First week back at school with some tent stuff too

Weaver's log, Earthdate 19082019
The first day of the new school year of weaving, this time at Forsa Folkhogskola. I started the day with the tailoring class as I will spend the most time with them as the class I'm taking is to be taken as a home study with a monthly visit to school three days a month. But I do it at school and on 100% studying instead of its usual 50%. After the usual auditorium presentation and a closer presentation with the class. We got a task to decorate a dress together. As I know I wore to only stay with them until lunch I embodied this pink swirl as it didn't take to much time and life need more pink swirls.

After lunch, I met with my teacher and we discuss what would happen under the rest of the week and a little about the course itself. Then it was back home and sew the last long strip on but I didn't have time to fold the seam.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 20082019
I met one of my real classmates today, she is to weave at school too but only two to three days a week. We hade a third party member today as well a guy that will be with us on Tuesdays as he is studying Swedish the other days of the week. Today's work was to wind the yarn on pieces of paper and match colours for a kitchen towel. My thoughts on the different once from top left down: a traditional one, 70thes feel with the brown and orange. The two on the next row are just some in bright colours you know I love that if you remember my knitted hat I did a few years back. Then we have a flowery field in summer, think this one will do better as a carpet so might come back to this later in the year. Next to that, we stay on the flower theme with a sunflower, I like how the colour blending turned out on it. The black with a pink stripe is just that, black with a pink stripe minimalistic and simple but not something for this task. Finally, the one I chouse, it is a bit on the traditional side but still feels like it has kept up with the times.

Then we sat down and hade a small discussion about all of our samples my teacher rapidly took one of the browns I hade brought out and immediately I understood where she was going. With a thin outline of brown next to the orange, it gets a depth that was missing and here are the original and a new one I made with the brown.

It's subtle but something is happening. After school, I went back to the farm and fell the seam and folded the whole thing and rolled it up.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 21082019
Started the day writing the draft and learning how to calculate the scale of my paper template to full size. After some miss calculations due to forgotten parathesis marks on the paper, I hade counted how much warp I need of each colour and we didn't have enough blue so it had to be ordered. The rest of the day I spent weaving in test weaves from the towel summer class they hade this summer. The first one is a herringbone twill with a white warp and an inlay that is a 16/2 flax I belive with one black and one white strand in it. This inlay do so you only in certain angels see the herringbone pattern and like on the picture it's just black and white.

Then I was done with that I got to jump to another test weave. This time a huck, this is the first time I weave with partitions so I hade to concentrate. It went pretty well with only one mistake, as far as I know, will finish it tomorrow.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 22082019
Finished the huck and went on to the next loom.

This one has strips in plain weave and diamond twill. The biggest new things with this one are that it has a floating salvage, don't know if that is the English term for it but I'm sticking with it. What it means though is that the selvedge threads don't pass through any heddles. Then weaving you press the shuttle over them and on the other side it naturally passes under the selvedge threads on that side. You do this so that in weaves that don't always bind at the edges do so and you get nice edges the whole length of the weave.

This was a short day for me and after doing some school shopping and getting more thread for my sewing machine. I and mom raised the tent frame and I took one of the long pieces for the dorr side and held it to the frame. It didn't even unfold all the way so I decided I could cut some off and sew it on to the short piece for the door.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 23082019
continued with the one I started yesterday but sone my classmate came and waited for our teacher to get some help with what to do next, she is completely new to weaving so she doesn't know much about it yet. After the first coffee break of the day, we got the news that we hade to manage on our own today, so I decided to try and help her as good as I could without going into things too far. So we discussed her paper patterns a bit more and went over some working terms and names of loom parts followed by going over the paper with the order of our work ahead we gotten with steps to dress the loom and such. 

Weaver's log, Earthdate 24082019
today I cut off the part I measured that I didn't need on the long door part and added it to the short. Then I sew them together and put them on the frame, with some help holding the fabric I marked where to cut. With my big square edge, I filled the lines and made a parallel line about 3,5 cm for some extra. But didn't cut it as I didn't dare to do so.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 25082019
Disaster. I cut the angel today and it was crocked then I test fitted it, so it must have been crocked from then I drew it yesterday. But the show must go on and we took down the frame and made the big posts thinner with 5 cm and then I oiled everything with linseed oil.

I start sewing

Weaver's log, Earthdate 14082019
So I am back at the farm to sew the tent, but I haven't gotten my sewing tape yet. Thought I would get it by now as I ordered last Saturday so they could see it on Monday morning even though they hade a message on the top of the site saying it will take more than usual time for delivery. So as I haven't heard anything yet I followed the link to their blog and saw that all orders made week 33 will be shipped next week. So I get they count my order to be made this week.

