Oy! COE samples often test ones perseverance.. there's something about the thought of people looking at your work closely that’s really intimidating, and of course you want to put your best foot forward. So here’s what happened:
A while ago I was commissioned to weave a memorial piece for a woman’s horse. She was short of funds, but I wanted to do it anyway — I told her that piggybacking on something I was weaving anyway would save some time and cost. And all I weave are COE samples it seems.
I had done my Sett Samples last year, but wasn’t happy with some of them and decided I should redo them. One of the issues with the original sample was that the diagonal twill line wasn’t easily seen, and I wanted them to see that I had it right even when it didn’t look like it. We had settled on a diamond twill for the horse hair piece, the horse had a diamond shaped brand. I’m fond of broken twills, and so that’s what I used.
Happily finished the horsehair piece, and set to work on my first sett sample. First 6” of plain weave. Ack! I had forgotten that broken twills don’t make plain weave..there are doubled threads. Back to the drawing board. I realized I could pull out some of the threads and get plain weave. There will be less warp, and narrower samples, but still large enough. I do that and resley. Start weaving. 2” in I see a sleying error. Cut it off, resley that half. Ugh. Floating selvage (necessary for the twill) is doubling up with the last plain weave thread on one side. Ick. So pull out the second to last PW thread. But the floater is messing up my selvage, there’s a reason I avoid floaters! So I decide to abandon the floater and reattach that last PW thread. 2” later I realize I missleyed it and I have too many threads in the outside dent. Fix that. Now it looks good! Glad I put on enough warp to weave each sample twice.
I think I can attach the floaters again at the edge of the twill part, if not I'm going to go with a straight 1234 threadling. Usually with twills that don't bind at the edges I would use a basketweave selvedg to fix that woth a half basketweave if I need it, since on 4 shafts that won't make plain weave.
Onward.....