Bead/Fiber Combination, Tapestry Weaving
Silk Purse Weave-Along Week 2 (Weave-Along 7)
If you have a bottom spring kit, as I do here, start weaving your header. If you don’t have a bottom spring kit, cut a thread three times the width of your loom. Engage the shedding device, weave it to the threaded bar, wrap it around the threaded bar, change the she and weave it back to the other threaded rod. Tie the two ends tightly around the threaded bar. This will serve as a base for starting your weaving. Make sure the two threads make a straight line. Arrange the warps so that they are evening spaced at ten ends per inch. Then begin weaving a header.
Next, weave the left weft to the right but weave over one more warp. Do the same for the other three wefts. The goal is to create a diagnol shapes by weaving over one warp when you go to the left and reducing by one warp when you weave to the right.
Follow the pictures. Your left shape is gong to get bigger and bigger whereas your right shape is going to shrink.
At some point you can remove the guide threads as they won’t be necessary.
To end the left weft wrap around the end warp so it is hanging to the back.
Weave back all the other wefts.
Stick the ends of the other wefts to the back of the piece.
Done!
Insert a new silk weft.
Weave it for a few passes.
Add a second weft to the existing weft that is longer.
Weave until you run out of the first silk. Replace with a new silk weft to add to the existing weft.
Weave until you run out of one of the silk threads and replace with railroad yarn.
End the railroad yarn and replace with silk weft.
Weave a couple of rows of silk weft.
Bead Weaving, Bead/Fiber Combination, Tapestry Weaving
Weave-Along 7, Day One: Silk and Bead Purse
Welcome to Mirrix’s 7th Weave-Along!
The first step to weaving this fiber and bead purse is to decide how big you want your purse to be.
My piece will be just big enough to fit an iPhone and a few credit cards. If you are making this piece for another phone or for something else, you may want to make your piece a different size.
For example, if you plan to use this for a different sized phone, measure the width of the phone and add another inch to the width of the piece.
Then, measure the height of the phone, double that, add an inch and then add two and a half inches for the flap or whatever you decide you want your flap to be.
If your phone is 3 inches wide and 5 inches tall your piece would be 4 inches wide and 13.5 inches tall including the flap.
When you warp there should be about 10 warps in one inch. (So if your piece is 4 inches wide, you’d warp 40 warps across.)
My piece is warped 40 warps wide using a ten-dent spring. If you are using a twelve dent spring, you will warp the same amount of warps across but when you have finished warping you will loosen your tension slightly, spread your spring out where your piece is (until there are ten spaces in an inch instead of twelve) and then put tension back on the loom. This will make the twelve-dent coil act like a ten-dent coil.
My piece will be thirteen inches long (including the flap). To accommodate this, the loom is set at about 14 inches high (measure from the bottom of one beam to the top of the other).
Have you never warped before? Don’t worry, it’s easy!
For this project we will warp for tapestry with the shedding device. We have detailed warping instructions here: http://blog.mirrixlooms.com/images/warpinginstructions/tapestry.pdf.
If you have any questions about how wide or long your piece should be or how to do any of these steps, just ask us! Email claudia@mirrixlooms.com or elena@mirrixlooms.com.