Advancing twill heart samples

Finished threading, sleying, and tying on yesterday, and was off to weaving!  I wove off 34 inches or so, not quite enough for the Fine Threads Study Group but I couldn’t wait any longer to get it off the loom.  Here is the sample:

The conclusion I’ve drawn from this set of samples is that the hearts, while they do “read” correctly in the brown weft, really aren’t obvious as hearts in the white weft.  Also, with the white on white, the short floats only hint at the incredible luster that I see in the yarn.  So I will not use this pattern in the dress.  I am instinctively headed for the 8 and 12-shaft satins instead.

All that said, though, I am going to continue weaving until I have about 60″ of this pattern, in a variety of wefts.  I have samples I need to send to the Fine Threads Study Group, and that means 38 samples (!).  Since this pattern is more interesting than the satins I’ll be weaving next, I’m going to weave up my samples before rethreading.

I had worried that the weaving would take forever and be boring.  Not at all!  It is definitely slower than weaving at 40 picks per inch, but that just gives me more time to groove on weaving before having to stop to advance.  When I’m going fast it can only be about 30-60 seconds between moving the temples and advancing the warp, this way I get more of a rhythm going before I have to set things down.

Next on the hit parade: 8 and 12-shaft satins.  These can both be done on a 24-shaft straight draw, so that’s what I’ll be doing.  I may experiment with some other variations on the same threading, too, like stripes and blocks.