I have woven about a metre of fabric and cut it off, repaired the ends where needed and washed it. Some dark colour came out which is probably okay. It looks like it is from the very dark blue yarn. It is hanging up to dry now and won't be long. The fabric is very light and fine. I intend to iron it when damp.
I finished off the sample by weaving 10 rows with a 2/20s cotton, then weaving 2 inches of the pattern with grey silk, then inserting two sticks using tabby - to make sure the take up is the same in all threads. then wove 2 inches of pattern with grey silk. To cut it off, I cut through the centre of the green cotton rows. The first stick was then tied on to the breast beam using bootlaces. All carefully aligned using a ruler and centre square to make sure the warp threads were at right angles to the reed and the first stick was at a constant distance from the breast beam.
While weaving the metre-long sample, I made various changes.
- I increased the tension in the end-delivery shuttle
- I inserted floating selvedges. This made the left selvedge much better but the right one still looked bad.
So when I tied on the stick as above, I set about re-threading the right-hand end section and put 6 threads in each dent at the right hand end while keeping 1 thread per heddle. I also weighted the floating thread a bit more and put extra tension on the 30 warp threads nearest the right hand end. This seems to have done the trick and now both edges look much the same. I use old film canisters weighted with glass marbles for weighting. They have clip-on lids and you can catch the warp thread under the lid. I don't recommend this with silk singles!! The lid cuts straight through the thread.
We are waiting for the snow to arrive. It is due over night.
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