I made this sampler while practicing the techniques I learned in an Introduction to Rigid Heddle Weaving class.
Materials:
Reed size: 12 dent
Warp: Harrisville Designs Highland in White
Weft: Harrisville Designs Highland in White, Silver Mist, Charcoal
New skills: Warping a rigid heddle loom. Plain weave. Leno lace.
Lessons: The reed size was too small for the highland wool yarn, and I had a hard time using the sley hook to get it through the eyes in the reed. I had to create extra slack at the eye because pulling it straight through resulted in some of my warps threads breaking.
Wool warp of this sett is also hard to use for tapestry weaving (i.e. where you beat down each weft row) so I defaulted to plain weave for this project.
Getting even selvedges is tricky. While weaving, you want your weft to be at an angle before beating it so that you have enough slack in the fiber to go under/over the warps, but sometimes I’d end up with a little loop of extra weft so that the first warp isn’t snug against the rest of the cloth. I think the solution is more practice to get my technique more consistent, but I’m planning to also do some reading to help diagnose this. I also want to test out what happens to the selvedge when you wash/soak a finished piece, because my research so far indicates that the cloth will have some shrinkage with washing.
What I'd do differently: Keep practicing!
Care: n/a - hand wash cold, lay flat to dry