Twining away

The weaving guild I belong to encourages us to meet a particular challenge each year. This time it was to try a new weaving technique. I haven't been weaving lately, but we recently had a program on twining. I decided to work up a sample of that, in a rather lazy way.

I don't have a twining-specific frame, but other frames may be co-opted. I chose to use a potholder frame. One reason is the side pegs help with the selvages. Another reason is to keep my effort small. I also did not want to go to the trouble of creating warp and weft from fabric, so I used potholder loops.

My first attempt was a bit of a disaster, but the second (pictured above and below) turned out okay. The resulting fabric is very thick and dense. Twining is rather addictive, so when I have some free time, I just may make myself a rug from old sheets.

Yes, time. One would think during retirement there would be plenty of time, but somehow the days are just packed. It doesn't help that finishing the quilt has motivated me to tackle some other long-standing projects. This week it was a pair of pajama bottoms. I purchased the pattern from One Hundred Act of Sewing *many* years ago and bought the material about the same time. Now they are done!

My sewing skills are rather basic, and I made several mistakes with this project, but I learned some things. You *can* teach an old dog new tricks.

Knitting: The basketweave socks are s-l-o-w-l-y advancing. The L-Bag has become my TV viewing knitting project for now, so the mismatched socks are on pause.
Weaving: See above on twining.

Another reason I seem to have no time is I keep volunteering for things. I'm the "outreach coordinator" for the weaving guild, and I unofficially do the same for the spinning guild. I want to raise their profiles in the community so that people know we exist and what we do and maybe they will want to join us. The current push is to get tee-shirts made for each group, so we can wear them when we spin and/or weave in public or when we attend fiber fests. There is another group in town where the members are all "aging out". I don't want that to happen to our guilds.

Inspiration from guild meetings and books

The past two weaving guild meetings have been about new-to-me methods of weaving: twining and circular weaving. Sometimes when I am thinking I am not much of a weaver, I see a new technique and think, Maybe this is my path forward. I haven't tried twining yet, but at the circular weaving meeting we each received a cardboard loom (already warped) that we could practice on.


At an informal spin/knit-in/gab-fest, someone mentioned a book called The Joy of Yarn: Your Stash Solution for Curating, Organizing, and Using Your Yarn, by Marie Greene. One of her organizing methods is to group yarns by color. I once visited a yarn shop that did just that, and I found it to be a rather ridiculous but beautiful way to organize yarn. The author's other method is my method - by yarn weight. After all, how often does one mix yarn weights in a project?

I found the following charts from the book to be very useful, though.

I am really disliking the Cascade Yarns Heritage Sock yarn - it is very soft and feels like it won't hold up well for socks. However, if I double it, I think it would make a nice next-to-the-skin garment like a hat, scarf, or cowl.

Knitting: I have turned the heels on the non-matching socks. One of the basketweave socks is ready for a heel turn, the other close.
Spinning: I finished spinning the Tasman comeback singles. I also plied the latest merino/silk blend that I spun at spin-ins; I'm not very happy with it, would not enter it in the county fair, but I'm sure it will knit up into something nice.

Speaking of spin-ins, yesterday I planned to attend one. I packed up the wheel and some fiber, then decided maybe I would just knit. But after backing the car out of the garage, I realized just how tired I was. So back into the house I went, where I spent most of the day on the couch, reading (and crying through) The Women, by Kristin Hannah. If you lived through the Vietnam era, this is a must read.

Tapestry sampler

I finished weaving a tapestry sampler a while ago (June 5, to be exact), but I had to return the book the design came from to the library (after renewing it five times). Then someone else checked it out, so I ended up purchasing a used copy (Rigid Heddle Weaving, by Karen Swanson). I wanted to make sure I had the sections labeled correctly before posting, hence the delay.

Plain weave

Plain weave in two colors (vertical stripes)

The book is actually about how to use a rigid heddle with a backstrap loom, but I decided I could make the sampler on my Ashford rigid heddle loom. That was true, more or less, but per usual, I learned a lot in the process. For one thing, I had the yarn specified in the pattern, but not the 5-dent heddle, so I warped up my 7.5-dent one with 8/4 carpet warp. Alas, that did not work well with the rug yarn. While contemplating how to resolve that issue, Liz Gipson gave me the idea of using worsted weight yarn instead. I have a lot of naturally dyed Lamb's Pride worsted, in colors I don't wear, so that fit the bill perfectly.

Pile weave - flossa

Pile weave, loop flossa

Pile weave, rya

Tapestry weaving is weft-faced, so the weft must be beaten down to cover the warp. This cannot be done with the heddle. Initially, I used the shuttle from my inkle loom because it has a beveled edge, but was too short to do the entire width of the piece. Eventually I ordered some swords from the Woolery, which made things go much easier.

Tapestry, split weave (bottom) and clasp weave (top). Rolling under on the bottom is soumak.

Another problem I encountered was losing the shed as the amount of fabric on the front beam grew. I tried compensating for that by adding weights to the warp, but that didn't really help. Toward the end, it was a real struggle to insert the weft. Maintaining even selvages while learning something new is a challenge, too, leading me to reweave a significant amount.

Trying to maintain tension

Curve form - "cartoon"

Curve form - split weave

The darker yarn was dyed with walnut. The lighter yarn is pomegranate, pomegranate and tumeric, and tumeric. Some of the color changes between the light colors were a bit abrupt, but don't show a lot. Or look like part of the plan.

Weft twining (bottom), weft chaining (middle), leno (top)

Top sample is brocade

Despite how slow the weaving went, I really enjoyed tapestry weaving. It's much more interesting than simple weaving. My plan is to do more of it.