Weaving...

I've had my rigid heddle loom since the last Yarndale - 2019. I put it together in January 2020 and played with it a bit early last year.

This is the first big thing I made, a blanket from five narrower strips of fabric, woven from random (mostly handspun) yarn. In fact the main reason I wanted a RH was to use up all the handspun I have, most of which was spun for specific purposes but then never got used for that purpose. Nothing sadder than once-loved yarn slowly sinking in stash.

Some of the strips in this I really love, some I don't. But it's a lovely lightweight and very warm blanket thing, and I use it on my bed in the winter. 
So I had dug into the bag of random (mostly) handspun yarn I'd put aside for weaving last summer, and dug some more out. There'd been a piece of weaving on the RH since the end of last year, but it wasn't working out and I didn't like it so I cut off and binned the entire warp and only bothered keeping the four inches or so of actual fabric. That piece was stopping me getting anything else done, so out it went! 

I've warped up the RH three times for the current project at the point of this photograph, so the pile is much depleted - that pale lilac, for example, was an enormous ball at the start. Having learned from the first project (and the few shawls and scarves I did last summer), I aim for random consistency with the warp; the same yarns but in different orders. But I try to keep the same one to the edges as it helps to disguise the seams at the end. 

These are the two strips I've woven since Friday afternoon. I warp them up with the RH bolted to my computer table/yarn box across the room to a post which was on the sideboard, but after it fell off twice with half a warp on it, it's now on a chair. Lower but more secure. 

The weft started off as several large balls of random creamy-beige yarn (spun so long ago I don't remember what it is), but then I ran out, so I used some greeny-dyed Romney (I think).



 The third warp is now on the RH, and I hope I have enough yarn to perhaps do another two, but certainly have enough for one more strip. I've now run out of both original weft yarns, so had a quick dive in the boxes upstairs and found several skeins of vintage handspun alpaca blend. I've got a feeling it's some pale beige alpaca and a Corriedale fleece from Olwen Veevers (Wonderwool) that I had blended together at Halifax Spinning. 


All the strips *should* be the same length, but I'm not precise about this - I warp over the same space in the living room, I try to tie it up with the same length and to weave right up as far as I can at the other end, but it's reasonably easy to fudge a few inches when mattress-stitching them all together at the end. 


I'll twist the fringes when all the strips are finished, sew them together, and then stuff in the washing machine. My machine's got a good wool wash, and it's always fun to see what comes out at the end. I lean towards woollen-spinning unless I try really hard not to, so the blankets always tend to come out very light and airy. 


We will see...

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