Well, maybe not so different. It's still weaving. And rainbows again.
The first half of winter was rough. We had our kitchen gutted and moved a wall. My mom and I packed up the kitchen August 17th. We finally got the last details finished and the construction workers out January 2nd. I've been slowly reclaiming my house and diving deep into cooking, rediscovering my joy of making nourishing food.
In December, I ran away to PA to take a class on Double Weave Twill blankets. It's the same technique I used to make the striped baby blanket for my sister, weaving folded cloth on the loom. But this time, we used 8 shaft looms, so we could put fancier patterns into the work. I've been wanting to take this class for years. It also demystified warping and tying up my 8 shaft loom. My darling spouse had given me a wonderful 44" wide Harrisville 8/10 as a wedding present back in 2022, and I was completely intimidated by it. This last weekend, I finally got it warped up. And I'm trying overshot for the first time.
I present rainbow cat dishtowels!! One of my more ambitious projects. I wound a 9 yard warp, and used both dupes and lashing to tie on and minimize my waste. I should have at least 9 towels when it's done.
Here are my first few images of the warp tied on. I threaded the heddles over a few nights, and thought I caught most of the errors during the process. Of course that didn't happen. I think I can avoid this by painting my heddle bars alternating colors. It is really easy to mix up shafts 3, 4, and 5.
I also did some stash diving for this, and found that my oldest colors broke the most often during the beaming process. The purple and green yarn are at least 10 years old - 2 threads of each had to be replaced. My orange stripe had the most errors that needed to be fixed after the weaving got started. It took me until my 7th row of cats to figure out where that last threading error was. So my first towel is full of all the mistakes - the cut and spliced new warp threads, the loose ends as I was figuring out the best way to finish as I go, and all the uneven tension as I explore using to active shuttles at a time (really I have 4 loaded at a time, but only 2 with thread attached to the project at once).
And now that I've wrapped up that first towel - I'm enjoying the weaving. It took a while for my brain to settle and accept the new process of Pattern Step - Throw - Tabby Step - Throw. But it's really satisfying to finish. I'm also loving the color gamp I have set up. Doing a rainbow of stripes in both the warp and weft allows for some fascinating color interaction.
I'm not sure how many of these overshot projects I will do in the long run - it's a modern version of brocade and that fascinates me. But this project sure is fun!
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