Meanderings of a Mermaid

And here is the exciting final installment regarding the crimp cloth scarf. I left you hanging, literally. In the above photo the steamed cloth is cooling and drying outside on the clothesline. The drawing threads are clearly visible. Once dry I snipped and pulled the bright yellow threads out. And I finally got to see that, YES! , the crinkles in the cloth are set in place.  It worked! Why am I washing again? Well  most weaving yarns are sold with a sizing product applied to the yarn to make them slick and behave well. That needs to be washed out. The red silk threads also wanted to bleed out a little pink juice. Back to the clothesline. You can definitely see the texture of hills and valleys. some ridges are longer than others and that is due to the pattern draft. The colours are divine. The final steps involved pressing the ruffle portion at either end and creating a narrow hem. No rocket science here. Fold, press and machine stitch.  Fold, ...

The start of a new project is always exciting, This one even more so, because I am learning a technique I have not done before. Diane Totten designed this pattern and project and it is in the current Handwoven magazine.  The warp threads are mostly tencel and the deep red are silk. They are all fine. Aren't the colours really wonderful? While sleying the reed I had to insert two ends per dent (30 epi) and so I strung a cord across the mid point. The first thread of the pair went below and the second above. Granted, in this design I would say this is not a critical distinction (keeping the warp thread sequence) but it was good practice. I did make some mistakes with sleying and threading but nothing major. I suspect not even I will be able to find those mistakes at the end. Just tied on and ready to begin throwing picks. The design is an overshot draft and makes use of two shuttles. I really enjoyed sitting at the loom and working on this, mostly because the ...