Point Twill Across the Board
I had a complicated threading pattern on the 32” Lil Miss. #728 from the Strickler book, to be exact.
Here is an earlier rendition of that draft I did using a solid warp and weft:
Unfortunately, the gradient warp did not do it justice.
To add insult to injury, that draft did not allow for even weave, as there were double odd and double even threadings.
So, it was a no-brainer to cut the cloth off and rethread the heddles because I had warped some twenty-five yards on the back beam.
To maximize my options, I decided to thread a point twill. Without changing the tie ups, I posted a number of different treadle patterns to keep me interested.
Here is a peek at what she weaving at the moment:
Then, I finished a warp on the 24” Meg.
I had a bright and airy nine-yard warp ready to go on her.
She is still in the rehab stage. We are awaiting more parts from Macomber. We have had issues with skipped threads. Thus, I wanted to try different patterns on her. I opted for a point twill with the thought of changing up the tie ups after each towel.
We have done a plain weave with little diamonds, an 8-shaft waffle weave, and a nice little decorative diamond design.
So far, the waffle weave has been the most impressive:
Changing the tie ups has been fun.
I am obsessed with point twill.
Seriously, I have even dedicated an entire board on Pinterest to it.
By the end of the year, I need two blankets, each approximately 50” wide and 80” long (before shrinkage and draw-in). These should make nice sized throws. My first thought was to use fingering weight wool as warp and tabby with worsted weight wool for overshot pattern, but as these are gifts, wool is expensive for people with dogs. Wool may be washed, but the margin for error is narrow.
These need to be easily washable and dryable.
Cotton seemed the way to go.
I had such good luck with duvet fabric made of 8/2 cottolin with 3/2 perle cotton weft, I decided to do something along those lines. I chose 10/2 natural, unmercerized cotton from Georgia Yarn Company for the warp with a sett of 24. I repeated the 3/2 perle cotton weft.
Rather than overshot, I came across a draft I loved, but it required more shafts than any of my looms possess. Of course, as it was a sixteen-shaft pattern, I failed to save a copy of it.
UPDATE: I found it!
Playing with Fiberworks, I used the draft as inspiration, but scaled it down a bit to accommodate eight shafts.
As featured above, this is what I came up with:
I wanted something subtle while avoiding long floats.
I liked that the tight pattern would also give the fabric a bit of firmness.
This fit the bill.
Which means, of course, all three of my looms now each sports a point thrill threading!
Who does that?!
Me, obviously.
I will note dressing the 56” Beast for these was a Herculean task.
However, before long, I was weaving!
I bought two pounds of 3/2 perle cotton in Peacock. While I used a weaving calculator to determine how much warp and weft I needed, I like to check as I go.
My first bobbin held 132 yards of the 3/2. I was able to weave 6" of fabric from that one bobbin. I plan to weave one blanket 75" under tension. 75" divided by 6" is 12.5 bobbins. 12.5 times 132 yards is 1,650 yards.
Each pound of 3/2 cotton is 1,260 yards. As I have two pounds, I have 2,520 yards! More than enough.
The question now is what do I was to use as weft for the second blanket?
I thought about acquiring more 3/2 cotton in this gorgeous garnet color:
However, I do have some Wollmeise fingering in my stash:
I know!
I did not want to use wool, but I could keep this one...
Susan at Yarnorama shared a delightful sample of cotton warp with wool weft one time. It was lovely; however, her sett was much looser than what I am working with now.
I also have some black lace weight weaving wool.
Point twill was the easy decision, apparently!
Should I ask?
How many days until Christmas?
How are we coming with our gift lists?
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