stopping to wind the yarn on my spindle shaft, but I have to draft quickly to ensure there is not too much twist in the yarn.

   What does one make with 200g of yarn?

     A rummage in my workshop may well have supplied the answer, fingers crossed.

Perhaps a weft for a scarf with Tuti Fruti and some hand dyed silk for the weft.

I have labelled each skein and I'm in the process of counting the number of yards I have produced on my umbrella swift. A task I don't relish, but better than finding myself short of yarn.

Tweed fabric Length

Weather Too Bad to Work in Cabin

  What do you do when the temperature is too low to work in your garden workshop?

Well, luckily I have an understanding hubby and room to spare in the dining room. It was actually his suggestion to bring my folding Harris floor loom into the house!

I couldn't get on with the piece on my floor loom because of the low temperature when it snowed last week but this was a great solution.

The shetland warp had been on  this loom for 18 months. Set up to weave 2 shawls, the first of which was part of a 'How many spinners to supply a weaver?' demo at Fibre East 2016. The first shawl finished and passed on to The Guild of Londraw Spinners summer last year. They had spun the yarn for the weft! I was the weaver. The remainder of the warp didn't inspire me to get on and weave the rest. BUT....

I have recently been trying to destash the woollen yarns I have had on the shelves for nearly 30 years and so rummaging around on the corner shelf I found 2 cones with the blue flecked tweedy yarn. Not enough, I thought, for a whole length of fabric but when it ran out and with warp left to weave I had other yarns that would be suitable.

The decision was made - cushion covers. I had seen a number of twill weave cushions on the shelves in 'home' stores, so they must be the 'in' thing and I had the perfect warp yarn already on the loom!

 Here you can see both warp and weft yarn












The finished length of fabric 4 yards, 24 inches wide, weighing 900g. there was 12" of waste warp at beginning and end which weighed 32g.
At the moment I am unable to find my record of the tweed yarn weight! As this is not to be repeated I guess it doesn't matter too much?
A case of 'do as I say not as I do'.
I will post the info when I find it - says I feeling guilty!

    The 2/2 twill repeat, 12 picks to the right, 4 picks left, 8 picks right, 4 picks left. Thankfully not as mesmerising as I thought it might be!

How far will your handspun yarn go?

CALCULATING HOW FAR YOUR HAND-SPUN WILL GO

Knitting on the diagonal

Following on from 'A Fill In Project':-

This is what I decided to make with the yarn.

One of the most worrying things, when you have used all your fibre and spun some yarn, is whether you have sufficient to complete a project.
If you are to knit something like a simple scarf or even a waistcoat, as in my earlier post -
'Hand spun, Naturally dyed Waistcoat', is to knit a 10cm square and weigh the yarn used, then calculate the area of knitted fabric your project needs, then 'do the sums'.

If you decide to knit a scarf then the calculation can be done while beginning the scarf with little chance of having to pull your work out to begin the project. Here I amusing the yarn from 'A Fill In' project.

First weigh your spun yarn - I had 200g.

Cast on 3 stitches.

Increase by one stitch at the beginning of each row. Continue until you have used 10th of you yarn. In this case I knitted 20g.

Measure the sides of the triangle - cm. You will be able to knit a strip/scarf that is 10 times as long as the side of the triangle you have knitted.

From now on increase a stitch at the beginning of the next row, decrease one stitch at the beginning of the following row. Continue in this way until you have the same weight of yarn that it took to knit the first triangle.

Decrease at the beginning of every following row until only 3 sts remain. Knit all three together to cast off.

Your project doesn't have to be all KNIT stitches! Here is a scarf knitted (yet to be pressed) for my dear friend Sue Bryce.

To keep the edges tidy and straight I knitted the first 5 stitches of each row, using purl in a random number of rows to create some texture. Well, I say random, I usually use the fibonacci sequence of numbers when I am 'designing'.

A 'Fill In Project

A 'FILL IN' PROJECT

   With time to spare, but waiting for some more fibre to continue spinning some yarn for a weaving project, I turned to my stash.
   I was hoping to find an unspun hand dyed roving but finding non I turned instead to some batts I had made for sale. I decided to try some fractal spinning.
Fractal spinning is a fancy name for a particular way to divide up your coloured fibre for spinning.

   I divided each batt into its component colours. The first I spun in the order it was in the original batt, navy, blues, lime and green.

  

   The second batt I divided further, each colour in half. (12.5 g each)The second half of each colour I divided in half again. (6.25g each)

   I began spinning the four individual colours on one bobbin. (Unfortunately I didn't take  a photo)

on a second bobin I spun the 12.5 g of each of the colours in the same order as before. After which I spun 6.5 gram of each followed by the remaining fibre.

   With all the 'singles' spun I began to ply them together, intending there to be 2 skeins of 100g.

Part way through this process some small visitors, attracted to my spinning wheel and its interesting mechanical possibilities, broke the yarn, but no harm was done. So, the first 100g skein became 2 skeins, those at the top of the photo. 

   Today I have wound the washed skeins, hoping I have the colour sequence correct, into three nice, squishy centre pull balls ready for knitting.