Felt

I do some felt work for a fiber processing business I work for.  This was one of the most interesting.  We got a request for a banner.  I had done some felting where I had a design, sometimes it slipped and sometimes I could keep the design distinct.  With this banner, I needed to keep the name looking good.  The company had given me a rough draft of the design the way he wanted it.

I admit I spent a lot of time just thinking about the problems and possible solutions...as usual I over-thought the whole thing.  You know the feeling after weeks of worrying about it, you start getting it done then look at it and realize that it wasn't that bad to do.  In this case, that was the result...a good one and I could not believe I had worried about it so much.

I had several batts that had been carded out of the wool from the sheep the company raises.  I started by laying out the color for the back of the banner and I made it 30% larger than the finished banner needed to be.

This is the brown back of the banner.

The wool was carded into eight ounce batts about 40" by 36", I just needed to tear them to size and overlap and blend the joins.  For the middle layer I used the white, then added a top layer of white so that the banner would have a nice background to put the design on.

The middle layer mostly covered the back color.

Here I have part of the top layer giving the white ground.

I alternated the "grain" of the batts for additional strength on the banner and with the three layers, I had a large batt laid out that was about 3 inches thick.

The thickness of the banner before wetting and felting.

I enjoyed looking at the smooth expanse of wool for a few minutes, then added the background pattern that he had designed.  To do this I was provided a roving of a fawn color to add "swirls" in the banner.

Swirls laid on the batt.

I was worried that the fawn did not have enough contrast with the background, but in the finished piece it looked great and did not detract from the lettering.

Close up showing the dimension of the roving on the ground.

In the pictures you can see the blue bubble wrap (actually pool cover) that I roll the piece in to put on the felting machine.  

At this point, I wetted down the whole piece, and left it to absorb the water while I cut out the letters.  I had pre-felted some 4 ounce batts to use for the letters and for the border around the banner.  As I cut them out, I worried that the pre-felt was not thick enough and the letters would look transparent.  As it turned out, they looked fine and I felted them to the banner with a pad sander that I have used for felting some years ago.

Letters worked out great.

I had put the felt through the roller first, but the letters need something additional to adhere them so they would felt into the background fabric.

My trusty sander doing it's work.

I dug out my old sander from my previous work with felting (some 5 years ago), and worked over each letter and the border until they began to felt together.  I had sponged off some of the water, because I had problem with the fibers slipping out of place if the felt was too wet when I started processing.  A batt of felt this thick really took some extra felting to get it felted through all the thickness.

The felting machine is know as Proud Mary...she just keeps rolling...rolling...

I rolled the banner up in the bubble wrap and put it in the felting machine.  The machine just does the rolling for me.  Instead of me bending over the table and rolling the piece back and forth, I put it in "Proud Mary" and go back to the studio and weave.  After the set time, I have to come  back out and unroll the piece and roll from the other direction.  The felt is more processed on the outer sections of the roll, so I need to re-roll several times to keep the felting consistent along the complete length of the banner.  Proud Mary helps with the processing, but I still need to direct it to get a good finished product.  (Because felting is a wet process, I keep the felting machine in our heated garage...too bad we do not have room for a car in there any more.)

I even had to fold the banner in half and to process the middle section, because of the two yard length.  But in the end the banner worked out great and I added a hanging sleeve in the top of the back so that the new owners can slide a pvc pipe through and then the banner can hang over their booth.

Finished banner ready for delivery.

The background swirls look great and just add to the design, and the letters did not shift or loose their shape.  
I am very pleased with the first try with a banner, now I just need to do some small test pieces to check out edge finishes, stitching over the letters for added emphasis, other methods of adding the hanging sleeve....always something to think about and try to improve.

Here's a close-up of the felt surface.

Five Things that I learned or was reminded of again

This is a piece I wrote to present to my local weaver's guild after we had woven a napkin exchange.  I don't remember if the information ever got into the newsletter.  Anyway, it has some interesting things for us to consider when we plan and weave our projects.

1.  Repair heddles are great and worth the price.

            When I set up my looms, I have a specific number of heddles on each shaft.  I determine this number based on what I usually use.  I have flat steel heddles and they add weight to the lifting so I want to keep the weight down.

            As you know the heddles have an up and a down and a right and a left and there are two types that alternate when you have them on correctly.  Having the heddles on correctly makes threading faster and easier for me.

