November 2019 – Jean Elizabeth Studio

Finish Line!

Posted on November 25, 2019October 4, 2021 by Jean

I wound the first Christmas warp on in mid October. They almost sold out before I even finished weaving, so I wound a 26 yard warp and tied it onto the first warp so I’d have enough to add to the shop. I gave myself a goal of having them completely finished by Thanksgiving so we could have our dining room table (aka the hemming/sewing station) back in time for Thanksgiving dinner. I really can’t believe I did it, but I did! That’s 23 towels and two table runners! Whoop!

For my weaving friends:

I’ve been asked a few times about my hemming process, so I took photos while working on this project. I don’t know why I always feel like I have to say this, but here we are…. this is the way *I* do it. I literally have sewn at least a hundred towels like this and I’ve not had one complaint. I also use my towels in my own kitchen, not just because I like them, but I can learn what works best in hemming, sett, threads by actually using them. I can personally report that not one of my towels has fallen apart.

I’ve tried a lot of other ways. For a long time I used steam a seam tape until I ran out one day and didn’t want to stop and wait until I could buy more. I found out I didn’t need it. I also used to serge the ends of my towels. For a while I serged every one apart and then washed. Then, for a while, I serged the two ends of the long length of fabric into a huge tube, washed and then serged apart. Seriously, I’ve tried a lot of ways. As I’ve stated before I’m either lazy or very efficient and if I can find a short-cut, I will. I’m sure there are other things I tried that I’ve forgotten and who knows, maybe I’ll do it another way a few months from now, but I’ve been finishing my towels like this for at least a year now and I’m happy with it. So here goes….

First big helper… I weave my hems in a different color if I’m weaving plain weave or a different treadling pattern if I’m weaving in twill. If you weave plain weave hems on a twill towel, they’ll splay out and you’ll get those annoying little ears that stick out. If I’m doing an all white towel in plain weave (which is almost never, but that was the case with the Christmas overshot towels last year), I throw two picks in the same shed at the hem line. It just makes it easier.

I weave my hems at 1.5″ and I throw two picks of a different color in between towels. I use leftover bobbins for the hems and the separation picks. When I pull the cloth off of the loom I use a rotary cutter and quilter’s ruler on a mat to carefully cut them apart. I fold them so the cut ends meet in the center and then I fold it over one more time so the cut ends are protected until I’m ready to go to the ironing board.

At the ironing board I get the tabs all ready. I have a basket full of inkle woven bands and can almost always find something that matches, but I had to weave bands for the Christmas towels (darn). I cut the tabs at 4″ and press them into shape so they are ready to tuck into the hems.

Now I’m ready for pressing the hems in. You can see how easy it makes it by doing them in another color. I fold at the change of color line first. I open it back up and fold the end up to the color line I just pressed. To avoid any little ends sticking out, I fold the corners in to the middle pressed line and then press it all down. I tuck in the inkle tab and use clips to hold it in. I repeat on the other end of the towel (minus the tab) and then it’s ready for the sewing machine.

I forgot to take pictures at the sewing machine, but I’ll explain. I almost always use grey thread if I’m not sewing black or white hems. The grey magically blends in. I use a slight zig zag. It helps with the tension and does away with that harsh line that hems can have sometimes. It always hides when your hand isn’t perfectly steady, which really? Who’s is?

I always test a bit on scraps of the same weight of handwoven fabric. When I’m ready to begin, I start sewing on a small square of fabric and then go on to the towel without cutting the thread. If you do this you won’t get the little nests of thread at the beginning of your hems. Likewise, when I come to the end of the hem, I flip the end of that same towel around, so that I can go right on sewing the other hem. When I’m done with one towel, I go right on to the next one without cutting them apart until they are off the machine. I do go back and forth a few times at the beginning and end of each hem to lock it in place.

After sewing the hems, it’s to the washing machine they go. I have a front loader so I make sure that I have it on low spin or it creases the fabric. I dry just until they are dry. Then it’s back to the ironing board for a good pressing and the addition of my label. My current labels are from Dutch Label Shop and have the iron-on adhesive on them already.

Warping, Weaving, Weaving Tips

Top O’ The Lamms Tie-up

Posted on November 15, 2019October 2, 2022 by Jean

Edited to add on 23 Dec 2019: I added some photos of how easy changing the tie up is with this method in a later post:

https://jeanelizabethstudio.com/the-never-ending-warp/

Also, here is the full play list of the four videos I did: Top O’ The Lamms Tie-Up Playlist on Youtube

I set my Toika up the same way, but used the pin anchors under the treadles instead of the beads. I will switch the beads out on the Glimakra one of these days as they sometimes break.

I didn’t come up with the idea, but I did come up with the cheery title. 🙂 Fitting because it makes me just as happy as the old Bing Crosby song that stuck in my head as I was setting it up. My Glimakra Standard has been this way for almost two years now and the 1987 Toika Liisa just a few months less. I still love it. More importantly, my back loves it.

