Wednesday, October 5, 2011

The Same But Different

I really enjoyed weaving the fancy twill runners so much so that I tied on.  For this set of runners I wanted to have the colour in the warp so they are different from the previous runners.  In the stash a four ply round cord in blue leapt out. 
The blue cotton was a mystery cone that I didn’t know how much was on it so I pulled the warp in 50 thread groups.  And I tied on from the middle of the warp so if I ran out I could change the pattern as I needed.  Thankfully I was able to squeak out enough for the entire warp although I did make the warp short but the width remained the same.
For the weft I used white cotton, actually the same stuff that was the warp in the previous runners (it is a really big cone of white cotton!).  I love blue and white colour combination; it’s so clean and classic.
The last 6 inches of weaving was terrible.  I had eased the knots through the heddles and they were sitting just behind the beater.  Every time I changed treadles I had to clear the shed, all the knots were sticking.  How come the knots were OK behind the heddles but in front they were a sticky mess?!  I was able to slowly weave until I was 4 inches away from the knots.
I don’t think that I will tie on another warp.  I don’t think that it actually is a faster warping process than what I do now.  I don’t think that it saves me any warp either.  This time I was able to have only 4 inches of warp waste but next time I wouldn’t weave with the knots past the heddles so I wouldn’t save any warp.  I just found the whole process tedious, slow and frustrating. 
But the runners are off the loom.  They are sitting in a pile waiting to be washed.  I hope to get to them sometime this week.  They look great and I can’t wait to see them washed, hemmed and on a table!

7 comments:

Cindie said...

beautiful runners!
I totally agree with you on it not really being a time savings by tying on a warp. Maybe if it were a mega rug warp with not many ends....but that's not what I weave.

Susan said...

I often wondered if tying on was worth all that effort... and so thank you for sharing your details.

The runner pattern is quite striking and I guess my favourite is the darker blue!

Susan

Linda said...

Wow! My hat is off to you for weaving through the knots making it through the heddles again! Just look at how little waste you truly had!!I'm not sure I would have had the patience to work through as far as you did, but the piece is striking with the blue! I don't recall from the last post; is this a variant of the Star of Bethlehem pattern?

Ngaire said...

Hi Linda,

Yup, the pattern is a variation of Star of Bethlehem, you have a good eye!

Ngaire

Judy said...

What a lovely runner! Thanks for sharing your experience with tying on a warp.

Peg Cherre said...

I LOVE these!!!!

Lynn Majidimehr said...

Your runners are beautiful! I've tied on when weaving the same design in different colors and liked it because that way I didn't need to look for threading problems each time. So, even though it didn't save me time when putting the warp on, I thought it was worth it when doing a more difficult threading where I had to fix threading errors in the first warp, because once they were fixed, they stayed fixed.