            When I planned this warp, I needed 74 heddles on four of the shafts and 76 on the other four.  This loom has 75 heddles on each shaft, so I knew I needed to add to four shafts.  Usually when I add shafts I add them in groups of 25 (that is the number of heddles in each group I store).  Adding heddles is a lot of work, and for only one heddle, I decided to just add a repair heddle.  You can tie in a string one, but in my case I found 4 repair heddles that I have to fit this loom.  It took about 5 seconds each to slip the heddles on and I did not have to remove anything from the loom/shafts to do it.  I love repair heddles and they are worth the price.

2.  Wind the bobbins, pirns, or quills well for easier weaving.

            A well wound source of yarn that is not loose, will help the weaving be more even.  To wind a quill, you need to know a few things.  The heavy paper you use for the quill should be about ¾” shorter than the bobbin space in your shuttle.  I like to have the length of the paper about 1½ times the width of the paper.  When you wind you need to start by building up the ends.  These bulges replace the flanges on the bobbins that you buy. You want to build it up to be just smaller than the opening for the bobbin.  I need to be careful building these, I hate it when the ends of the quill collapse   When the two sides are built up, fill in the center.  You want to add tension to the yarn so each layer that you build does not dig into the layers below it.  (If you wind it too loosely, the upper layers dig in and then don’t feed out evenly when you are weaving.) 

Bobbins, quills, or pirns – the way you wind them will determine how even your thread feeds out and how even and pleasurable the weaving is. The finer the yarn is the more this matters.

On pirns, you need to wind in a continuous cone shape.  Start at the wide end of the pirn and build the shape across the length, do not back up to fill in the narrow sections, just continue building the cone to the end.

3.  Test the sett, but it doesn't always help because different types of yarns beat differently.

            As I was putting the warp on about 2 weeks ago, I did not put a sample warp on to test the sett.  I went by the instructions given, which was just a general suggestion.  With the pattern that I used, I probably should have used a more open sett.  Due to this closer sett warp, I need to do a very hard double beat to come close to squaring my pattern.  Also, the Webs pearl cotton was harder to beat in.  Is this difficulty because the yarn is a little bit thicker, or because the twist is tighter, or because the twist is the opposite direction?  And will that direction of twist change the look of the pattern?  That is a lot to think about.

4.  After you figure your warp requirements, wait a few hours and recheck them.

By miscalculation I received 8 different yarns, but only gave out 7 of mine.  I knew this but at the time I was figuring my amounts (two weeks ago in a rush), I didn't take that into consideration.  I had planned on having 12 napkins and so I figured the amounts for 12 napkins, instead of the 13 I needed to weave.  I also messed up with the take-up.  For some reason having the on loom width of 20 (I didn't have to figure shrink and take-up), I didn't figure shrink and take-up on the length.  Big mistake on my part, because I got 11½ napkins instead of the 13 I had wanted to weave so that I would have a set of 12.  I didn't realize the math mistake until the warp was almost woven and the weaving was not long enough.  I checked back on my math figuring and found the glaring mistake.  Oddly enough I made this mistake the same week I was teaching “Figuring your Warp” in my beginning weaving class.  I always tell my students to get an experienced weaver to check the math if you are not sure.  So I want all of you to be aware, next time I figure a warp, I may be giving you a call to check my thinking. 

5.  Check your loom and keep it in good condition.  Sudden changes in warp tension may not be your fault.

            Near the end of my warp, I suddenly got badly loosened tension on the left side of the weaving.  I looked over the loom to the back beam and warp beam to see if I could see a problem in the warp.  What I saw was a bolt on the floor!  All of that hard double beating of the warp had loosened the bolt and nut at the back.  Of course, I was not able to find the barrel nut.  I’m sure my vacuum will find it later to its detriment.  I went digging around in my tool box and found another nut.  I loosened the warp, adjusted the loom and unwove about 5 to 6 shots to get back to the even weaving.  This experience reminded to tighten the screws and bolts in you loom before you start a project and after you finish it so that your loom stays in working condition.  (A good vacuum job to keep the dust off the loom, and controls the dust bunnies under the loom is also a good goal.)

New Projects on the Looms

I got the towels woven and washed, but I do not have a good photo yet.  I need to spend some time getting a good shot.  Here is a close up of the structure.  On the unwashed side you can see the stitchers and on the washed side they are hidden and it looks like regular basket weave.  
When I heard about the structure in a workshop last year, it was new and exciting, we had not seen anything like it.\.  Then, as I started looking around and I found the pattern in the Mary M Atwater Recipe Book, she was using it in the 1930's.  There is very little new in weaving, we just keep "re-discovering" the things over and over.

