The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Food & crafts => Crafts => Topic started by: Anke on January 01, 2020, 12:06:00 pm
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Question for weavers out there: My Ashford weaving book says I need a "cotton shuttle" for beating down the weft when weaving cotton. No picture anywhere in the book and googling it only comes up with pictures of actual shuttles...
Is this some sort of comb-like tool you would use in tapestry weaving, but called a beater?
I want to make some tea towels this year...
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Never heard of that, and I’ve had several courses weaving cotton, from three different and highly regarded weavers :/ And have used an Ashford table top loom in each case, too.
If the fabric needs to be especially well beaten - for instance, a cotton floor rug, a strap, or upholstery - then it may be that a beat harder than the loom’s own beater might be needed, depending on the loom. If you’ve got a Harris or a Weavemaster, or something very robust like those, or a floor loom, I can’t see this being necessary, but an Ashford table top loom then maybe. Or if you are using an Ashford rigid heddle, perhaps they think the heddle wouldn’t take the strain.
To beat hard, beat on the open shed and again on the closed shed. We did do this on the weaving cotton tea towels course, where you want a fairly firm fabric.
If you are using a stick shuttle, and want a really strong beat, you could use the shuttle to beat as you would on an inkle loom. But don’t put too much yarn on the shuttle or it will make it too fat to beat strongly. You would of course need a shuttle that’s wider than the fabric to do this effectively and evenly. On the closed shed, I think, or you risk the last pick attaching itself to the shuttle and coming back out again ;). So the sequence would be : *pick, beat with loom, change shed, beat with loom, beat with shuttle, repeat from *
Michael Williams makes shuttles for inkle looms which have a chamfered edge, so they can really get in there and give a strong beat. (So that’s for making braids / straps.)
What are you going to make?
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Just did some searching on Ravelry, and found some very old posts similar to yours in the Rigid Heddle groups.
Apparently Ashford used to make a “cotton shuttle”, which was a stick shuttle with a bevelled edge (similar to Mike Williams’ inkle loom shuttle, but wider), but have not done so for some years.
At one time Ashford made a stick shuttle with a beveled edge that was called a cotton shuttle. I haven’t seen it around in a while.
You could make your own by sanding down the edge of a regular stick shuttle.
There’s a whole thread here (https://www.ravelry.com/discuss/ashford-knitters-loomies/3305283/1-25#1) which you might like to read. Although as far as I can see, it concludes pretty much what I concluded above! Lol.
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Thanks Sally, the Ravelry thread is about the pattern I have been looking at. My reed is plastic, but I have the plain stick shuttles for 60 cm AShford rigid heddle loom and OH assures me the edge is already bevelled. So I will just go with that.
I really haven't been into the depths of Ravelry.... just look through the knitting patterns every so often when my brain needs some reaxation...
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Thanks Sally, the Ravelry thread is about the pattern I have been looking at. My reed is plastic, but I have the plain stick shuttles for 60 cm AShford rigid heddle loom and OH assures me the edge is already bevelled. So I will just go with that.
I really haven't been into the depths of Ravelry.... just look through the knitting patterns every so often when my brain needs some reaxation...
Good, glad you are sorted :)