Pick flowers

We designed a flower pattern for this finnweave article. We chose a thin mop yarn for the warp, which is unconventional in the finnweave tradition. Usually, finnweave is woven with wool, which is completely different to mop yarn by its characteristics. The thick cotton yarn was a challenging material. The warp threads loosened easily because the yarn is inelastic and soft. Otherwise, the warp is easy to weave because the total number of ends is small, so one row is picked up quickly. There’s time left for learning the steps of the technique itself.

We started with a pattern that included large areas of background on the left side of the piece. The right side had more pick-up patterns. We noticed that the left side warp threads loosened quickly because the cloth became less dense in the areas with only background. We draw a new pattern with pick-up motifs evenly distributed throughout the entire piece. After that, the weaving went well. Small squares were added to tighten the structure in the background-dominating areas. Remember to place your motifs evenly to the whole width of the fabric.

INSTRUCTIONS
for winding the warp

Wind two warp ends at a time:
84 x a red and a natural white thread = 168 ends
Use a lot of warp beam sticks and wind the warp on the beam carefully.

AMOUNT OF YARN NEEDED FOR THE WARP
Minimop Cotton Twine, 80 % recycled cotton 20 % polyester, 1 kg = approx. 700 m, diameter 2,5 mm, Lankava
red 420 g and natural white 420 g

AMOUNT OF WEFT YARN NEEDED
Minimop Cotton Twine, 80 % recycled cotton 20 % polyester, 1 kg = approx. 700 m, diameter 2,5 mm, Lankava
red 170 g and natural white 170 g

Weaving instructions

Weave a header at the beginning and end of the cloth. Use two scrap yarns for the wefts in the way that the layers of cloth will stay separated also in the corners of the cloth. This will make the finishing a lot easier. Weave according to the pick-up pattern. The pattern also includes the hem allowances. See pages 24-27 for the instructions of the pick-up double weave technique. The sett is the same for the warp and the weft. The woven length is 126 cm measured on the loom under tension.

Note! The warp threads might get loose easily. Keep always at least one warp beam stick between the beam and the last layer or warp threads to avoid the threads from soaking in the warp beam and the outer warp threads from slipping over the edge. Weave a sample in the beginning to get some experience of the warp material and the weaving technique.

Instructions for the finishing

Sew a 3-step zigzag the hems and to the hem allowances to both layers individually. Turn the inner allowance of both layers inside. Sew the hem by hand with invisible ladder stitches. Fasten the selvedges together with small stitches to obtain a neat and even edge. Press cautiously. Slip dowels to the hems and the tubes between the panels.