When I finished the towels, I decided to put on the Lichen Scarf.  That gives me two new projects on my looms.  I am bouncing back from loom to loom doing weaving.

I love the block twill, and now it is the correct pattern so I am very pleased with it.


I also put a new warp on the Big Mac.  I have had this project in the queue for a long time.  I got a Christmas towel from a friend years ago.  It was one of those printed towels, the 12 days of Christmas, but I loved the structure of the weaving.

Here is the towel showing the 12 days

But look at that cool structure

I spent some time figuring the threading...of course there were some threads missing but I got a "basket weave variation."  I also want to develop a waffle weave variation. 

But for this project I want to make picnic napkins to match the dishes in the picnic basket.  It took me some additional time to get the yarns that fit my color requirements.  I found out about a sale on cotton/linen yarn and got the colors to do my piece.

My mismatched dishes are tied together with the napkin!

The hardest part so far was tying up the treadles.  The pattern has sixteen shafts and sixteen treadles and 128 tie ups.  My poor body after 30 minutes under the loom.  I had forgotten how hard and time consuming it is to tie up that many.

Two versions of the tie-up my figuring and the walking version

Enjoying My Weaving Time

My classes are over until January, and I am enjoying some weaving time.  I have also put up the small Christmas trees I bought on sale last year.  I had been looking for something to frame the front door and was deciding on these trees.  When I checked them at the store, they had dropped in price and so I bought two for the doorway.  

I took them out last week and added red balls and some green holly leaves...they already had lights. I like the look of them at the front door.

Front door for Christmas

As I said, my weaving time has been productivel.  I finished the towel warp and I have six towels and some samples for the notebook.  I am in the process of hemming them now and I can't wait to see how they will look after they are washed.  

Finished fabric on the cloth beam

A pile of finished towels

When I took the towels off the Baby Wolf, I put on the scarf I designed from the Pont du Gard pictures.  I like the colors from the stone and lichen and I love the memory of being there.

While everyone was taking pictures of the wonderful aqueduct  I was taking close-up pictures of the stone and the lichen growing on it.  I also loved the graffiti ..there was the original 2000 year old numbering system the Romans had used so that the masons could fit the pieces together. And the marks left from the many masons that visited the site through the middle ages.  I guess when you were made a "Master" you traveled to visit the great sites, then signed your name...or your mark if you couldn't read, to show that you had been there.

Yes, I did take pictures of me there, too.

Here is the scarf after weaving.   I had threaded it correctly with the twill block changes in the center of the color stripe, but the first time I wove it, I didn't change the pattern in the right area.  Here you can see the pattern when the block changes at the same place as  the color.

Now here is the redone pattern with the block change happening in the middle of the color change.

I am very pleased with this pattern.  Two block twill patterns are found in many of the books, but this design with the color changing in the middle of the block is one I found in Sharon Alderman's book "Mastering Weave Structures."  

Because of the splicing I am doing at each color change, I am only weaving 26 inches an hour.  On the second scarf, I will have to see if I can be happy with a quicker color change method.

My teaching at Pioneer Craft House is doing pretty good.  The classes last quarter filled nicely.

I have been having fun going through the old textiles there.  I have been washing and hemming some of them to use for class examples, to decorate the Weaving Studio there and just to look at the craftsmanship of them.   

A few of the woven pieces have labels in them and I recognize some of the weaver's name from reading old "Handweaver and Craftsman" magazines.  But check out this table cloth.  I don't think it is handwoven, but the workmanship is wonderful.

This piece has stitchery in the center section and pulled thread work on the side pieces.  I really love the seams...some of them are functional where two fabrics were joined, but some are just decorative to balance the pattern...

Here's a closer shot of the pulled thread work.  I believe the piece is linen, and there is also a slightly smaller one done very much the same.  Were they done by the same person, and when were they done.  I wish there was some information about the textiles, but unfortunately over the years it was all lost.  But I think most of them are from the 1930's and 1940's.

And So It Begins...Finally

It took me a while, but I got the towels on the loom.  I am quite pleased with the look of the colors.  The blue is a fraction too intense for a great balance between them, but they will look great.  Yarn comes in only so many colors and we need to live with those colors or start our own dye house for what we want to weave.  

The yarns wound on very easily

When I got to the end of the winding I noticed a little problem.

