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:

Flash Back to Spring 2012

I can't reveal my latest project because it include belated Christmas presents that haven't been finished or presented yet.  Instead, I'll flash back to Spring of 2012...

Madeline,  lovely woman at the WGM had offered to be a mentor to me and teach me the ins and outs of weaving on a floor loom.  So, in a mad dash before my kids were done with school, I rented a loom at the guild for 2 weeks and under Madeline's generous tutelage created 3 woven items.  The first was a plain weave scarf with three colors of Harrisville wool that was kind of a large green and blue plaid.  (photo is a little wonky because I cropped it out of a photo of a group of items)

The second item I wove was a blue and yellow scarf with the same type of wool yarn using 4 shafts.  This one was featured in a HUGE picture on the outside of the guild this past Summer to inspire people to sign up for classes.  :)

My third and final project completed during those two weeks on the floor loom was woven on 8 shafts.  The warp is some of my hand spun (merino and silk--some of which was hand died and blended with commercially prepared fiber) and the weft was a commercial yarn that was some sort of wool/synthetic blend.  I played around a bit with my treadling on this last one.  :)

All in all I was very pleased with my work and very tired from late nights at the guild.  I'm so happy to have my very own floor loom now in my house.   :)