Greetings all! My belated and most sincere THANKS to Gudrun for the AMAZING 4-strand braid pattern and all the help last year! I've been remiss in being so quiet but I've been finding some time to weave on and off this last year and just finished another length of the 4-strand pattern. Lately I've been transitioning to 20/2 pearl cotton, which is a dream to work with and makes weavings that I find to be so very nice and delicate looking. The 24-cards of the 4-strand braid finished up at just about 3/8 in wide.
Here are links to photos of my latest two weaves, the one I finished a month or so ago: http://pics.livejournal.com/imbri6/pic/000bdy07/g44<http://pics.livejournal.com/imbri6/pic/000bdy07> and the one I finished today: http://pics.livejournal.com/imbri6/pic/000bfg7f/g44 As I work on an inkle I have to reverse the pattern to deal with the twist. I absolutely LOVE how smooth and beautiful the direction-change is on the 4-strand braid. It's hard to see unless you're looking at it, and it maintains a contiguous line! I'm *so* excited! I've finished close to 8 yards of this pattern on 4 different lengths of weaving and I have to admit that it's gotten a LOT easier for me. It's also taught me a lot about how to un-weave to correct flubs in the pattern. I catch my mistakes a lot faster these days, and I can correct them a lot faster as well, even with such fine thread. My project last fall was to try to weave something rather wide (for me). I combined a couple of simple chevron patterns into a 76-card design and wove it out of a combination of 10/2 pearl cotton and 8/2 non-pearl cotton. Unfortunately the tension from all those strands was more than my poor inkle could handle and it ended up bending the screw holding the adjustable peg. I had an incredible struggle keeping proper tension but managed to finish almost 22 inches before I had to give up. Sewed part of that length into a small wallet, which I use daily. Finished photo here: http://pics.livejournal.com/imbri6/pic/000b2hdw/g44 Fortunately my old loom isn't bent too terribly, and if I'm careful I can use it as a "backup" for narrow bands. The green/purple 4-strand I finished today was on the old loom, and it worked well enough with only a few minor issues. With my new inkle (Thanks, Santa!) (a Schacht) I felt able to try another wide piece. My brother asked me for a long strap he could use with his djembe when his drum-circle marches in parades. He thought he'd need about 4 yards. Had to do it in 2 pieces which we sewed together. Ended up with an extra 18" or so which I kept myself (I try to keep at least a piece of everything I weave) Not sure if he's had occasion to use the strap yet, though I know he's very much enjoying learning how to drum. He helped to draft this pattern: http://pics.livejournal.com/imbri6/pic/000bg59r/g44 which was inspired by a pattern we found in A Tablet Weaver's Pattern Book: http://www.lulu.com/content/1174812 (Thanks John!) My new loom is currently warped for my first attempts at the 3-hole techniques described in The Willful Pursuit of Complexity. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to those experiments soon. So, what's everyone else up to these days? Di <*> Occasional weaver - St. Louis, Missouri
