Preparing for the work shirt cloth

Weaver's log, Earthdate 23092019
Started warping the next weave today, its a bit fiddly as its so thin threads at least the thinnest I have ever worked with other than sewing thread. It's a 30/2 cotton. On top of that its a stripy weave with 4 white then 8 blue. So as I warp with 2 threads of each I just have to go up and then down with the white and then its time to do a knot to the blue. This did so I have to stay standing this time so it was a killer on my knees.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 25092019
Pre sley today and again a fiddly first a 90/10 reed, then I did the pre reeding I fount some threads I missed the shed with some threads so had to fix that.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 26092019
Put the warp in the loom and got on with what comes after that, Then my teacher saw the chunk of knots I created then warping she looked at me with pity and said ''I will show you a better way to warp stripy things so you don't need to do all these knots''. The way you could do it is to do two warp braids one in each colour and then you put one in the reed leaving the gaps that the other should have and then you put in the other. One could also use a warping stick but I don't know how that work. Here in Forsa, they tie up the heddle sticks differently than we did at Bäckedal. Hope this picture explains it.

Got a good chunk of the headdeling done to today. 

On the afternoon, I started to sew in the leather eyelets on the tent.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 27092019
Finished the heddeling and started with the sleying today, it takes some time as the

threads twist with each other and the dents are tightly packed. Apparently white cotton tangle more than coloured do my teacher told me.

towel weaving

Weaver's log, Earthdate 16092019
Monday again and back to school and back to the 14 test tredel combinations. Progress in it is steady and have a good pace. I am doing each treadle order in four different colours each, to see how different colours play with the warp in the different tredel combinations. I have hade to have slight differences in the colours too, as some ran out.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 17092019
I finished the 14 tredel tests, the last two I also changed the treadle binding on the last two as they are unequal-sided. Think am going to do the last one I did as the warp dominate this look.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 18092019
A thought hit me last night, I hade forgotten the unequal-sided part of the pattern I was going to do for the real towels.

So today I spent the whole day thinking about what to do. In the end, I went for the pattern I was looking at firs but with bigger lines of the inlay in an attempt to make the inlay stripes to look less busy as they do in the test. I also did the thing with the cards we did for the warp earlier to see what order Id like them in.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 20092019
haven't even done two full days and the ''happy hole'' (don't know if its a thing in English so I directly translate from Swedish. I must have talked about it earlier in the blog) so weaving has gone smooth. At the end of the day, I am done with two towels and a bit more, the last bit though I had to do in red and green as I was out of brown and the blue, and in my opinion, don't look too good without the brown.

I also started work on my next weave for a Viking garment. The last picture is through my magnifying glass of a fabric one in the sewing a Viking dress in. So I wanted to see how that looked.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 21092019
this weekend I secured the raw edges on the tent at the opening flap with langet stitches. It took more time then I thought it would but then you think about it it is 5 meters of sewing to get through.

Start on The towel and panic sewing to finish the tent

Weaver's log, Earthdate 09092019
Monday and I are home sick today, felt a bit down last night too but didn't make to much of it but during the night I hade a propper fever and still do. My mom bought some more thread then she went into town today so at least then I get better I can start sewing again.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 11092019
I was home Tuesday too, the weird thing is that I only hade the fever symptoms nothing ells. But today is a new day and I got to work back the time lost. Its busy in the weaving classroom today as my classmate and the guy that is with us some times are all working on their weaves. I finished the prep work and picked out the weft yarn and started on the 14 different ways to tredel that I am to do before I weave the actual towels.

On the tent front, I sewed up the tent so it now looks like a big coffee filter, and started to fell the seam by hand as I don't think I can sew it on the machine.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 12092019
Took a full tent day today as I am to sleep in it this weekend at a Viking market. The hand sewing is so slow and after some encouragement, I tried the sawing-machine and it worked but only just, hade to roll it hard to thread it through.

I then got to start on the leather details like tent peg loops and eyelets for closing the tent.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 13092019
Another tent day, well it turned out to be as I was to go and put up the tent at the market today, but then I wasn't done at 15:00 my mom said to me that we can go up tomorrow morning. With those words, a lot of stress ran off my shoulders.

I didn't get time to sew in the closing part but at least I got the frame done and it can now stand up.

We shortened the tent poles with about 10 cm from what it is in the picture so its a bit wider but I still got plenty of headroom. Next is a picture after my first night in the tent.

It wasn't too bad even though it rained and only the things close to the open slits got wet.

Heddelin, gussets and Field trip o my

Weaver's log, Earthdate 02092019
Five minutes to lunch my teacher fetched me and told me to grab the warp I did some days ago and put it in a loom, we did it quite speedy as we worked in on the lunchtime as my teacher was leaving for another thing after lunch. Then after lunch, I started the heddeling.