I think I may have bent my warp board

I wound the warp in two sections.  Either I was bad in how I wound the warp on the loom (we will find the answer to that about half way through the weaving) or I was very tense when I was winding the blue threads on the warping board or I have bent the pegs on my warping board.  I will need to look into that board...I do not want to replace it so I need to see if I have to fix it.

The weaving started out well, it took a little while to get the tension on the shuttle adjusted, but after I got weaving the pattern, it worked and the fabric looks good.

I am very pleased with the pattern.

The pattern is giving me just what I wanted, a basket weave interlacement with sufficient structure to use for a towel.  I do have some questions about the structure though.  Can you see that the blocks line up in pairs?

Maybe you can see it better in the close up. There is a little space in the horizontal line between each of the blocks,  but on the vertical line the space is every other block.  I doubt if this will show up after the washing, but it is interesting to note.  I will probably do a full draw-down on this structure to see why this happened.  Does it have a clean cut on all four sides?  Is it because each block is three shafts?  How does this threading compare to the one Sharon did?  All these questions will be answered in the future.  For now I need to weave some towels for my sister!


On the family front, the four of us went to Southern Utah to hike to "The Wave."  My DD wanted to hike to this feature when we were down here last May, but we found out only 20 people are allowed in per day and you need to be drawn from the lottery to get in.  We tried for tickets while we were down there, but didn't make the draw.  When we got home she started on the internet drawing.  (10 people on the day of - at the tourist office, and 10 people a day - on the internet lottery.)  In August she was thrilled to get an October date.  I was worried about the weather, but it turned out to be wonderful.  (The dirt road to get to the trail-head is impassable in rainy weather.)

The hike is 3 miles in and unmarked.  They give you a page of pictures with little white lines and instructions "hike to the back of the twin buttes as seen in this picture".  My son brought a compass and a topographic map...he felt that was safer.  The paper also said that in the summer the temperature WILL get up to 110 degrees F and with the reflection of the slick-rock it will be even hotter!  Our temperature was about 70 degrees and the clear blue skies were beautiful.  I am so glad we got a time in the Autumn, it was much better that in the heat of the Summer.

Scenery on the hike

We started hiking late morning, so we got to the wave after noon.  It turns out that the formation is quite small and that the only great time for pictures is high noon.  We were too late....so my pictures show some "burn out" where the sun was bright against the shadows we were standing in.  We had fun and hiked about the area.  The colors of the sandstone were fantastic.  I took close-ups of several areas for some color studies later.

Checking out the pond

We found a pond, since this is October the pond must be there all year.  DD and DS found some small water life and took pictures and chased them around with fingers.

They were little "horseshoe crab" looking things about an inch long.  There were also white worm like forms swimming that must have been the larval stage.  It was unexpected to find this kind of life in the middle of the desert.  

Here is my DS setting up for a picture looking down the formation, I am looking up and got the burn out from the sunlight.  I hope he has some good pictures, he is better at Photoshot than I am. 

Me and my DH on the rim at Bryce Canyon

The next day we went to Bryce Canyon and Kodachrome Basin.  Both beautiful places and we wished we had more time to explore.  It has been several years since we hiked down into Bryce and we all wanted to do some hiking, but only had time for pictures from the rim.  

Kodachrome is a place I had never been.  It is smaller than Bryce and a state park instead of a national monument.  We spent some time hiking around, but will have to go back.  There is a nice arch in the back country and up a dirt road.  We didn't have time and felt bad that we couldn't see it.  That is the way we feel every time we spend a couple of days in Southern Utah. We come away wanting to go back to see the things we didn't have time for.

On the road with the tent trailer

My DH rented a tent trailer (a bit of a luxury for us "sleep on the ground in a tent" people), but I was afraid of getting cold like I did camping last year in September.  So we had a heater (yeah) and a working fridge to keep food cold and a nice stove.  We planned the food and took all of it down, but each morning the suggestion came out "Let's go out for breakfast" and away we went.  Then each night when we got back from the exploring and hiking "It's late, let's just go to that great restaurant for dinner."  Since we had been down here last spring (Kanab), we had eaten at a couple a good places and on this trip tried several more.  I was so relaxed on this trip and did not have to cook or clean up after one meal!  It was a luxury trip...

We also had to stop at Mom's in Salina.   The kids had never eaten there.  It is a traditional "greasy spoon" diner and we enjoyed the experience.  But I don't think my foodie kids want to repeat it!

