Recommendations/help needed. Fairly new weaver.
OK, I'm finally getting to the end of weaving a coverlet for my father. Need some recommendations/help on finishing it.
Background. Project is woven summer & winter, snowballs & roses with pinetree border. In loom 43.5 inches in width, two halves have to be joined to make it wide enough for the bed. I've sampled extensively (for me at least) to get warp and weft settings right, verify wet finishing, even finished a down sized table runner.
OK, so my qeustions:
I need to stitch the two pieces up the center, based on other discussions on weavolution I'm planning on a baseball stitch to keep it relatively flat. I'm debating between using the background rayon to do the stitching or the cotton pattern weft. Reasonable approach? Reason to use one thread over another?
Should I stitch together before or after wet finishing? I'm thinking after so the cloth is stable, but welcome other opinions.
When should I hem the piece. Again, I'm thinking after I join the two pieces so the hem is sort of continuous across the width. Also to hide any minor differences in length due to less than perfect consistency on the beating leading to different finished length. Reasonable?
Thanks in advance for your suggestions,
Jeff Anderson
Livonia, MI