The Red and Black Shawl

Well, I've hit the 20 hour mark on the red and black triloom shawl. I predict that I have less than 10 hours to go before it is ready to be listed for sale. WOOHOO!!!

A triangular loom (or triloom for short) is a triangular frame with nails set at measured and matching intervals along all 3 sides. Because the yarn being used serves as both warp (lines running across) and weft (the lines running up and down that are woven over and under the warp) the piece will be finished and can be worn straight off the loom. My triloom has a hypotenuse of 7 ft and legs of 5 ft each. This makes for a weaving area of 12.5 sq. ft (which may not sound like much until you factor in that the diameter of the yarn is less than 1/16 in).

The pics were taken at a higher point looking down toward the shawl, so the warp appear to run into each other (they don't). The first pic shows a relative close up of the right side of the triloom, I put the tassels on to help me see what it will look like when finished.

The second pic shows the difference between the right side which has been "adjusted" so that the weft (up and down lines) will run more vertically instead of drifting (bowing toward the middle, as seen by the left side weft). This adjustment takes a couple hours to do as each string is adjusted individually since I can only move a single weft string left or right about 1/4 inch at a time for a vertical length of about 1 inch. Often you can not see the drift until it has accumulated over the distance of several weft (hence why I wait and then adjust nearer to the end of a color set).

Despite the long time it takes to work on the triloom, I love the simple checked pattern of this shawl. One can, of course, change the pattern by adding other colors to the weaving and end up with some very complicated and beautiful weaving. At this point I'm sticking with the red/black combination because it reminds me of warm flannel and cool autumn days.

Next time, who knows...