Good morning! I have posted the draft and a few beginners notes for this WAL under my drafts. For those who have the Jane Patrick book, its warped up in very similar fashion, and its going to be just as easy to work from her book. For those who are using the extract from the Peter Collingwood book and the magazine article (pdfs  attached), this should also be very similar, and perhaps a bit easier to follow. Well I hope so!

Warping up: if you use a cotton warp thread, abut the size of aunt Lydia's crochet cotton, it will make a very nice fringe when you finish as well as being a sturdy warp, and excellent for the string heddles. My warp was a bit fine so I have doubled it, as you can see from the photos, and it is used with a 7.5 inch rigid heddle, and what we call in Australia and the UK a 6 ply knitting and crochet cotton. Its about sports weight. Make sure its mercerised as that is less likely to fray or unspin itself in use. Warp up as a regular plain weave, with the warps through the eyes becoming shed 2.

Sheds 1 and 3 run through the slots. Take every alternate slot warp and place it on one pick-up stick, then put the alternating others on a second pick-up stick. I have used to sets of string heddles, for ease of use, but you can use 1 set and leave the other set on the shed stick, which will stay pushed back to the back beam until needed.

For excellent instructions on how to make continuous string heddles, you can do a search here on Weavo in the Backstrap group, or else see Bolivian Warmi's blog here:

http://backstrapweaving.wordpress.com/tutorials/tutorial-continuous-string-heddles/

Comments

Caroline (not verified)

This shows how from the front sheds 1 and 3 can be used together if you want to weave plain weave.

This is the view at the back with shed 1 raised.

Caroline (not verified)

You will notice I did not take the advice to use floating selveges; this is because I used a warp already on my loom, but I would recommend using them to give a neater finish. The floating selvege runs through a slot, but is not picked up by the string heddles. You go into the shed OVER the selvege, and come out of the shed UNDER it. The secret to making it work is consistancy.

You will need extra shuttles for this WAL, because Krokbragd relies on the change of colour to create its pattern. Each row of pattern consist of 3 throws of the shuttle. In the draft I have shown how the 3 sheds are made, and the order they are raised. You will be lifting the rigid heddle plus one set of string heddles for some of the throws. Again consistency is the key, always lift in the same order, its the shuttles that will change. if you lift in the wrong order, don't panic - all that is happening is that you are weaving it upside down. You can continue as you are if you don't want to unpick it.

Here are a couple of websites that cover Krokbragd on rigid heddles, though the techniques are a bit different, the drafts and end result will be the same:

http://yarninmypocket.typepad.com/yarn_in_my_pocket/krokbragd/

http://boisebarefootweaver.blogspot.com/2010/09/weaving-krokbragd-kitchen-rug.html

and both weavers are using rigid heddle looms.

Good luck warping up! Any question, please PM me. Please remember I am in Australia so I'm awake and bouncing around while you guys are asleep. My evening tends to cover your morning so I'm not around in your afternoon and early evening.

bolivian warmi

Thanks for all the hard work Caroline! Joining as a lurker to see if this is something I might want to do on my backstrap loom. This is totally new to me. I haven't looked at the pdfs yet but I am wondering if it is possible to put an image of a finished krokbragd piece here on this thread for those of us who don't have the books and are curious about what you all are going to be making.

Thanks!

Claudia Segal (not verified)

I am thrilled we are starting today.  I warped up using cotton carpet warp on a 10 dent rh last night but am now wondering if I should have doubled the threads.  Hmmm.  

A picture would be great, good thinking Laverne.  I searched Weavolution for krokbragd and found one by kendrick43: http://weavolution.com/node/12914 and several others.  I just put krokbragd in the search box and selected Projects and came up with several.  Here is one of the first I found:

Caroline (not verified)

Bonnie Datta has a pdf file on her website on Krokbragd and another very similar technique:

www.brdatta.ca/docs/Doc04.pdf

This is a bit more advanced, but should give an idea of how you can draft your own patterns.

I'm off to bed, but shall post something about the patterns tomorrow. I have found out that choice of colours requires some thought. My initial choice was not the best; photos tomorrow my time! I'm off to bed.

kellytwo (not verified)

I'm ready to start! I'll put my warp on later today. I custom spin dog hair for a living, and I have to work on an order before I can play with a project for me, so while I'm spinning I'll be thinking of what colors to use.

I'm going to use an 8/4 cotton carpet warp and a 10 dent heddle. In Jane Patrick's book on page 141 she does a weft faced sampler with 8/4 cotton warp set at 8 epi, and the weft is worsted-weight knitting yarn, but I think I'm still going to stick with a 10 dent heddle since she describes krokbragd as a twill-based weave. I'm also going to add a floating selvage. I think I'll make mine 6" wide. If there is draw in, I would like it to be about 5" when it's off the loom.

How many colors do you think we should use for the weft?

Doreen

Claudia Segal (not verified)

I was just wondering what to use for weft.  I have tons carpet wool, it's a bit scratchy but I have some nice colors to play with.

Claudia

ruthmacgregor (not verified)

Claudia, if you're weaving krokbragd for mug rugs, the scratchiness of the weft won't make any difference.  In fact, scratchy weft might make a superior mug rug -- because it would never stick to the bottom of the mug!

