Baby Blanket

I have finally started weaving the baby blanket. An easy straight twill. I weave slowly. I don't mind weaving slowly. I use a temple. The temple is the red piece which stretches across the width of the cloth. There are metal teeth on each end which grab into the cloth and keep the cloth tightly stretched out. The result is a more even fabric.


Temples are adjustable, within certain limits, perhaps 5 inches. Consequently I have several temples in different lengths.


Using a temple does slow down the weaving a bit. I move it approximately every 1/2 inch. Again, I don't mind that especially since it does give me better cloth.

And so I watch the weaving grow, keep track of the 45-degree twill angle, and basically just relax. A soothing job in between intense crackle designing and weaving. Well, soothing until I spot a knot in the warp. It is there in the blue section. Well, I did say I like weaving slowly. I'm used to knots and broken threads in warps so they no longer hold terror for me, though once they certainly did. A knot I find is really easy to deal with, easier than dealing with a broken warp thread.






I wind off a few yards of new warp onto a knitting bobbin (knitters use them for intarsia) thread the end through the same heddle that the knotted end goes through, sley it through the same reed opening, and attach it to the front of the weaving with a T-pin. I put a small weight at the other end and hang it off the back of the loom.

I then weave, with both warp threads attached for about 1 inch. Then I cut off the warp thread with the knot and hang that thread loosely at the back so that it doesn't interfere with anything. When I have woven long enough so that that warp thread, with its knot cut off, will reach to the front of the loom with enough length to go around another T-pin, I will reverse the procedure. I will pull it back through the heddle and reed, attach it to the cloth, weave for about 1 inch, and then remove the substitute warp yarn. So then the warp will be like new, and I will no longer have to worry about unwinding the substitute thread from the bobbin to get enough length to continue weaving.

Note that the color in the first picture is accurate. Not so in the second two pictures, though I rather like the second of those two!