Well, that is why it took me longer to get the warp on I have been playing.  But now I need weaving my towels, put on a warp for Sharon's class next weekend and I found my yarn for the napkins, I just need to double check the waffle weave pattern (16 shaft from a linen towel I was given) and get them on the Macomber. 

 Wow,  the UPS truck just dropped a box of yarn at my house.  I now have the turquoise to weave the yardage I sampled in August and the yarn to do the scarf from the colors of the rock and lichen on the Pont du Gard I took pictures of last June.

New Project Started

I have still been finishing old UFO's.  I'm pleased to get some things done, but when I clean areas of the studio, I am finding more yarn that I bought for projects and it is just stacking up.  

My son moved out and is clearing out his bedroom, and unfortunately I am moving boxes in there to get the studio cleared and cleaned.  We made a deal, he will continue to take his stuff out if I will continue to get mine put away also.  (We want to get the room cleared up and put in a desk, sofa bed and make a nice extra room to relax in and give my DH a space for his computer that is comfortable.  I do plan to move my Baby Macomber down into that room...we have to have a loom in every room!)

I have to show you the pumpkins that my DD and I did in a class.  I saw the sample from another teacher at Pioneer Craft House and had to set up a class with her.

Our new Halloween Decorations

The pumpkins are zentangle drawing on the fake pumpkins that they sell everywhere.  You need a Sharpie oil pen and then you just get going.  The small one is my DD and she made very dense patterns.  Mine is the larger pumpkin and I divided the spaces up and just started going. Today I was adding some more lines, a few white dots and patterns and putting some gold bits on.  Like my friend said, I will just keep adding stuff to it until I ruin it...  I think they will look great with my grinning pumpkin man from the sister date.  I wish I had the soot sprites, they would look great with it, but they went to my sons house.  I still have several eyes and a ton of yarn so I could knit up some more.

My new weaving project is towels for my sister's big birthday.  She turned 50 while we were in Europe together, but we are having the birthday luncheon next month, finally.  I had her pick out some colors and I have been thinking of the pattern I want to use for about a year.

Last time at Intermountain Weaver's Conference,  I took a class from Robyn Spady.  She introduced us to a wide group of weave structures.  These were unusual, most I had seen and read about, but this class give me a chance to weave and try them out...including velvet!

If you have a chance, take a class from her.  She is a great teacher and loves to share what she knows.  I learned a lot in the class, and after 30 years of weaving, I very seldom can say that after a class.

The first structure that I wanted to try from this class is her "Better that basket weave".  This weaving looks like basket weave, but has tie-downs to make it a structurally sound fabric.  

I know Sharon Alderman worked out a version of this structure in her book "Mastering Weave Structures", so that is another place to look up how to weave it.

Doesn't this look great...8/2 cotton

I love the look of the pattern, sorry I was bad and did not wash the sample.  In the two color areas, you can see the tie-downs.  In Robyn's towels, these were less visible...she had washed her towels, of course!

Yes, I am copying Robyn.  She made her towels in three large blocks of color, and I will be doing the same.  The sample shows the way the blocks are set up.

I loved the look and of course the pattern is the same on the other side.  Robyn suggests setting the yarns closer that with plain weave, for the 8/2 cotton she suggested 24 epi.

Her towels were great and I decided that a light, a medium and a dark value would be great for my sister's towel also.  But when I presented my sister with the available colors from UKI, she picked out middle value for two of the colors.  Oh well, they are to match her new kitchen after all!  (I decided on the UKI, because they had a sale on the available colors.)  I went through the color card and along with my sister's colors, I picked out some for me to have on hand for further weaving.

Nile Green on the bottom, 2 strands of the yellow green I ordered.

It's never easy is it?  The green that she wanted was out, so I ordered another light green and I planned to  over-dye the yarn to get a good color.  

After thinking about the dye problem (I had just over-dyed two and a half pounds of yarn for another project where the available color did not work), I decided to try the net.  I asked all the lists that I am on if anyone had that green that I could buy.  I received a number of suggestions, but not yarn.  I decided to contact other yarn stores, as per suggestion, to see if they had any on hand and found some!  I ordered the yarn (it was more expensive, but less work than the dye job) and I got notice from another weaver who had checked the stash and found some.  Many thanks to the weaver, but mine was in the mail!

So now I have the three colors.  I decided on a darker neutral in the center of the towel, so all the colors are closer in value. 