My loom is still warped for something else, but I'll see if I can't remedy that this eveniing.  I'm looking forward to this WAL!

Ruth

Caroline (not verified)

hi Doreen, You are going to need at least three different colours, in fact the more the merrier! And at least 3 different shuttles!

Claudia, rug weft sounds fine!

I'm going with what I have plenty of, and that gives good coverage when combined with the warp. Its a weft-faced fabric, so the warp doesn't need to be the same thickness, though it doesn't want to be so thin it becomes sleazy. Anyone who has doubts about that can use double warp threads.

I have woven about an inch of mine, and will post a photo later, along with the colour order used. There are plenty of combinations that can be used to create wavy lines, crosses, coloured blocks and what look like stylised figures. The standard weft patterns repeat the pattern order for 4 or 5 rows before changing the colours used - that is the 3 colours are thrown 4 or 5 times, as it takes 3 shuttle throws to weave a row of pattern.

Now for my second cuppa!

Claudia Segal (not verified)

Caroline,

I'm following the directions in the Patrick book and feeling a bit uncertain at the moment.   Heading back to the loom now and will post pics soon if things don't improve.  I thought her directions were clear until I tried to follow them and now they don't make much sense.  I'm going to give it another go.

Claudia

Caroline (not verified)

This is what I have managed so far. Please note how lousy the selvege is because I didn't use a floating selvege.

Please excuse the flash and the camera wobble.  You can see how the weft packs down the three shots to make the one pattern row. This is based on the instructions in the Jane Patrick book, but is a very typical Krokbragd pattern. I first lifted sheds 1 and 2 together, then sheds 2 and 3 together then sheds 3 and 1. You can just drop the rigid heddle for that one as 3 and 1 are the warps that go through the slots! Those 3 sheds count as 1 pattern row. When you repeat them for 4 or 5 times, you get a thick line covering 4 warps, followed by a single warp thread covered by a second colour, and this is made by one shot colour A, then two shots of colour B to make the pattern row. This gets done 4 or 5 times folowing the lift plan so for this section of the pattern, shed one is colour A, then Sheds 2 and 3 are colour B for each row.

If you make 2 continous heddles instead of using the one continious heddle and a pick-up stick, you will find the lifting goes quite quickly as it then becomes:

RH and string heddle1,

RH and string heddle 2,

drop the rigid heddle (this raises both string heddles).

I hope this is a bit easier to follow. Pm me if its still about as clear as mud.

 

Caroline (not verified)

I have drafted this out and hope it gives a better idea of how the colour sequesnce goes. I have used a standard 4 pattern rows per section, before changing the order of the colours, but this can be varied and the sections made longer or shorter.

The first and 5th sections are similar, with the 5th section introducing a 4th colour.  This pattern creates a sort of lozenge shape that can be lengthened or shortened depending on how many times you repeat the lifting sequence. The lifting sequence remains the same no matter how many times you vary the colour sequences or the number of repeats.

If you google Krokbragd and check the images, there are loads of photos showing a variation on this pattern.

kellytwo (not verified)

My warp is on, and I'm ready to start. Is the first pattern that we're doing the Flame Point 1?  That's what it looks like in your photo Caroline.

Doreen

Caroline (not verified)

Doreen, thats how it was meant to be, but I was also watching tv, so my counting got out of hand <grin>, and its turned out to be 5 pattern rows per section. You can experiment with the number of repeats you do to get different patterns and effects, and of course you can reverse what you are doing to get a mirror image.

kellytwo (not verified)

Thanks Caroline, I just started, so maybe I'll have a picture to post tomorrow. 

Doreen

kellytwo (not verified)

After a very slow start yesterday trying to find a rhythm and completing about an inch, I decided it was too wide at 6" for a mug rug. So I untied my warp and retied for 5". Today went much better, and I finished the first Flame Point 1 sampler. My selvages aren't the best, but I'm very happy with the pattern. I used a black 8/4 cotton warp so that the fringes will be black. 

 


Caroline (not verified)

Thats looking good! You are much further on than I am. What are you planning on doing next?

Claudia Segal (not verified)

Well, I tried the two heddle sticks and it's okay but I don't think this is a good WAL for me.  I must be too distracted or tired by the time I get to weave at about 9pm or later.

Any and all suggestions gratefully accepted!!

I think I almost got it going with the blue one but not on the gold and red.

Claudia

Caroline (not verified)

hi Claudia, it looks like you have got the weaving sequence right! Its going to look like tapestry on the front, because its a weft faced weave. You need to beat this one pretty hard to cover the warp; its a good one for when you need to get rid of frustrations! Like whacking a golf ball, only less chance of broken windows.

If you have a look at Kellys photo, it shows the texture of the weave very clearly, how it appears almost ribbed, despite a twill-like threading. If the weft refuses to cover the warp, then the warps are too close together and it needs a larger size RH. I used my 7.5 dpi RH for this one, with a double thread of 20/2s for warp.

Does someone who did the twill WAL know if this is the same weave, only beaten to make a weft faced fabric instead of a balanced weave and with a wider sett?