to warp and weave the first swath of cloth
for an imaginary garment of linen and wool--
so I began.
I talked about last week
is just so satisfying and comfortable
I couldn't wait another minute.
for tapestry or plain cloth.
about strand after strand
undulating through a pair of lease sticks?
had both wool and linen in the warp.
The cloth is lovely
but warping was a total pain
so for this first swathe of actual yardage
I'm using 2 ply wool as warp
and singles linen as weft.
Historic linsey-woolsey
apparently used linen warp and wool weft,
and maybe I'll try that next time.
is 10 inches wide and 15 dpi.
15 is as fine as rigid heddles go,
so I designed the yarn with that in mind--
just as I am designing the cloth
to suit the garment I want to make.
Note: For more info on the three selvedge structure pictured below
there are instructions in Backstrap Dialogues
between 4 and 5 inches wide,
(depending on the draw-in on this one).
Together, they should add up
to my shoulder width.
(well, to me anyway),
to see how building a garment
with the narrow lengths of cloth I love to weave
can be an enormous boon to design
rather than the hindrance I once thought it.
to run smack into my fixed ideas--
whatever they may be
though in this case
that garment sewing
is all about subtracting shapes
from someone else's idea
of how wide cloth can be made--
and suddenly see
that those ideas
are but illusions
I can stroll right through.
along these lines
--building garments in an additive,
minimal-waste way--
and I'm definitely planning to do some,
even as, for the moment,
I'll keep geeking out
on the pleasure of using paper purns
and this old boat shuttle
to slip shots of flax
across the open shed.
I just moved my newsletter host
from Mailchimp, where it has been for the last few years
to Weebly, the outfit within which I have this website and blog.
There were myriad reasons for this,
and the odd hassle,
but all I can say for the moment is -- it's done.
If you usually get the newsletter
and came to the blog today as a result,
you will know that it worked
(things will look different, plus I expect I'll mention it there).
If, however, things don't work quite right
please let me know!
I thank you in advance for your patience.
Cuz, as you probably know,
my geekiness has its limitations.