“I feel good when I’m weaving,” says Rachael when I remind her that the Etsy stuff is supposed to be fun not an all-out push to get stuff done.
Whipping things off the loom…
The chef towels are a popular item on the Etsy store so Rachael put them back on the loom to make some more and use up colors.
The video here is a quick clip of the blue chef towels coming off the loom, because it’s kind of fun!
Unusual things occupy your childhood memories when you grow up in a weaver’s home… a repeating theme turns out to be your mother hauling yards and yards and yards of fabric off a loom (and not letting you help because you’re like 4 years old and this fabric is for a client and thus not to be messed up).
Changing warp colors, the easy way
The process of changing over the color without having to re-warp the entire loom is pretty simple but still rather awesome. When I got to her studio yesterday, Rachael had finished 15 blue chef towels and was already tying on a new color. She had already tied the new green warp to the ends of the blue warp and had moved on to tying on the white ends.
This is a shot from the back of the loom and the end of warp. The warp is tied onto the rod you see in the bottom of the picture, then threaded through the heddles on the harnesses and finally through the reed on the beater. The masking tape you see across the threads helps keep it tamed. When all the new warp threads are tied on, she’ll wind the length of the new warp onto the back beam of the loom so she can start weaving again.
Here you can see some of the length of the warp coming off the loom. Rachael is putting on enough warp for another 12+ green chef towels. It’s carefully prepared so that it keeps from tangling both before and during the warping process.