Promoting Weaving and Other Fiber Arts in Central Florida
Promoting Weaving and Other Fiber Arts in Central Florida
Tips, Tricks & ShortcutsAfter dyeing fabric with indigo, the excess indigo often "crocks off" and turns your skin
or underwear blue.
One way to prevent this is to paint the fabric with soymilk.
Let it hang dry, and don't wash it out for a month (three months is even better). No, it
won't smell. The proteins in the soy milk act like little coils that bind the indigo to
the fabric, and they bind tighter and tighter the longer you let the fabric cure. When you
finally do wash the fabric, the soymilk and any residual indigo will come out in the wash,
and you'll be left with a fabric that will not turn you blue.
Berna Lowenstein
Take your empty bobbin and slip the thread to be wound on, through the centre of the bobbin. Slide bobbin with thread in middle shaft onto the winder. Start winding. Clip off the tail when you remove the full bobbin from the winder.
Anne McKenzie
I elevate my floating selveges also but tape an empty film canister to the loom and
place yarn over that.
A very useful item that I finally bought: a digital postage scale. In the studio weigh
yarn cones or balls to help calculate yardage on hand.
Now that I have a good ball winder I can't imagine how I ever lived without it. Forget a
cone winder - I have one I'll sell.
One of my best investments was my electric bobbin winder. Has saved my poor aging arms...
Susan Vezina
This might be worth passing on:
http://www.woolgatherers.com/id105.htm
A simple homemade temple (that doesn't look like a Catholic school torture device)!
Roxanne
To determine if two yarns are the same value (lightness or darkness), set a digital camera to take a black and white photo and view both yarns through the viewfinder. You don't have to take the picture, just look at the viewfinder. If both yarns appear to be the same shade of grey in the viewfinder, then they are the same value.
Berna Lowenstein
make fabulous warping board hangers, too.
2 Christmas wreath hangers can be readily obtained and allow you to hang the warping board
to a door with the small side up - makes warping less stressful on the bones and is the
board is easily removed for storage.
Joy Bergman
Mix 1/3 Duco Cement® and 2/3 Acetone. Both products are readily available at the hardware store. (Use it to refill those expensive Fray Check bottles!)
Betty TerLouw via Diane Click
Floating salvages are placed on the bottom half of a Styrofoam cup split into two parts to make it higher thus more stable.
Janet Beck
To take your sample or finished weaving off the loom while retaining your warp, weave ½ inch of plain weave and put Fray Check on. Let it dry or use a hair dryer to speed this step up. Place a dowel in the loose thread and use shoe strings to secure the new warp to your front breast beam or bar.
Janet Beck
have many uses in weaving: stabilizing and weighing selvedge threads is one of them.