So instead I have carved down the pegs that hold the frame together so that sit deeper in the hols and looked for pictures on Rohan sun motifs as I want to have an ornamental sun to put on the top peg over the door, it took nearly six hours, but now I have converted one of the images of a shield to a black and white image of only the pattern and made rescaled it so it is 14 cm tall and 12 cm wide.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 15082019
I planned to thin the tent posts and maybe build two chairs as I don't have the tape I need to sew yet. But after a slow start, I called my mom and I told her about what I hade read on the web page yesterday, after some time she said she hade to go as she was heading to the store to get some food. So I asked back if she wanted some blackcurrants and that I could pick some and she could gather the bucket after the store. Why I'm I telling you this you might wonder, that I shall tell you. Then she arrived she hade an envelope that was addressed to me and it was my tape. Its called Stylefix and am looking forward to using and reporting about it tomorrow.

I also took another look at the sun I took out in photoshop yesterday and realised that the knotwork on it will be too small for me to carve on wood. At least at the size I wich to do it at. This is sad as I like knotwork but what can one do. As I write this the thought hit me that I might be able to do a different knotwork of my own on it that is not as dense as the one on the pattern.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 16082019
Slow start again, but I got a lot to write about so prepper for a long post. The first I did today was to unbox my new sewing machine. I got this as an early 30 birthday gift. Its a Janome and it is amazing, one of my favourite Funktion is an automatic needle threader that's mounted in the machine. The first thing I sewed was a bag out of a small piece of fabric that I got over from the big roll of fabric. I am planning to sew buttons on it later and try the automated buttonhole pressing for.

After that, I started to tape two of the long side pieces. I like the tapa and it is really thin and is easy to use. The seam I was going to do was a fully flat seam, on how you do one of them I will refer you to this video on youtube.  It is the third seam he shows. After three hours of taping and doing the first two of the three steps and started on the third step, I realised that the fabric is to stiff to do a fully flat seam. So instead I did a half flat seam which is the second seam he shows and kept the centimetre from the first step on doing a fully flat seam.

The sewing went so and so. It is fiddly to feed the fabric and am worried how it will go then I get more fabric that gets sown together. The machine also always stop with the needle lifted and that leed to the fabric slipping so some parts of the seam have pore quality, some parts so bad that I might need to re-sew the entire seam to be sure it is good enough. The last thing I did today was to fold over the seam and tape it down.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 17082019
Kept on sewing today and got the seam I folded yesterday and the third long length of fabric sawn to the other two.

The sewing went better today then I tightened the thread tension a little. I broke my first needle on the tent today though and then I were to put a new in, I dropped it and it bounced on the floor to my foot and down between the floorboards, so I hade to use the last needle I have so I might have to buy some more next week. Talking about next week. On Monday I will start another year of weaving classes but at the Folkhögskola in my home town. This will result in a lot of fun weaving projects, and best of all I have no idea what they will be but more on that on Monday then I have talked to my teacher as I'm doing a special version of the class. Back to the tent, I am getting worried how I will going to continue to sew as I add more Fabrik as of now it's already quite awkward to work with, and how to get the short sides on and things like that. But one thing at a time. Here are some pictures of how I do the half-folded seam now, and it seems to work quite good.

Then you fold down the last fold, put the tape close to the edge or it will poke out like this.

Revile the fabric and start cutting the Viking tent.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 20072019
I found an old coffee table on the farm and as I need a table in my room for the sawing machine. But as the legs on a coffee table are so short I made some new legs the hight of a kitchen table. Today I screwed them on and it went smooth except I hade to get a new bolt and nut of one of them as the threads were messed up.

 After that, I decided to open the package of fabric as I will be starting to sew soon. First was the bag made of tarp, then a layer of cardboard and finally a layer of bubble wrap, It was like opening a Christmas gift over and over the suspense is torture. through the bubble wrap, I could see the fabric and it lookt good.

 Then I opened the bubble wrap and saw the red fabric or should I say pink. Its a lovely pink but didn't expect it. and nothing that works with my Rohan them on the tent. The pink is lighter then it looks on the picture. 

So glad am into pink and the ide of having a pink tent. The 5-7th of July I borrowed a tent, it was a small geteld with a middle opening. then I was at a market with my Viking smithing kit. At first, I wasn't all into it but in the end, I was in love so I measured it and took pictures. This mixed with leftover green might be what I will do with the pink. But first I got to finish the Viking tent to see how much I have left.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 22072019
This week I will stay 3 days at my dad's and start the sewing of the olive canvas. I have one roll of 27 meters and one of 13. I started measuring the 6,18 meters the test I did two posts back four times as I need 4 pieces for the long sides. I also wanted to see how much I got left on the roll. I marked every two meters with masking tape and a full line at the 6,18 mark.

