Sunday 17 August 2014

Starting to weave the under-pocket

At last the body warp is ready. The sleeves are attached and are tucked out of the way inside the weaving form.
I've begun to weave the under-pockets. The left one has its first section done up to the pocket opening. The right one is just begun. 

Tuesday 12 August 2014

Setting in the sleeves

To prepare the sleeves to be taken off their forms I removed the pins a section at a time and stabilized the edge by hemstitching it to a strip of bias fabric. Then I unpicked the holding stitches along the bottom of the sleeve, pulled out all the pins holding the shaping wedges, and slid the sleeve off its form.
It was exciting to handle the fabric. Here is the bottom of the sleeve showing the tapered shape. At the moment it feels coarse and looks like a very open weave, so I need to keep reminding myself that it will soften and draw up when it is fulled. 
I lined up the marked points on the sleeve with the correct parts of the armhole. The picture shows the buttons and pins I use to anchor the woven edge of the sleeve in place on the jacket body. Pins along the armhole edge hold the pairs of warps in their positions. 
I fastened the other ends in place along the hem, gradually filling in the missing side section of the of the jacket warp.
At the shoulder, I wove some of the warp threads which extend from the top of the sleeve in a strip on either side of the top of the shoulder. I hemstitched the edges to hold this small section of weaving in place while I do the main weaving from the hem upwards.