Shortly after buying my Glimakra, I was down for about six weeks after hurting my back while reaching under the treadles to do a tie up. Around that time I read an article by Katie Meeks in the Oct 2017 Complex Weavers Journal about a tie up system that you do on top of the lamms instead of under the treadles. That got my attention! She gives credit to Kay Faulkner, Sara von Tresckow and Paula Williams. I knew I had to try it. I get for some people under the treadles is easy for them, but I’m 5′ 7″ and tried all kinds of advised positions and tricks and none of them worked for me. Before you read further, please note! This is what I did for my Glimakra Standard and then my Toika. You will have to figure out your own measurements. Please do not just use mine without checking first because your loom may be different and I went on the long side, so if you’re being thrifty with your Texsolv, keep that in mind. It also depends on whether you use beads or anchor pins and don’t forget to take the knot into account. You’d be surprised how much Texsolv a little overhand knot takes up. All that said, I hope this helps because it’s changed my weaving life. For real. I did add photos of all my measurements at the bottom of the post, but please just use them as a starting point.

The photos were difficult to see in my hard copy issue, so I went looking and found Kay’s blog post on the subject.

I kind of morphed a few ideas together and this is what I came up with. I made a board with nails 25″apart, but realized I had several pieces that were a little more than double that, so my pieces are 25″ plus 5 “button holes” as noted in picture.

I didn’t want to use as many buttons as Kati did and I had all the pony beads from doing the Vavstuga method, so I used those to secure the ends of the Texsolv under the treadles on my Glimakra. On top of the treadles I inserted a 1/4″ dowel so the loose Texsolv would remain tight to the bottom of the treadle and not be dragging around in the dust bunnies under the loom. I had a problem with the dowels sliding back while weaving, so I stuck an anchor peg behind it. You’ll see later that I did it differently on my Toika. I haven’t changed the Glimakra because it works so why mess with it.

A dowel on top of the treadle keeps the Texsolv from dangling beneath so cleaning is easier. The anchor peg at the end of it is to keep the peg from sliding back.

With the treadle on the floor, I have five inches extra for my Standard. Don’t forget to take knot and looping bead into account!

I fed the Texsolv up through the treadle, up through the corresponding hole in the lower lamm and then the upper lamm. I tied a knot at the top of the cord so it can’t fall back through. The knot holds well and it’s easy to take out if you need to. It also doesn’t scratch or get caught up in the lamms as another bead or arrow pin might.

Kati Meek suggested a low stool in her article. I happened to see one on sale the same day at Hobby Lobby. It’s perfect when I need to tweak in the back under the warp. It’s also a great little shelf to hold things while I’m doing the tie up. Luckily, one of my kitchen chairs is perfect for sitting on to do the tie up from the front. NO BACK ACHE or leg cramps from trying to reach under the treadles. Heaven.

Easy to do tie up from the front without crouching to get under treadles.

Even if you do the Vavstuga Method, try doing it upside down. You just can’t leave the texsolv cords for the ones you’re not using because the Texsolv will be too short. You’ll have to re-do for each project, but you’re doing that now anyway, so give it a try on your next project. I chose to buy more Texsolv and cut longer cords that I can just leave in my loom. All I have to do from now on is move the anchor pin to the correct position/lamm and I’m done. I do all of this after threading or sleying the reed, but before tying onto the cloth rod. I can sit right at the front of the loom in my kitchen chair and reach everything perfectly. If I need to tweak the shed after I get started weaving, I have the little stool that I put in the back by the treadles and it’s SO MUCH EASIER than trying to reach under the treadles for me. I keep a card on my loom cart that helps me when I do need to tweak the tie up to get a clean shed. It’s at the bottom of this post. Feel free to download and print it. I will note, I worry more about the bottom of the shed than the top of it. As long as my shuttle has room and a flat bottom of the shed to glide along, I’m happy.

A note on the markings: When I set it up, I used the markings on my Vavstuga cords to the new, longer cords by lining up the bead end and then marking the corresponding marks. If I were to do it over again, I wouldn’t put the markings on yet. I don’t even use the marks on the Texsolv anymore. When you do your first tie up, set your first treadle so that the top of the treadle is even with the bottom of the foot beam. Pin that in place at the furthest back lamm. I do the next one forward at the same and then the next two I go one hole looser and so on. The Texsolv should gradually get looser as you go from the back to the front. Once you’ve woven a few warps and know where you like your treadles, you can mark them if you want. I honestly pay no attention to the markings anymore. I have had a perfect shed first time almost every time, but when I do have to tweak the tie up, it’s so much easier to get to it on top of the lamms instead of under the treadles. I wouldn’t worry about marking the Texsolv at first.

Texsolv looped around unused shafts and up around counter march to keep them from falling

One thing that concerned me is what would happen with the shafts that I wasn’t using. Say I’m only using 4 of the 8 shafts currently on my loom. To balance them I attached them to the two plain weave treadles as if they were part of the pattern. It doesn’t affect my shed at all. I just wanted to see if I could truly leave the cords on “permanently” without having to worry about it when I switched between 4 and 8 shaft drafts and I’m happy to report I do it all the time.

