WOW Wednesday: Weaving in the North Woods

Okay so I really will post two today lol

This semester has been throwing me curve balls left and right but I have tried to do one entry per week.. tried and mostly succeeded!

This past weekend I was able to go to my aunt and uncle's farm in northern Wisconsin with my best friend Matt. We finally got away from Marquette and had some much needed R&R, but not without hard work on the farm! We helped with farm chores, gathered sap bags for syrup making..the list goes on. The farm is my 'happy place' and I am glad I was able to retreat there for a few days. Sometimes a mental break is the most important element of your week.

Matt and I were introduced to large-scale weaving on an old old floor loom. As stated in previous posts, I have some experience with both cardboard weaving and table loom weaving but this was a whole other animal.

Big.. big loom

My uncle has been using the loom to weave rugs for the house and for friends and family. He cuts up scraps of clothing from donations and old items. We had some experience cutting up sheets, curtains, and even jeans for the fabric scrap chains.

Matt with a shuttle, weaving on the loom

Uncle Jim, checking our work

I have been really tense lately so most of my weaving was pulled pretty tight lol.. here's me fixing that.

it's important to keep even tension and length on the fabric scraps to create even edges 

some people prefer the rough-edged look and so leave more fabric on the ends to create tasseled edges.

our weaving - using sheets, t-shirts, curtains of various colors and sizes.

One thing my uncle made note of - fabric scraps do not have to be cut in a uniform way. Some fabric scraps were cut thicker than others so created more space on the final weaving. Conversely, some fabric scraps were cut thinner and so created much less space and took up fewer rows than larger pieces. I should have taken some pictures of the fabric balls that my uncle had been putting together - they each weighed between 2 and 3 pounds! That's a lot of ripping and tearing.

tensioning the loom

Oh hi

Matt getting fancy with the focus on my camera lol

I am long overdue to create a post JUST about the farm, but this is a quick look into the surroundings around the loom. The barn is filled with knick-knacks, mementos, deer heads, bees nests.. you name it, it's probably there! There are also pinball machines, jukeboxes, shuffle board tables, and billiard tables. It's kind of overwhelming to be honest. I have been visiting the farm since I was a wee Breanne and I will never tire of it.

Truth be told.. Matt is a better weaver than I am

beating the weft in

glamor shot - with a loom.

unwinding the shuttle for another pass through the warp

more close-up photos of the weaving -
I like this one - shows the imperfections of the weaving but also the different colors

shuttle traveling through the warp

checking the tension on the weft

Best. Friend.

Photo for scale- this machine is BIG

checking the warp for knots

 Once after we had just started weaving we snapped a warp thread. My uncle and Matt had to tie a knot in the snapped thread and hope for the best... the problem was tension. It's always tension! The warp threads were pulled too tight after re-tightening the weaving onto the bar. The string snapped and fell out of the heedle and... it gets pretty technical after that. But Matt and I both learned the importance of checking tension on the weaving, warp, and loom in general to maintain 'perfect' conditions for working. The loom was semi-automatic but we had to keep our eyes peeled for ripped threads, sloppy weft placement, knots, and all sorts of things!

cranking down the tension 

and cranking it up again!

Matt and I worked very quickly as a team and had to stop to re-tension the loom and weaving pretty often. Not a bad thing at all! I think we both came out of this experience as experts in weaving haha

sending the shuttle

One of the best parts of this second day of weaving was when one of the family friends came to the barn to check our work. She's nearly 90 and she's been weaving forever - she was really interested in seeing how we worked and how we handled our weft. She is much more meticulous with her fabric cuttings and makes specific patterns and arrangements when she weaves and plans rugs.

right about when she started asking a bunch of questions 

looking on

checking the work

 It was really cool having her up there watching us work.. kind of like she was passing on her legacy and skills to a new generation of craftsmen (and women!). Her rugs are scattered throughout my aunt and uncle's house and they beautify the rooms in a warm and homey way. Matt and I made two rugs in two days - finishing the second one in only a few hours. Talk about efficiency!

sending the shuttle

Why so serious?

These next few photos are the loom in action. The warp strings are switched when the weaving is beaten - all what seems like a million strings move in unison to switch at the drop of the levers... It's pretty cool to watch and even more awesome to partake in.

My uncle had another loom sitting in the corner which had not been warped in some time. I think it would be really awesome to have a large loom for a classroom (hopefully my classroom will be HUGE... or maybe just a barn) to pass on this craft to students. I will be finishing the set up of my table loom in the next few weeks and bringing that to camp, but I haven't quite figured out how I am going to incorporate that into the craft cabin... We shall see.

My uncle has to weave two or more rugs onto the end of our weavings to get the most out of the warp and also to tension the loom properly. He will leave one or two rugs on the loom so he can start working again without having to restring and re-warp everything.. because holy crap does that take a long time!

Another post coming up today - a lesson plan I did in my Art Education course that really turned out cool and resonated with me. Off to class and work and studio and my eyeballs are falling out from staring at the computer screens in the animation studio.... yaaaaaaa!

The end is near...
Ms. Kanak