I'm stumped.  I am weaving a baby blanket for my latest great niece.  It has blocks of twill separated by basket weave.  Below is a pictue of what the woven fabric will look like. 

The selvedges are all basket weave as you can see.  When I've used this pattern before, it was on a loom without fly shuttles and I used a floating selvedge.  This time I want to use my fly shuttle and watched as pick #2 just undid pick #1.  I'm using 4 different colors in the warp and decided to use a different set of shafts for each color, so all 16 of my shafts are in use.  I really don't want to rethread to fix this.  Do I have any other options?  All colors are threaded straight over 4 shafts.

Any suggestions will be appreciated.  I'm mad at myself for not seeing this problem when I was designing it.

Comments

Mon, 07/08/2013 - 21:31

sandra.eberhar…

You can use floating selvedges with a flying shuttle.  I weight mine to hold it down on the shuttle race (I use water bottles with S-hooks between the harness and warp beam).    I add cords or pipe cleaners around the selvedge threads and tied to the cords that activate the shuttle.  When I pull on the shuttle cord, it yanks the selvedge on the side that the shuttle is on, and the shuttle runs under it.  Pipe cleaners may eventually wear through the threads, so I add eyes.

Mon, 07/08/2013 - 23:22

TinaHilton (not verified)

bigwhitesofadog - I found a post you made earlier where you included pictures of your setup.  I see the water bottles weighting the floating selvedges behind the shafts.  So then you connect a cord from the floating selvedge (in front of the shafts) to the fly shuttle?  That's an interesting approach if I understand it correctly.  But you don't have problems with the floating selvedge threads breaking from the jerking?

Tue, 07/09/2013 - 03:39

sandra.eberhar…

I double my selvedge threads.  I have used this setup with 5/2 cotton without mishap, except for what I mentioned about the wire in pipe cleaners wearing through the threads.  I added screw eyes to replace the loops in the pipe cleaners.  (Since the threads had been worn through, I was able to thread the selvedge threads though a small screw eye and twist the pipe cleaner on to it).  I have used it with carpet warp and nylon cord.  I will be warping a very fine linen warp for a block twill, and will use the screw eyes to reduce friction.  After a little weaving, the selvedge threads tend to go slack, and need separate tension, so yanking them doesn't do much.

Tue, 07/09/2013 - 03:44

sandra.eberhar…

It can take a bit of adjusting to get the lengths of the cords attaching the selvedge thread to the shuttle control cords right.  That's why I used pipe cleaners for my first try; they are easy to adjust.

Tue, 07/09/2013 - 14:54

TinaHilton (not verified)

Nancy - That is one of my options, but would require rethreading the entire blanket since I have 11 green stripes (the ones that are always basket weave) spread evenly throughout the warp.  I guess I could add a bunch of replacement heddles in those sections instead.  I can easily add the extra heddles to the outside 2 stripes, but that woujld be 90 heddles I'd have to tie and add. 

Bigwhitesofadog - I just can't picture how to tie the floating selvedges to the fly shuttle pull that wouldn't really yank them to the middle and cauase a lot of friction against the reed.  That might be something I play around with for a future warp.  I hate to get partway through this project, have too many problems, and lose the whole thing as a result.  If you could post some good pictures of how that part is done, I'd appreciate it.  I wish I could search for just your posts or even just within the home built equipment group, but that doesn't seem to be an option on Weavolution.

I think I'm just  going to put my lease sticks back in and rethread everything.  Later I'll put on a practice warp and try to make floating selvedges work with the fly shuttle.  This will just be a "lesson learned" moment and hopefully not remembered and not repeated.

Tue, 07/09/2013 - 17:13

Sara von Tresckow

Tina,

I'm kind of busy today, but I seem to have recently run across a way of doing the basketweave selvedge by ofsetting the change by one pick - when the basketweave body changes, the selvedge doesn't - it changes on the second pick of the main basketweave.

Clear as mud, I know, but if I run across is soon, will post more info.

Tue, 07/09/2013 - 22:21

TinaHilton (not verified)

Thanks Sara.  Whenever you get the chance, it will be appreciated.  I've been weaving for 10 years now, but sometimes I feel like such a dunce.  I think I remember what you're referring to ... but it's just a vague memory with no details as to how it works.  It will be great to have as a future reference though.  I'm sure to run into this again.

Wed, 07/10/2013 - 02:27

Sara von Tresckow

This is what I was referring to:

http://www.weavolution.com/draft/basketweave-selvedges

The "basket" is offset by one on the right and left so that when throwing the shuttle, it will always catch. This example is with twill, but probably works with your blanket structure as well.

It is subtle - look closely, the double picks are not lined up perfectly at the edges.

Wed, 07/10/2013 - 23:36

sandra.eberhar…

At bottom you can see the ring with the selvedge threads.  So far I have made 25 yards of a 30 towel warp and it really works well.Selvedge cord attachment

Thu, 07/11/2013 - 00:14

TinaHilton (not verified)

Thanks for that picture.  It does make sense now and is definitely something I want to try.  I can see it will take some testing to come up with the right length for the cord.  But if I can get it work that will be great!

Thu, 07/11/2013 - 00:37

TinaHilton (not verified)

I see that Sara and understand how it works.  I'll be sure to keep a reference to this hint!