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Tales of Bad Selvedges: Part 2 (Tencel Likes to be Wet)

5/16/2016

Consider this an Addendum to yesterday's post about my attempts to weave off 6 shawls for my son's wedding attendants.

There was an additional adjustment to my weaving that I made midway through Shawl #1. Once I realized that the tencel was going to be "sensitive" and prone to breaking, I began misting the warp lightly with water every time I advanced the warp.

The tencel experts of the weaving world have told me that tencel like to be wet and that keeping the warp damp (especially the selvedge threads) helps to strengthen the fiber. This can be especially helpful if you have to unweave tencel!

Tip!

Every time I advanced the warp I spritzed the warp lightly:

between the fell of the cloth and the reed
behind the reed
and between the heddles and the back beam

I use a little spray bottle with a fine spray so I don't soak the warp

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Teaching an Old Lamb New Tricks: Tales of Bad Selvedges

5/15/2016

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There are two things you may or may not know about me:

I pride myself on good selvedges
I always beat with a closed shed

Along comes a project that changed everything. I have been happily charged with weaving the shawls for the attendants in my son's wedding. These are shawls I have woven many times before (see photo on the left), using the exact same yarn I have used before.

It should have been a no-brainer. Apparently not!

I wound a 20 yard warp for 6 nice long shawls in stripes of light gray and silver 8/2 tencel. Each shawl was to be woven in a modified Bronson weave using a charcoal gray weft. I decided to weave several different treadlings so that the shawls for each young lady would be a little different.

Right from the start, there was trouble. The silver tencel began to break - sometimes at the back beam, sometimes behind the heddles, sometimes it was a thread near the selvedge, sometimes about 6 inches in from the selvedge. Before I knew it, I had about 10 repair threads hanging from the back of the loom and I was sure that I had a bad batch of tencel. The light gray tencel was behaving just fine. The repair threads behaved better except that one of the 3 threads near the right selvedge continued to break about every 6 to 10 inches. Needless to say:

The right selvedge was suffering (a lot),
I would have a lot of repairs to do,
Weaving was going very slowly,
And I was getting really frustrated!

This mess is what the back of the loom looked like after a dozen or so broken threads had been repaired.

Tip!

Repairing broken threads:
1. Attach the repair thread to the woven cloth
2. Hang it off the back of the loom

First wrap the broken thread back around a T-pin in a figure 8. (left)

After threading the repair thread properly through the heddle and reed, wrap it around the same t-pin and secure it around the pin with a figure 8. (right)

This is how I hang and weight my repair end at the back of the loom: a thread keeper, a ring and a heavy washer

HOWEVER, If I just let it hang, it will spin and the yarn will unply itself (not good). So I secure the hanging thread keeper and weight to the loom by tying it loosely to the loom with shoelaces as shown on the right.

The saga continues:

I cut Shawl #1 off the loom and retied the warp to make sure I had perfect tension before beginning the next shawl.

The selvedges in Shawl #2 were somewhat better, but I continued to have broken threads along the right selvedge as well as in two sections in the center of the shawl. By the time I cut the shawl off the loom, I had about 20 repairs to make, and more than a dozen of them were along the right hand selvedge. And I can assure you I do not enjoy making repairs in the finished cloth - especially along the selvedge edge!

Before starting Shawl #3, I had two light bulb moments:

My friend Sue suggested that I add a strand of 10/2 pearl to each side of the warp to strengthen the selvedges. I happened to have some pearl cotton in colors that matched the 2 edge colors pretty well so I could "buddy up" one strand of pearl cotton with one warp thread. I simply threaded a strand of 10/2 pearl through the same heddle and dent with the outermost warp thread on each side of the shawl and hung it off the back of the loom with a weight - just as I do with my repair threads.
I decided to try to reduce draw-in even more (even though I was already weaving with a temple) by beating with my shed open. That took a little getting used to because I have beating on a closed shed for almost 30 years!

Tips!

I was shocked at how much this helped! The selvedges were great and I did not have a single selvedge thread break for the entire 95" length of the shawl.

I still had threads break in the other two trouble areas of the shawl, confirming my belief that this batch of silver yarn was probably defective, under-plied in sections, or otherwise weakened for some reason. But just to be able to solve the problem on the selvedge was a huge relief!

Nice selvedge! :-)

Three shawls down, three to go…

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Tales of Bad Selvedges: Part 2 (Tencel Likes to be Wet)

Teaching an Old Lamb New Tricks: Tales of Bad Selvedges

Pattie Lamb

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