Jockey Hollow Weavers Guild

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This yardage will be used to weave two tote bags of my own design. I wound a 3 yd warp using 414 ends of 16/2 linen and 2 selvedge threads on each side using 16/3 linen. The width on the loom was 23 inches. Yardage off loom and unwashed is 70 inches in length and 22 inches in width. I am anticipating about an addition inch or two decrease in width after washing.

I used a temple while weaving and made sure to mist the warp and linen bobbins to avoid fraying or breaking. I varied the colors of the wool pattern weft to simulate spring flowers.

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The warp alternates 2 threading blocks with 3 thread colors. This is a two shuttle weave and each block of the 2-block treadling uses two colors in the weft, and the color combination changes with each block change. All 3 of the warp colors are used in the weft in this order: Purple & Red (purple for 1st and last pic) / Green & Purple (green used for 1st and last pic) / Red & Green (red used for 1st and last pic).

This alternating color arrangement gives a two-colored stripe block that changes with each block.

If you have more than 4 shafts, the original directions recommend using a left and right border of plain weave, threaded on shafts 5 and 6.

I really like the way this looks, but it was a bit of a pain to weave (using 2 shuttles and a color change at every block) and I will probably not use this color/weave arrangement again.

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Tip: Use a temple.

Note that the draft shows only four stripes of the 16 I used in the towel. I basically flopped the draft several times. This resulted in two wide green stripes on the sides and one wide purple stripe in the center. Stripe order is: blue-violet, blue, blue-green, green; G, BG, B, BV; BV, B, BG, G; G, BG, B, V.

This was created in response to Jockey Hollow Weaver’s swatch exchange. We played “Weavers Poker, ” in which each participant was dealt five cards for Weave Structure; Color; Color Relationship; Fiber; and Other, and was challenged to create swatches showing at least 4 of 5. My hand was: monk’s belt; orange; analogous, chenille, and iridescence. My swatches had orange weft, with the monk’s belt pattern in light-orange chenille. For my towels, however, I’m using fuchsia 10/2 for the weft. (It’s still iridescent.)

The draft shows three possibilities for the monk’s belt accent; only the first is used in the towels. These monk’s belt patterns are from Dixon (2007), _The Handweaver’s Pattern Dictionary_, p. 101. Draft shows tabby; in monk’s belt, tabby A and B alternate between the pattern picks.