I will be posting photos of our Scandinavian Weavers shared monksbelt warp on the Scandinavian Weavers Study Group blog. In the first post, “A New Project–Monksbelt,” read about warping and the first couple of pieces.
The second piece was mine. Right off the bat, it struck me how fun it is to do a group warp, because Judy Larson, the first weaver, used a half-bleached 16/2 linen for her background weft. I used an unbleached color–it’s fun to see the difference. Judy used doubled Shetland yarn for the pattern, I used single prydvev yarn. Both work great.
The last time I wove a series of monksbelt runners (eight years ago), my favorite one was a monochromatic piece in which I wove blocks with two pattern shots, then three, then four, etc. and then decreased in the same way. It made a cool op art effect.
I thought I would do the same increasing/decreasing pattern blocks on this piece, but it didn’t have quite the same effect. Here’s the bad side of weaving on a group warp–I can’t just try again with a second piece.
I wove my short runner (24″) with four blocks of saturated color. The last block is a dull-ish, but rich, purple. Can you find my mistake?
OK, I’ll tell you. Look at the increasing. 2 pattern shots in the wide rows, then three, then four, then five, THEN FIVE, then 6,7,8,9, and then decreasing. I discovered it after about an inch of weaving past the mistake. If this was on my own loom, I would have taken it out, but with the time crunch–too bad!
Be sure to follow the next pieces on our group warp on the Scandinavian Weavers Study Group blog.