On the tent front, I started to add the gussets.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 03092019
Almost finished the heddeling yesterday but I needed more heddles, and those are locked in a cabinet so I needed a teacher to unlock it, Spiking of locking things, some of the weft/warp beam sticks got a nice way of locking them here at school. It's a simple loop that you simply thread through the hole and then loop the loop over the stick.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 04092019
My first real day of this semester as its the first day with all in my class as we only have lectures three days a month. But today we didn't have a normal lecture but a school trip with all the different textile classes there is at the school. Our first stop was at the linen weavery at Växbo. In the summer they have the old flax processing stuff open for viewing, but we only got to see their factory part, not that that is any less interesting.

Most of their looms run on punched cards still.

This is the oldest one, it went out of commission a few years ago as its starting to be too hard to find spare parts. It's from the early 1900 hundreds.

Then after a wonderful lunch, we visited one of the farms here in Hälsingland that is on the World Heritage site list. It had some wonderful wall paintings and artefacts. The last stop on the trip was in a neighbouring town to where I live, The county has sponsored a street art project here.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 05092019
The day was mostly filled with introductions, guided tore of the school and useful information and rules. The main weaving related today was to rank your five favourites in a big pill of over 80 weaves, that we are to have as our first but for me, it will be the second project. What we got will be reviled tomorrow.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 06092019
A lot more weaving stuff today, a lot of basics at first but it's nice to freshen the mind up a bit, then we dove in on plain weaves and its variant of Panama. It took to just before lunch to have the revile of what weave we got from yesterdays exercise. I got this, the image isn't the best as its a photo of a coped image. It is a work shirt fabric from somewhere close to the 19 hundreds if I were to guess. The warp is in 30/2 cotton and the weft is in 20/2 combed wool. After lunch, we were on our own and we were to do what I and my classmate did the first week with the paper cards. But this time we hade a restriction that was we could only pick colours for a piece of fabric we were to bring to class. I managed to forget to bring my pice all three days but luckily there where those who brought several different pieces so I could have one of those.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 07092019
I was at another old traditional farm today with many wonderful textiles.

I will sleep at my dads tonight so I can start early on the tent tomorrow.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 08092019
That early start I talked about above hade en early ending to it as well as I run out of thread and the shops are closed on Sundays.

More test weaves and a new blue tent is born

Weaver's log, Earthdate 26082019
Today I started on a Panama with some threads changed to blue so you can do blue squares. The hard part on it was nothing with the weaving but to get the blue threads in good tension. Then I was working with that The shed sticks slipped and I hade to untangle them. Fortunately, the sticks were tide so it could have been way worse.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 27082019
I got to warp for my towel weave and do the pre-sleying today, but I couldn't put it in a loom as we don't have one that is empty yet so that got to wait.

So it was to go back to Panama. I started on a new tent today and putting the green tuille tent on ice for a bit. I am doing this as the friend that was going to live with me on the Viking market on the 14-15/9 have decided she will just visit over one of the days. So I Don't need a big tent with lots of room and I am crossed about the outcome of the dorr part last Sunday. This tent is called a Geteld and is an early medieval tent from England but is mostly used as a variant for Vikings as there are depictions of them from at least the 900eds. I am following a guide on Ydalir Vikings home page as I find it very straight forward. 

Weaver's log, Earthdate 28082019
I finished Panama today.

Then didn't have anything to do really and then I heard that the sowing class was going to harvest the flax I sowed in may, so I asked if I could join them.

Then it was to go home and more tent work.
To do the lines on the diagonal I needed a long ruler so I took one of the offcuts we cut last Sunday and it works great.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 29082019
As I finished Panama yesterday I got a new weave to do today, what I got was a huckaback, I have never woven with so thin threads before, I am so happy it's cotton so they don't break that easy. 

Weaver's log, Earthdate 30082019
Then I got the stick that connects the warp to the fabric beam over the front edge of the loom I noticed I put the middle rope a bit crocked so I thought like so many men before, this is a quick fix.. spoiler it took all day. So many things went wrong I don't know where to begin so just look at the pictures of my hodgepodge solutions and improvisations.

Last a picture of the finished weave. The lines look weird as the tension string pull the weave, but it should straighten out then it's out of the loom.

Weaver's log, Earthdate 3108201
I have now cut out most pieces of the tent. I started with the ''butterfly'' pieces and the strip I have added in the middle to widen the tent. To be sure to get it centred I started in the middle and went from the middle to the bottom edge and then from the middle and to the other bottom then I sewed.