Twixmas/winter project underway -- a twill sampler on my little warp weighted loom. This is a prototype 'studio' loom that was made by Jalea Ward at Slightly Warped looms -- I'm surprised it's lasted this long, as it's knitty pine (not a good idea for a loom, given the tremendous pressure on the frame) and was really only meant for brief demos. Still, it keeps trucking along.
I've made a number of tabby pieces on it whilst working with it at Fishbourne Roman Palace, but I've been wanting to try out more complex pieces -- or about as complex as you can get on a warp weighted loom. Most of the surviving pieces of textiles found for these looms in antiquity and the Middle Ages have been variations of simple twill -- but simple twill can be quite beautiful. I'm fond of diamond twill, myself, and have woven quite a lot of it on my modern harness looms.
A taller/bigger loom would be better for multi-heddle work, as it's a bit tricky (i.e., some swearing is involved) to sort out the shed each time on the heddle, but this isn't really the sort of weaving-for-speed way to go, anyway. The farther down you go with the heddle bars, the less space you have to work with to open your sheds at the top. All of the work is done in a very small space at the very top. So this would be much easier if my loom were about six foot or two meters tall, rather than about four feet tall.
The plan is to weave along with different heddle bar order -- at the top here it's just N-1-2-3, repeat for an even 2/2 twill.
Dunno the plan for the rest of it; depends on my mood as I go along. Variations of the heddle bar order should produce some nice variations on the 2/2 theme.
It's 6/2 lambswool, all from the same natural grey cone, but I dyed a ball of it as I find working on this type of loom much easier when I have a stripey warp. Much care needs to be taken when knitting the heddles onto the bar, and the colour really helps. Plus the end result is quite striking.
Tiny Toast is in attendance as I warp and then weave, as usual; she's got her head in her tote-bag, lower left hand side.
Comments