Tonight I'm going to the Witches Halloween party with Mom and my sisters and next week my family has reservations to see "The Wave" in southern Utah.  So I hope to have the towels on the loom next weekend and get going on them.  The birthday party is next month, so I don't have much time. 

New Shawls and a Scarf from the Thrums

I was asked to design a shawl using an alpaca yarn.  I have had the skeins of yarn for a few months.  I had planned on weaving it in the design that I had used for some wool shawls some years ago.  I went through the old weaving notes and found the draft.  I was surprised to see that I designed this shawl in the 80's.  It is a loosely woven Bronson Lace and I really like to play with the design.  Since the Bronson is a block weave, I can vary the design by weaving lace in different blocks on each shawl.  I ended up putting enough warp for two shawls for this test run.

Blue sample from my original pattern test and alpaca yarn above it.

I remember when I wove the sample.  It was loosely woven and I was sure when I put it in the wash to full, that it would dissolve like cheesecloth.  I was so pleased when the washing set the structure and opened the lace.

Notice that there are no more heddles on shaft one and more yarn to thread

Atwater-Bronson Lace is threaded with every other thread on shaft one, so you need to count your heddles before you start threading.  I though I had counted right...but not so.  There was no real problem because I had left the extra 5 heddles on the right side before I started threading (I thought there would be five extra heddles on the left side too).  Heddles are easy to move on the first shaft, I put a safety pin on the upper loop and the bottom loop, slip them off the right side, then put them on the left side and take off the pins.  I was able to finish the threading easily.  The weaving went well too. 

Plain weave on a Bronson threading is lifting shaft one against lifting everything else and sometimes shaft one will lift with the "everything else" treadle.  With this loose of sett (6 epi) I did not have trouble with shaft one lifting so there was no need for extra rubber bands added to shaft one.

Shawl two in the weaving, loose sett and squares of lace

  I keep the tape measure pinned to the shawl as I weave.  (I pre-punch holes in the tape so that the pins don't have to punch through each time...I really miss the old fabric tape measures.)  

The first shawl had a pattern of diamonds on it and the second is stripes and squares.  I worked with graph paper for a while to get the patterns that would work on this threading and those two were my favorite.  

Shawl two with stripes and squares.

Shawl one with diamonds

I had a couple of yards of warp left, not enough for another shawl and too much for a sample, so I just cut off the shawls and fulled them.  Shawl one was fulled in the wash machine, agitating for 4 minutes.  Shawl two was fulled on the rolling felting machine for 10 minutes on each side.  I was curious to see if it would felt/full up as nice on the machine.  I was surprised that it felt softer and the fringe finished nicer.  I may try the roller more often to full my work.

Here you see the comparison of unfulled on the left and fulled on the right.

Because I put the warp on back to front, the 2 yards remaining were uncut at the warp beam rod, and were 4 yards long.  This is long enough to make a scarf, so I decided to weave a scarf in the same structure, but with a sett of 8 epi to compare the finished hand of the fabric.

Here you see the slip knot 

I put several slip knots on each group of threads as I pulled them off the loom to keep them in order.  I threaded the loom from front to back in a smaller version of the Bronson Lace blocks.

After threading, groups look bad, but have the slip knots.

I kept the warp as tidy as possible, and all the groups are held in place with the slip knots, but it does have the look of "spaghetti" in the picture.  Once the threads are tied to the back, and have something to pull against, I know that they will straighten out just fine.

And I tied an overhand knot in each inch of warp threads.  To attach the knotted groups of warp ends, I borrowed some heddles from my inkle loom and looped them on the warp beam rod.  

Putting the knotted warp through the loops.

Here's the loop heddles, used to "lash" on the warp.

I really like the loops to attach the warp when I go from front to back.  In this case, they are a little long, they could easily be half the size, but I just grabbed some from the inkle loom.  I need to make a few especially for this loom.

The warp wound on perfectly and I'm ready to tie on.

As I suspected, once I tied one end of the warp, I was able to get it straightened and it wound on easily.  I will be weaving off the scarf this week and I am deciding if I want to try fulling it on the roller felting machine (she is named "Proud Mary" by the way..."she just keeps rolling along").  When using the machine, the end on the outside of the roll fulls more, so you need to re-roll the project to full the other end.  It may be over-kill to use Proud Mary for just one scarf, but she could really speed up the fulling for a group of scarves!

Another view of shawl one tied like a scarf.