weaving linen

It has come. The summer in its scorching moods and light saturated glaring afternoons, where the heat is reason to be out in the early mornings just to get a breath of fresh air, to water the plants, fill the birdbaths, and take Juno for a scamper. Then it is back inside, to stay busy beneath the posts and beams of the house, sheltering in. The solstice has already long passed, the days are shortening already, at a dizzying rate, it will soon be Autumn again, and each year older I become, the pages of my calendar flip faster than I can write anything down… the days, near empty boxes on pages turning… and my blog goes quiet for weeks upon weeks now. My focus has been elsewhere, and for a long time. I feel this morning though, as I have woken not only to a new day, but a new clarity, a new trust in myself.

In the new year I put together the Brooklyn 4-shaft table loom, and I finally began to weave very fine narrow cloth, satisfying a craving that goes beyond reason, lost to its gravitational pull, I was sure it was me married to fine linen weaving for the rest of time (Cloth No.4) . Even though everything, and in all directions, is part of the creative experience, adventuring so far out in one direction, before recentering and then again drifting off in another direction, like a pendulum. I wonder, is this the way of the artist? I am longing for a mid-summer reset at center. I confess, there are times I’m just too embarrassed to post about yet another diversion, that I have become more quiet, unsure of my impulses, I seek the stillness, worried that as soon as I put it into words, the words already begin to change inwardly.

Soon we will (finally) be putting in the finish floor for our rebuilt home (but not too soon, hopes Juno), and in a bit of anticipatory celebration I have decided to weave rugs. Lots of them? Reminiscing in the archives to November of 2024, I had recently woven my first sakiori from torn cloth, and then completed my first floor rug, feeling certain these were to be the first of a huge series where I would refine my technique. But I had not woven another until now. Reconstructing worn clothes into bit of improvisational rag weaving of sakiori cloth and rugs, while at the same time weaving fine cloth requiring intense focus, should keep me on my toes for the remainder of the summer!

♣ Weaving Notes ♣

I wove a third of the rug with no particular pattern in mind but to make stripes, which I think was maybe a bit cliche. I did however, make intentional “mistakes”, laying down a few colors out of sequence, and making some stripes fatter than others, going for that folk art appearance. The effect was perfectly achieved when the faded areas of the fabrics, from drying on the clothes line inside-out in the sun, over time create a variegation of color, sought-after in folk textiles.

Oh, and it is definitely worth mentioning that weaving a rug on a rigid heddle loom needs a bit of specialized extras — specifically a weighted beater to really pack down the weft (the plastic reed is only to change sheds, not to beat anything) , and in my opinion the Ashford Freedom Roller is essential for the bulk that builds up in no time on the cloth beam.

The actual weaving notes are minimal for this project, as I was improvising through the whole thing, and not taking notes. Here is what I remember…

Yarn: Warp: 8/4 cotton warp yarn from Maurice Brassard, in color Rouille. Weft: Linen strips cut from many pairs of 100% linen pants, ranging from 1/2″ to 1-1/2″ , creating a thick-and-thin appearance, from spiral cutting up from the hem of the legs, over side seams and patches, going with the rustic nubby effect.
Loom: Ashford 32″ Rigid Heddle Loom with Freedom Roller attachment.
Warping method: Direct warp method, double threading from back apron rod, through front to peg = 110″ , which was a rough guess to be more than long enough to use up all the terracotta linen strips. Wound on to back beam and finally threaded 1 in each hole and 1 in each slot. Tied off on to front apron rod for weaving.
Number of warp ends: Approx 182
Reed: 12.5 dent, but threaded every other hole/slot to create 6.25 dents per inch.
Width in reed: approx. 29″
Selvedges: Used a temple to keep width in reed.
Finished: I didn’t want fringes, so I planned to hem. Wove the first and last 2″ woven in warp thread, packed down with weighted beater created weft-faced, stitched a rolled hem. I should have woven first 3 inches and packed down tight with weighted beater like I had at the last 2″. Measures 29″ wide by 66″ long unwashed.
What I will do differently next time: Cut the strips 1″ consistently, weave the warp thread header longer and pack down with fork for a tightly woven rolled hem. I will make a very minimal weavers angle when laying in the weft, for fear I was too dramatic with this one. Also, I really think for linen rags, I would like to use linen warp.

