Wedding Report

THE SHAWL: I DID finish the shawl with a few days to spare! It DID turn out beautifully—a simple and subtle design with a wonderful drape—a reason to spring for tencel! And if you have any old Cum Wool hanging around, you’ll find it to be delightfully springy. I used it at the edges of the spaced warps to hold their position. (I found through sampling that I liked the look of wool at the edges better than the tencel.) I found the subtle contrast in color and texture between the tencel and wool appealing in the overall appearance of the shawl. Look for instructions and a photo of the wedding shawl in our Schacht’s online newsletter.

THE WEDDING: I’m just recharging after a packed week of house guests; smoozing with friends and family; parties, which included a BBQ for 80 in our in our yard; and, of course, the wedding ceremony and festivities. It was a joyous time filled with laughter, love, and happy tears.

ADVICE FROM THE MOB TO FUTURE MOBS: Believe that the young couple is probably more mature than you realize; give advice only when asked, but if you just can’t help stating your opinion, do so once and then just butt out; know that what you perceive as a mistake, like including a dog in the ceremony, probably won’t wreck havoc on the proceedings; be available whenever you’re asked to help; have your wallet as open as you’re comfortable with; think that you’ve added a son-in-law, not lost a daughter; truly believe that this is their wedding, not yours; be comforted in knowing that you can order a wedding cake a week from the wedding and table decorations only a few days in advance; accept and embrace the fact that you are not the most important person to your daughter any longer; let her call you; it’s way too early to ask about grandchildren; get on with your own life!

Wedding Shawl Report

Saturday, as I was warping my loom for the wedding shawl, I was talking to myself, “This is not where I want to be. A week away from THE WEDDING and STILL weaving; no, not even weaving, warping the loom for the shawl!” Then I let the thought go…most everything is ready for arriving guests, wedding plans, bridal details, etc. This is time I actually have to weave. It’s not like I’m starting from scratch! I’ve done my sampling. I know what I have to do. Now I just need to do it. Once I went to my own personal AA (“attitude adjustment”) meeting, I began to relish the quiet before the “storm”. I measured, threaded, beamed, and tied on.

Tip-O-the-Week:
Measuring the warp, I wanted to use two spools of fine wool, but I didn’t have my spool rack handy. I definitely did not want to wind 108 ends with two spools jumping all over the floor. Then I spied my lazy Kate across the room and put the spools on it. Worked great.

I had planned to weave the shawl on my rigid heddle loom and had done my initial sampling on this loom. But realizing that time was of the essence, I knew I could weave faster on my Baby Wolf.

In anticipation, I had woven my final shawl sample on my Baby Wolf and was reminded that the weft packs in more on a floor loom than on a rigid heddle loom. My floor loom sample was quite a bit stiffer than my first sample on the rigid heddle loom. I also knew that beat differs over a wider width, in this case about 23”, than on a narrower 6” wide sample. Therefore, I put on a little extra warp length so that I could weave a few inches to test my beat. I wove about 6”, backing off on my beating a bit, and then I washed the sample. I was pleased with the hand of this piece. This was time well spent. Now I could weave with the confidence of knowing that the end result is what I hope it will be. At this point, I do not need any surprises!

Here are my warping and weaving tunes:
Bob Dylan’s 2006 Modern Times (especially cut 2, “Spirit on the Water”)
The Dixie Chick’s Taking the Long Road (2006)
Bonnie Raitt’s Souls Alike (2005) (personal favorite—“I will Not Be Broken”)

THE Wedding Shawl

My daughter Nora is getting married this summer and I’m thrilled that she has asked me to weave a shawl for the occasion. (I’m honored that she wants me to make something for her special day and completely relieved that it is NOT THE DRESS she wants me to weave—that would be way, way too stressful.)

Since I’m exploring the rigid heddle loom in depth these days, I have taken up the challenge to create THE WEDDING SHAWL on my 25” Flip loom. I’m using two 12-dent heddles together for a 24 e.p.i. sett. I want the fabric to have some weight to it, as her dress is a smooth, heavy satin. I’m using tencel in the warp along with a 24/2 wool. For easy textural vertical stripes, I’ve threaded stripes of tencel then skipped about an inch of dents and then threaded the next stripe of tencel. Sampling told me that I wanted to control the yarns at the edge of the tencel stripes somewhat, so I’m bordering each stripe with 2 ends of a 24/2 wool. This felts up a bit in the washing, allowing the threaded stripes to move into the open space somewhat but also containing them a bit.

For the weft, I’ve decided on Glacé, a rayon ribbon yarn, as well as tencel. I like what I’m going to do in the weft: weave a variety of variations along the length. I’ll have no set pattern for these, but rather just watch what is happening in the cloth and respond—a real advantage of handweaving over commercial cloth! A reason to weave! And no two fabrics alike.

Some of the combinations you see in the sample at left are alternating Glacé and tencel, weaving two ends of Glacé and two ends of tencel, 2-3” long stripes of tencel, and broad stripes of Glacé. I’ve also taken advantage of the two-heddle options and woven with just heddle 1 to create a basket weave variation (1 end vs 3 ends), as well as alternating heddle 1 up and heddle 2 up with a plain weave tabby background (both heddles up and down alternately).

The samples shown here are blue and green because that’s what I had on hand. The green is tencel, the dark blue is 2-ply wool, and the aqua weft stripes are Glacé. For the fabric on the left, I used tencel only for the weft. While this fabric has a lovely drape, it is too lightweight for what I intend for the shawl. For the fabric on the right, I tried wool in the weft and then I vigorously washed the sample in the washing machine and then threw it into the dryer with other laundry. Although there are elements of this sample I like, I determined that it shrank too much for this use. For the shawl, I’ll work from the results of the ideas I sampled in the center swatch. My next sample will be with the white yarns I’ll use for the shawl, as well as experiments with a beaded edge finish. I’ll keep you posted on the sampling process…