Guild Weave In

I've been wanting to do some things to foster community for myself and others.  Last summer, I thought maybe I'd invite 8 weavers from my Guild to come and all weave the same object over a weekend! The project needed to be 4 shaft, since most folks have 4 shaft traveling looms; it should be doable by an advanced beginner, and should have broad appeal. I settled on the PennyWise runner pattern by Linda Ligon, published in the September/October 1984 edition of Handwoven magazine. I'd picked a date in October but with all the travel, I didn't get a chance to do a test weave in enough time for a fall date. (I wanted to do a test weave because I've never worked with some of elements of the pattern). 

We scheduled for the 3rd weekend in January, just after the Presidential inauguration and a good time otherwise to treat ourselves with a weekend of fiber. The event was oversubscribed!

Long Thread gave permission to copy the pattern for the participants, although everyone apparently had a Handwoven subscription and has pulled it from their archives. Our sincere thanks to them! I will be following up with an email with photos once folks start sending them to me.

I warped for two runners and wove the first so that I was familiar with it... There are 4 shots of hand controlled leno lace and 2 sections of complementary colorwork. Good thing I pre-wove; my notes are:

• The linen doesn't do well for me on a pirn; I used a shuttle with a bobbin instead and it still wants to jump off the bobbin.
• Pay careful attention to selvedges, treat the linen like it's rug yarn (technically it is).
• I got extra draw in during color patterned part, so watch that.
• I would weight the floating selvedges separately and not wind them on as part of the warp; even with a 3 foot runner, the floating selvedges are getting too loose.
• The areas between the leno and the colorwork are not in the drawdown but in the written part of the pattern so be careful!
• I fiddled with the leno to get both sides of the colorwork to look even. The tapestry fork was useful. I loosened the tension, picked up the leno, loosened it more and turned the pickup stick sideways (picture would be awesome) to do the leno shot; then tightened it up half way to beat it in then didn't fully tighten the warp until I was done with the next pick.

McGyver'ed beater

There were a number of issues once we started weaving... JH has a AVL workshop dobby that has their famous sand paper rolling breast beam; the thick linen wouldn't stick to it and he ended up having to be very creative to get it working. HH ended up breaking her beater, but we tapedit with pink duct tape to get her weaving again and her husband McGyvered it for her Saturday night. Several (but not all) of the table looms had issues beating firmly enough. 

There were two patterns; the original in the 80's Handwoven Magazine, and a reprint in a compilation of runner patterns. The quantities of embroidery floss did not match (the older was correct) and the first 8 picks were different. Luckily the first 8 picks are not a big issue and there is a source of embroidery floss about 15 minutes from here, so this didn't end up being a problem.

The other "gotcha" was that there really isn't good notation to put in drawdowns for some of the things in the pattern, so they were written out instead; I flagged that for the group which made things go faster.

By Saturday afternoon most of us were weaving away, and more than half of us finished weaving by the end of the day on Sunday. It certainly felt like everyone had a good time and they're asking for another event!   It was a lot of work, and once or twice a year seems best; plus, and my DH pointed out, if you do it too often it's less special. The group thought napkins would be good for the next event. I'm already thinking about some patterns. Maybe June.

Compilation of some of the runners