Weaving goes so much faster than spinning. I had already woven about 42 inches of the first panel when the previous week ended. I kept track of how much I had woven by attaching a soft tape measure on the side and moving it along as I wound the panel onto the front beam. It was crucial that I kept track as I went along because I’m weaving two panels in one warp; if it was just one panel, all I would have had to do is measure the stripes, weave until I neared the end of the warp, and finish by weaving the second set of stripes. It’s important that the panels each measure as close to 56.5 inches as possible. That way, when I sew them all together the stripes will align easily.
I finished the first panel early in the week. Whenever I start and finish a panel, I hemstitch the edges (something I forgot to mention in last week’s summary). Hemstitching is a way to finish a handwoven textile. If you leave a tail that’s about three or four width’s worth of yarn on the very first pick/row you weave, you can use that as your sewing thread. It’s a way of securing the weft and warp by tying small groups of warp threads together; hemstitching assures that the textile won’t start to unravel when it’s taking off the loom. It isn’t necessary, especially in this case as I plan to hem the edges once the panels are done, but I also know that I am quite clumsy at times and I felt safer hemstitching than not.
Weaving the second panel was not as easy as weaving the first – I ran into tension issues. The longer the warp, the easier it is to mess up the tension when winding on the warp. With a shorter warp, if the tension isn’t 100% perfect it probably won’t hurt too much. But when it’s a long warp, every little area of wound-on warp that isn’t evenly tensioned builds up. After the first inch or so, my warp started to misbehave. It’s hard to describe, but when I would beat in a row of weft, the weft didn’t lie flat on the warp. The warp had very small hills and valleys that caused the weft to bubble, and made it impossible to forcefully beat the weft in, which I was doing only for the stripes in order for the edges to be a little sturdier. The tension corrected when I advanced the warp and wound on to the front beam, but it would periodically go wonky again. It was frustrating to say the least.
