Notes from weaving my new colour sampler.

Texsolv heddles are slippery things. If you aren't careful they slip easily out of your hand. They slip off bars that your thought you'd just put them on, and they need handling with care to make sure you have them in the correct order on both the shaft bars.

Adding extra heddles on to my loom for the my latest sampler, I found that a cardboard shuttle bobbin just fits the hole in the end of the shaft bar. It seems to be quickest to work by putting the heddles on the top bar, then, with the shuttle bobbin securing them as shown, to loop them on to the lower bar.For the header row on this sampler, I found that using white thread as a strong contrast to my warp colours, three picks in every shed of plain weave, made it very quick to spot where I had crossed threads.

I have learnt that the sooner I check for crossed threads, the easier it is to put right.

The error here, left of centre, was made by two threads crossed between the heddles and the reed.

I undid the larks head knot at the apron rod, pulled the threads out of the woven section, back behind the read to change them around, re-sleyed them correctly in the reed and tied on again. There were three errors like this to correct, and then I could start weaving my pattern. What a joy it was to work with so many colours!



The 12/2 cotton was sleyed 3 ends per dent in a 10 epi reed. This made distinct reed marks as I was weaving.



Later, when the cloth was off the loom these marks were considerably less obvious and in many places they vanished away.

That shuttle is one of my new Schacht 35 cm boat shuttles. This project was an excuse for a couple of new shuttles and a bobbin for every colour of yarn. They were a joy to use. I'm used to my Crossley End feed shuttles, which I love, but they are fiddly to use if you are changing threads all the time. I think I might actually prefer the Schacht shuttle for its lighter weight. They are certainly well balanced and I found them easy to throw and catch.