Shirt Off My Back: Weaving Complete!

The fabric is OFF THE LOOM!  Yippeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

Here is the "whole nine yards"!  It's actually more like three and a half yards, but who's counting?

I zig-zagged between the pieces and cut them apart--SCARY! 

Here is an idea of what I will look like in the near future with my schnazzy new shirt on.  Can you picture it?

(please excuse the "space face")

That's a "wrap" for today. 

Next steps: 

1. wash and dry fabric

2. finalize shirt pattern

3. maybe make a "practice" shirt from commercial fabric

4. serge and cut out shirt pieces

5. sew shirt

6. maybe embroider design on neck opening

7. wash/dry/iron shirt

8. do the "Look!  I made this shirt from scratch!" dance

Shirt Tales

I've got more pics to post to update my progress on my shirt fabric.

A sketch of my overall plan for shirt pattern and a capture of my pixeLoom draft.

The reed is all sleyed--all 312 slots, all 624 threads! 

 Then it's all tied on and tensioned with a bit of waste thread woven in.  Not too bad!

The first few inches of real weaving.  

Up close and personal--count 24 vertical threads...that's only one inch!

  Overshot design detail.  I used two threads of the same thickness of the rest of the weft.  The design will be on the bottom of the shirt and on the ends of the sleeves.  It's 6 inches from bottom to top on the loom.

An underside view of the fabric so far.  Above the overshot design, the weft graduates from dark to lighter blue.  The overshot section is rolled up on the cloth beam.

Almost ready to weave the back of the shirt!

More to come...

The shirt off my back...

I'm working on weaving yardage in order to sew a shirt--a tunic.  I'm using the full width of my Baby Wolf for the first time--all 26 inches!  That means at 24 ends per inch, 625 ends total!  The warp is 10/2 cotton in royal blue.  I wove an overshot pattern in green that will be at the bottom of the shirt.  All the weft--blues and light green--is 22/2 Cottolin.

I have spent many hours scheming, designing and trying out patterns on pixeLoom.  I wound the warp in batches on my warping board.  I removed all the loom's harnesses and adjusted the number of heddles to just fit my pattern so there would be enough by not too many on each harness.  I had to adapt my pattern to share harnesses because of the high epi count.  Winding on the warp with such a thin yarn and at such a width gave me fits, but I accomplished it!

I threaded heddles, sleyed the reed (my husband likes to think of me as a weaving warrior who "slays" things--hee hee), tied on, adjusted the tension and away I went!  I've got the first 15 inches of the front (or back) woven.  I think it's turning out nicely.  I like the texture of the Cottolin for weft with the worry-free cotton warp.

I know people will ask me how many hours it took--No idea!  Maybe 30 so far?

Pics to show progress:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kangaposse/9129313679/

Threading the heddles and sleying the reed:

Grant Weaving Catch uP! Thanks again MRAC and McNight Foundation for the Next Step Fund!

In between the projects already described, I have experimented with various weaving techniques and weave structures making "practice" pieces and samples with various types of yarns as a part of my grant project...

These first two pieces (pictured far and near) are samples I wove at the MN St. Fair in the Fall of 2012 as part of the MN Weavers Guild demonstration.  It was my first public weaving experience.  I had some great interactions with people and had fun experimenting with the treadling order.  The warp was the same on both pieces but the weft was different and has sort of a color gradation cycle.  All of it was some sort of cotton weaving yearn.

 This is my first "go" at overshot weaving: front and back and close up.

This piece is a "practice" piece woven in preparation for weaving the voyageur sashes.  I ditched this design because the floats were too big for sashes--they would have gotten caught on things.

The following pics are of a long "practice" piece--again for the voyageur sashes--where I experimented with lots of different weft colors and treadling sequences.  I also had fun with different fringe-finishing techniques.

 

 

The following two pieces were woven by me during a tapestry weaving class I took at the WGM from Traudi Bestler.  It was great!

 

 I am truly enjoying the benefits of the grant and am eager to continue learning more!