I did a couple of videos that might help. I messed up the placement of the anchor pins in this first video. I forgot it was upside down. The second video corrects it. I’ll state again what I did above… if I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t worry about marking the Texsolv until you’ve woven a bit and know exactly where you want them, but that’s your choice:

In the pictures I’m using arrow pins. You can see in the video I’m now going to use the anchor pins, but I honestly don’t think it matters. Either works just fine.

Here are the measurements I used. PLEASE NOTE! This is on my loom, a 2014 Glimakra Standard with 8 shafts and 10 treadles and set to where I like the treadle height to be. Please just use this as a starting point to figure out your own set up.

When I did my Toika Liisa a few months after the Glimakra, these measurements wouldn’t work. I didn’t use beads under the treadles. I used anchor pins. I don’t change them, I still change the ones on the tops of the lamms, but I like them holding the Texsolv under the treadle because it stays put without a dowel on top of the treadle and the ends aren’t dangling on the floor when not in use. Just makes it harder to sweep under the loom when all those danglies are there. 😉

Look at that clear view to do the tie up!

Here is the cheat sheet I have by my looms. I step on a treadle, look down the shed from the side. When I see threads that look higher or lower, I wiggle the shafts up and down and watch the threads to see which ones need to be adjusted and then use this chart to make adjustments to that treadle. It’s easier if you have someone to step on the treadle for you, but I’ve done this alone many times:

Towels, Weaving, Weaving Tips

Splice, Splice, Baby….

Posted on November 12, 2019October 4, 2021 by Jean

A handwoven towel wrapped around a bottle of great wine would be an awesome gift to give to a hostess or friend!

The Christmas towels in the last post sold out before I even finished weaving them, so I tied on another warp of them. A very long warp of 26-ish yards this time. Now those are selling fast, so if you’d like to pre-order please reach out. I quickly learned that was going to be a weaving issue, so I changed to just a plaid band on each end of each towel. And then, of course, I had to revert to just playing with Color and Weave because it’s what I love.

For my weaving friends… The Christmas Towels started out as an all-over plaid design. Oh, how naive I was. It didn’t take me long to realize that was going to be a problem. You can not make that many color changes, tucking in the ends as you normally would, without your fell line getting all out of whack. An occasional tucked in end, where it doubles the thread at the end of a bobbin or a color change here and there, is not a problem. If you are changing colors as often as you do in a plaid and just tuck in the ends, you are adding a lot of extra doubled threads to your selvedges, but the center of the cloth stays in single threads in each shed. That doesn’t add up and you will quickly start noticing that your fell line is curving up on the selvedges. Of course, if you’re weaving yardage where the selvedges don’t matter, you can just leave the ends at the color changes hanging out to clip off after wet finishing. If you’re working on a plaid in wool, you can do the same because the wool will somewhat felt together.

In a towel though, you have to do something about those ends to keep the integrity of your cloth. Unfortunately, that something is splicing and it takes a great deal of time. It suddenly makes the sale of a towel with an all-over plaid just not worth it. I am working on a custom 70″ table cloth. I can’t just have one band of plaid on each end on that much of a length of fabric. It wouldn’t be proportioned right. I need to do several bands of the plaid on each end, so I learned to splice. I’m getting quicker at it, but a band of plaid takes me about twice as long to weave, but I do love the effect. Here’s how I do it (Click on pic to make it larger):

End clipped and pulled back out of about an inch of it’s shed

Edited to add: I shared my info on the Rav Warped Weavers thread and a kind soul told me about a method for two pick stripes, like the gold stripe in my plaid border. Instead of having two splices on the selvedge (which end up on the same side), you can achieve one splice in the center portion of of the towel (doesn’t have to be dead center). I threw the first pick leaving tails long enough on either side to meet in the middle. I then changed sheds, layed the weft ends in by hand and then pulled them back out to separate the plies and placed them back in the shed on top of each other. Worked like a charm and will keep extra bulk off the selvedge. I think with practice it’ll also be a little quicker. Funnily enough… I learned this once before… It’s in Janet Dawson’s Floor Loom Weaving class on Craftsy (now Blueprint). I purchased it in June 2013. It’s an excellent class for beginners and maybe this experienced weaver needs to go back and rewatch. lol Here’s how I did the 2 pick splice pictured above:

If you are still here and would like the wif file for the towels, send me an email and I’ll send it to you. WordPress won’t allow me to add the file here. If you don’t want to wait for the .wif it’s plain weave, so that’s simple enough. The color order is:

Christmas Plaid Warp 2019 G=Green R=Red = O=Gold (Oro) W=White

19G / 4R / 2O / 4R

4G / 2W – 2G 4x / 2G / 4R / 2O / 4R / 22G / 4R / 2O / 4R

4G / 2W – 2G 4x / 2G / 4R / 2O / 4R / 19G

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