I've tried searching to see if this has been covered before, but I only found a comment by Sara:

"Those annoying little floats can also be needlewoven carefully into invisibility when the cloth is off the loom and prior to wet finishing." 

So I am looking for some tips from all of you weaving experts on how to do this. 

I just finished my first try at block weaving--block twill drall scarves (Streckler p.55 #228) using 8/2 tencel.

And have found a couple of long floats that occurred on the underside when warp threads apparently got stuck on the wrong side of the shed and I missed catching them as I wove. 

So do I use the same tencel or some sewing thread to somehow tighten up the floats? 

It seems the tencel would bulk up the block very noticeably rather than invisibly.

Is there a good source to refer to?

Once again a big thank you from a newby.

Judy

Comments

Mon, 08/26/2013 - 23:23

Jeannie (not verified)

I used to do some needle-weaving to repair tiny holes and what I used was a thread the fabric had been woven in, but split down.  Your 8/2 would easily split into 2 plies , but if it needs to be finer, you could carefully split the single ply and work with short lengths of the unspun fiber. Sewing thread has a different luster, even if you could match the color, you would probably still find it noticeable. Also, it wouldn't 'grab' the surrounding tencel (you don't use knots, just rely on friction to hold the repairing thread). Jeannie

Tue, 08/27/2013 - 05:37

planttapestry (not verified)

I hadn't thought of splitting the yarn. But I still would like to know some specifics. 

How far back do you overlap?   Do you repair with an extra warp yarn or a weft yarn?   If weft, do you cut out the weft float afterwards? 

and probably more questions after I learn more about doing this........

 

Tue, 08/27/2013 - 14:23

Jeannie (not verified)

How far depends on how densely woven the fabric is and how long the error that you are tacking down is. The longer the float, the more stitches you will take and that means you won't need as long a tail (beginning and ending) as you would with a very short float. If you need to remove the float, which I wouldn't really want to do, unless leaving it would look really awful, you'd want to overlap at least the length of the cut out float, both beginning and ending. Because floats float they have fewer web intersections and their threads are more likely to pull out somewhere else if cut anywhere. Color? Well, I would use the color of the thread that is running in the direction you are working (vertical would use warp, horizontal would use weft). Or, use your eye - what looks best? One word of caution: you can always unpick your repair, but if you decide to pull a dark thread out of a light area, you will probably see bits of dark lint left behind. Pulling light out of dark doesn't seem to leave such visible fluff. Most times a sticky lint roller will fix the lint problem, but it is something to be aware of. That means I would try light into dark first. Slow and careful are the key words. The other thing is to use a light hand - you want to match tension and density here. The repairs that really stand out are the ones that are tight and thick.