Sleying the 8-shaft

There are so many possibilities in the craft of weaving--endless--I sometimes have difficulty deciding what to weave, in which structure, in which colors. So, so, many possibilities.

To be sure, one of the projects I have in mind for the 8-shaft is double-weave color blocks. So very beautiful and full of color. But I'm not starting with that. What I'm really in the mood for is another overshot pattern, but overshot really only needs 4-shafts not 8. No matter, I'm going for it. I'll use only 4 of the 8 as an exercise in getting to know this new-to-me-loom.

So I've decided on an overshot with border draft called "Norse Kitchen" as a table runner. I'm using 10/2 white cotton for the warp and weft tabby, and 5/2 cotton in a burgundy color named "lipstick" for the pattern threads.



I couldn't decide on an epi (ends per inch) for the warp. I found some overshot patterns in the same yarn weights I'm using calling for 24 epi, and I saw some for 20 epi. Originally, I opted to go with 24 but I kept going back to the examples of other weaving I'd found and just couldn't get settled with it. I finally, in my final decision, decided on 20 epi, only to discover after doing the calculations that it wouldn't fit in my loom! So I compromised and went for 22 epi. Glad that's finally settled.

I wound the warp yesterday and proceeded to completely mess up one bout by losing the lease cross. Oi! So I made a new bout this morning and finished sleying the reed this afternoon. Post inspection, I found 3 warp ends hanging around on the wrong side of the reed. La dee dah! Drat! Toughie, this one. One of the ends had simply slipped out of it's reed, and that was an easy fix. The other 2, somehow, had been missed, so I had to re-sley half the reed to make room for them. Well golly! But now it's done.

I have started threading the heddles and discovering the difference 8-shafts makes in dressing the loom: A bit more reaching. I hope to have it all threaded in the next day or so (there are 458 threads).

We had a very pretty moon this week. These pics taken a day apart ...