I have gotten the double-happiness ribbon warp beamed, threaded, sleyed, and first samples woven:
I tried it using a thick gold metallic weft, and then with four strands of the fine gold metallic weft. That packed in a little too much, producing a very short character, so I upped it to six strands and wove the left-hand sample. I wet-finished and pressed the sample at lunchtime.
It’s hard to make out in the photo, but of the samples, the six-strand metallic gold shows the pattern best, and is the brightest/highest-contrast of the three. That said, I think I may use the thicker gold metallic yarn, because it looks almost as good and has a much softer “hand”. This is important since a too-stiff ribbon will affect the drape of the collar.
I am having all sorts of technical problems with the samples, obviously, but I am working on the various causes and hope to have them fixed soon. Shaft #24 is not raising when it’s supposed to raise, shaft #19 is raising when it shouldn’t, and I was having loads of problems with skips until I swapped the liftplan to weave the reverse side up (lifting fewer shafts that way), but then of course that flipped the design mirror-image, which I definitely did NOT want. So lots of minor details to fix.
But, I’m pleased overall at the progress I’m making. Tomorrow morning I’ll test the samples with an iron and see whether they are shapable/shrinkable with steam (i.e. whether they will felt).
