February | 2011 | Tottie Talks Crafts Blog

Monthly Archives: February 2011

February 27, 2011 · 4:04 pm

Another woven Gypsy Jacket done

I decided it was time to finish weaving the pieces for the new Saori style Gypsy jacket and get stitching them together.

So… I pulled the plug out and got to work.

Which pleased Ms Kitty enormously.

I like to do most of the stitching by hand, but do re-enforce the back neck edge with machine stitching, as it takes the lion’s share of the weight of the jacket.

After 2 days of stitching away on the jacket, I thought… oh oh… what if I don’t like the jacket…. or what if it doesn’t fit?

I assumed that since the first woven jacket fits just fine, that this one would, too…. and then had the ‘yikes’ about it….

It fits the furgrandkid beautifully, with a little room to spare…

At first I thought that the new jacket was a little shorter than I wanted it to be…. but, my husband disagrees…. he thinks it’s just the right length.

If I do decide to add more length to the hem, it’s easily done. Just weave up a band, and stitch it on.

Alright… this jacket is done… now back to work on the new book! 🙂

The pattern for this jacket is based on pattern # 51 in the Saori pattern book – available from your favorite Saori weaving studio.

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Filed under Loom & looms & small loom weaving, weaving & handwoven

Tagged as handwoven. handwoven clothing, woven jacket

February 10, 2011 · 10:01 pm

Clasped weft weaving for handwoven Gypsy Jacket

People kept asking me how many hours it took to weave my first “Gypsy Jacket”. See: First Gypsy Jacket

So, I thought that I would set myself a challenge.

I decided that I would weave another one and log in, keeping track of all the hours I put into weaving a Gypsy Jacket.

I logged in an absurd number of hours of weaving time, and decided that I just didn’t want to know anymore just how many hours I put in.

Why did it take so long?

Because I was using a very slow technique, of working with 2 sets of clasped wefts to get more color play into my fabric.

I only used one shuttle, but had yarn on cones to the right of the loom, and yarn on spools on a spool rack to the left of the loom.

The shuttle comes out of the warp strands between picks and sits on the surface of the web, about 6 inches from the left hand edge.
The first motion is to open a new shed, pass the shuttle into the shed, take it out to the left, go under the strands of yarn that are hanging from the spool rack, pull them into the shed with the yarn from the shuttle.

Bring them into the place where you want them to end. There is a double strand of that set of weft strands.
Now, the shuttle goes to the right hand edge and out , and goes under the yarn that is on the cones. The shuttle goes back into the shed, and is pulled up, bringing the 3rd color as far as desired. The shuttle then is moved back to it’s exit point, the shed is closed, beaten, and the next shed is opened. The whole process is repeated.
It’s slow, but you can create pretty intense colorways this way.

Of course, it’s faster to just use one set of clasped weft yarns, but by clasping from both selvedges, you can get some pretty gorgeous patterning.

So far, I have used 5 different looms for this jacket, and still have a couple more that I will be working with to complete the weaving of the parts of the new Gypsy Jacket.