Rep Swirl - Yuletide Swirl

Having woven all those Rep Weave coasters it occurred to me to try a denser sett using 8/4 cotton carpet warp. Over the years my favorite sett for carpet warp has been 24 e.p.i. For this first attempt I tried 48 e.p.i, two ends per heddle for a working sett of 24 e.p.i.

Yuletide Swirl Rep Runners

Inspiration for the design came from a larger design found in the book Rep by Catharina Carlstedt and Ylva Kongbäck. I adapted a small section from the draft called “Tiger Blue” (page 84) that caught my eye and made it into a table runner.

These colors are pleasing, reminding me of Christmas cards from a bygone era, the 1950’s perhaps. And while they are red and green, they don’t necessarily shout “Christmas”.

The first Yuletide Swirl runner, the one with plied fringe gave me trouble. The places where there are “breaks” in the pattern and the white rag peeks through did not please me. Color blending happened in an area of the smallest pattern blocks and made the colors look muddy. Maybe it would have helped if I’d stuck to blending either reds or greens right there but I’d done both. Then there was trouble with the tension. I found it difficult to beam the warp properly with that many ends and with two ends per heddle.

After weaving two runners with this set-up I found it impossible to continue. I cut the first two off the loom and rethreaded the entire width, maintaining the sett of 48 e.p.i. but switching to one end per heddle. This was essentially a return to the beginning since every single end was involved in the re-thread. While I was at it I rearranged the color order in a few places taking special care in the areas with smallest blocks. It was a lot of work but as they say, “Anything worth doing is worth doing well.”

Left side of photo - Sett: 48 e.p.i., 12 dent reed, 4 ends per dent, 2 ends per heddle
Right side of photo - Sett: 48 e.p.i., 12 dent reed, 4 ends per dent, 1 end per heddle

In the end, the rethreaded runners were a huge improvement and I was far happier with them than the earlier ones. Here you see the runner on our kitchen table. For each month of the year we use a specific tablecloth, placing it beneath a tabletop glass cover. Yuletide Swirl compliments the Christmas table theme nicely.

Yuletide Swirl runner atop our Christmas-themed table cloth

Even though the colors are fabulous, I wasn’t entirely satisfied with these runners. Check back to see what happens with my next Rep Swirl project.

Warp On/Weave Off,

RepWeaver