Tangled webs, woven

November's mission was to get my new loom warped and my apron fabric woven. The loom is a 48" Ashford Rigid Heddle. Step 1 was to actually stain and assemble the loom. We went with a darker, traditional stain to match the walking wheel I inherited from my Grandmother and the rest of the furniture in the fiber studio.

After everything was dry and assembled, the next step was to warp the loom, which took about an entire day and most of the living room.

And then I could finally start the weaving. There was a bit of a learning curve because this was the widest loom I had ever used, and because both the warp and weft were singles, the threads had a lot of energy and liked to both tangle and stretch.

After a LOT of weaving, I cut the fabric from the loom. It started as a very loose, open weave.

It bloomed up a bit after being soaked.

But I wanted a little more robust fabric, so I ran it through a wash cycle and lightly dried before pressing out the wrinkles. I lost about 2 inches total in width, which was a very manageable amount.

The z spun warp against the s spun weft created a very nubbly, rustic fabric with a lot of texture to it, which was really cool. It was also at this point that I realized that when the bobbins were wound into cones, one of the weft bobbins had gotten mixed into the warp bobbins, resulting in a very smooth S x S stripe amid the Z x S fabric. Luckily, that stripe runs the length of the fabric but is confined to one side.

S x S (left) / Z x S (right)

Luckily, without that stripe, I still have 28 inches of width, which is still wide enough to make my apron. So my plan is cut off that stripe and dye it with a black walnut dye and use it as a trim at the top and bottom of the apron. I also have some of the S spun thread left, so I'm going to dye some of that with the walnut as well, to use for a card woven trim or seam embroidery.

Walnut shells wrapped in cheesecloth.

Dye bath:

So while I didn't finish a layer this month, I'm really happy with the progress made because it's the first time I've ever made fabric on this scale.