I have finally cut the linen off the loom and it is free, warp and weft married for the rest of time, and never to be unraveled. There is something sure and permanent about a well and densely woven piece of linen cloth, that it would tear before it would unravel, it would compost into soil before the weft and warp let go of each other.

My goofy mistakes presented themselves as I thought I was focused and yet I ended up at the beginning having to improvise through a lot of chaos in spite of my focus. There were a lot of things I should have done differently in this weaving; the most important being that I set up the warp very dense at 32 epi (warp threads per inch) and since the warp ends were so close together, the weft didn’t weave in a balanced way, the sure sign is that it is nearly half that. Next time when weaving this linen with 32 epi should weave twill structure I think, or if I continue to do plain weave, beat harder with the weft… looking for that sweet spot.

I learned also that it would have been great had I made a piece half this length, surely I could have a nice linen scarf, or something nice to wrap bread in out of the oven, and not invested so much time and expensive linen on a less-than-optimal sett. My new rule: Weave a small piece until I’ve got it perfect, THEN weave the yards-long cloth.

♣ Weaving Notes ♣

I had already threaded the heddles starting at one end of the reed, planning to fill every dent, so the fact that I forgot to leave a couple of dents for the floating selvedge made it a challenge. One end had an intentional floating selvedge, threaded second, which is not wound on to the warp beam and the length of the thread winds around a bobbin and hangs off the back of the table through the weaving. The other side, as I forgot to make the floating selvedge first, I had to improvise an after-thought method, and I can’t remember what I did exactly, but may have cut off two texsolve heddles to free up two threads wound on to the warp beam with the rest of the threads, and to tension the after-thought floating selvedge threads — as they were not making the trip up and down with the rest of the threads in the harnesses — the slack would increase without the take-up, so I weighted it also with a bobbin and tied to the thread so it could move as the warp progressed forward. I also figured this was a happy mistake, for as a couple of other threads loosened along the way, well they got the bobbin trick hanging off the back too.

Yarn: Linen 14 from Silk City Fibers (7000 yards per pound) in Cream.
Loom: Ashford 16″ Brooklyn 4 shaft Table Loom, straight draw threading for plain weave, lifting pairs of odds & evens (1 & 3 , and 2 & 4)
Warping method: Direct warp method, double threading from back apron rod, through front to peg. Wound on to back beam and finally sleyed through reed, threaded the heddles, and tied off on to front apron rod for weaving.
Number of warp ends: Again, I forgot to take these critical notes, so distracted by improvising through warp patterning.
Reed: 16 dent
Sley pattern: 2 ends in each dent
Threading pattern: 1 end in each heddle, but for the windowpane texture threaded 2 ends in a heddle.
Width in reed: approx. 15.5″
Sett on loom: 32epi
Selvedges: Floating selvedges , 2 ends each side. Used a temple to keep width in reed.
Sett after finishing: Warp 34 epi, and weft 18 ppi
Texture Pattern for Warp: This was an exercise in making mistakes, so no need to put the pattern down as it ended up being crazy different. I had intended to have very subtle window panes, with only 2 ends in a dent. That was at least a good technique, but next time I will do four ( if I am to continue with direct warping, it must be even numbers per dent.)
Texture Pattern for Weft: I repeated the same measured distance between window panes as was in the warp, and because the window pane spacing in the warp was messed up badly, I repeated the sequence. In becoming a repeated mistake, in a way , makes it intentional and random at the same time! I ponder this method as something I may want to repeat, for it was at least not too repetitive.
Finished: Ends woven in bamboo 8/2, makes a nice tight hold, so I could leave raw edge, with no hem. Washed and half dried in machine, then steam pressed, measuring 156″, or 4.33 yards long and 15” wide, and weighs 247g.
Yardage: Total yardage used for finished piece = approx 3812y, figured from weight of finished piece and not including loom waste. Note: it appears this project used half the 1.1 lb cone, so a single cone could in theory, weave double this yardage, probably 8 yards, or double the width, 31″ in the reed, with the same 32epi.

Category: weaving linen

Rug No.2

Cloth No.4