After I hade done the last full line I noticed it looked very crooked, but it was getting late so I measured how much was left and let the crookedness be a problem for tomorrow.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 23072019
I started with unwinding the roll some to find out where I started to measure wrong and see why it was so crocked. I checked each line with my big square and found a straight line and started to remeasure it, and it wasn't that wrong on ether side but then I came to the last line again it still was super bad. So I decided to only square up from the side I was closest to, then I measured and call it a day. 
Then that was done on the entire roll I needed to roll it up again so I could start cutting from the other side. I didn't manage to roll it straight back on the paper roll, so I called my mom and she tried to give me pointers over the phone but it ended with her coming over and helping me, so now am much better at it.

Then she went to go home I took a reding brake before I started to cut it out. As I hadn't unrolled it so much so I got to the first-panel earlier today I remeasured it and then sat down with the scissors but I didn't dare to start cutting so I called mom again for the support and it went much smoother to cut with her on the phone. I disregarded the lines I draw with tape and just cut between two inlay threads instead to get it straight.

After the first panel cut, I hung up on the phone and cut the rest three and called it a day. Would like to have gotten all cut-out but it's getting really hot in Sweden this week with temperatures between 27-30 centigrade and my room is like a green hose.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 24072019
Wanted to have some sewn today but I will get satisfied with having everything cut out today. Then I put the scissors in the leftovers from the long roll it hit me for the first time why I got so much olive fabric over on the smaller roll and that's because I only counted on cutting one short side, can't understand how it hadn't hit me earlier. Some sort of warning flag should have gone up then I counted on getting 8,5 meters over. So I stopped cutting and went downstairs to see how I could fit it all on the roll. I started with removing some from each piece and then added them together, the number I got was way over 8,5 so I started to see if I could use the offcuts of the sides to puzzle it together, and after I hade spent some time doing that it hit me that I hade added up to many wall pieces as I started with all the pieces for one short side, this I blame on the heat. Then the correct pieces were added it ended up little over 8,5 so one short pice will be little shorter or something but I think I can make it work.

With the math was done and my mind at ease I went back up and cut out all the long panels of the short side, but after that, it was just to hot up there that I couldn't continue any more, it was so hot it burned in my nostrils like in a sauna then I breathed. I'm going home today, as tomorrow I got other stuff to do, but I will continue shortly again. Later into the evening, I did this little tent model intended for another tent made from the pink and some leftover blue. The full-size the tent is really small with a top inner hight of only 180ish cm. But if I add a skirt of some green I think I will get I can get it up to 2 meters which will be fine for a sleeping tent that fitts a small camping bed. Each square on the paper equals a decimeter square.

Drilling hols and raising the tent.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 14052019
Today I drilled peg hols in the tent frame and made some pegs for said hols. Then I and my dad raised the frame so I could measure the distance over the top beam and down to the ground on either side. The measurement I hade planned to use was 6meters but the string measured 6,18 so it was good that I did this test.

 I also by accident place the horse heads in different directions on either side and now I can't decide on which way I should go. The reason I have to decide how I want them to go is, that I'm going to thin the beams some to make them a bit lighter. 

Carving The Horse heads on the tent pols and how to do it

Weaver's log, Earthdate 30032019-03042019
For some days I have worked on shaping the horse heads and giving them some details. One thing I hade to workaround was to get the image on the opposite side from the one I drew it on. The thing I did was first move it to the other side of the paper to get it mirrored by putting it up against a window and drawing it after the lines that shined through. Then I put it against the wood and pushed a pen against the lines here and there and then marked the indents that gave in the wood, and finally connect the dots kind of thing. 

To cut the bangs on the head I started with pushing a chisel straight down to cut off the fibres of the wood so then I push it horizontally I don't risk to split the wood any longer than the line I want. One more thing that is good to do than taking out wood then carving figures is to after the straight down move, cut down to the depth that the chisel got down to. Like I did on the mouth. This shows you how deep you can go and then removing the hill that is left you have very little risk of taking out a big chunk that you don't want to. 

The legs I rested the wood on was so light that I moved it then I worked with the chisel so I put two buckets with bolts and nuts on top.

Lastly, before I show them all done is a before and after picture on how much difference it is between the raw just sawn and the carved. 

The things I have done here is not very difficult or advanced carving and if you practise on a scrap piece and take your time and not rush you can improve your tent too.

The Fabric have arrived

Weaver's log, Earthdate 13022019
My fabric arrived today and the package is so heavy. I chose not to open it so the fabric stays out of the dust until I start working with it.