Blackwater Slinky Weaving

Okay, this is happening. Hubby bought me a slinky – the old-fashioned metal kind (not plastic). I have an all-black warp already on the loom. I usually warp front to back, so it’s all set except for tying on to the front apron rod. I can slide the slinky right onto the reed in the beater and it stays there by itself pretty well. Here’s the plan:

Blackwater Project will weave from bottom up, meaning I’ll be starting at the widest part of the river. I will wind off a warp of the scrumptious bamboo yarn about 1-1/2 times the target length of the weaving. I will sleigh this through the slinky (and only the slinky) at 2 ends per “dent.” I’ll count the dents on the slinky while it’s stretched across the width of the weaving. That will tell me how many ends to wind.

The slinky warp will only go through the slinky, and then up over the front of the beater. This is on the big loom, with an overhead beater, and it has a supporting cross bar just above and behind the harness for the heddles. I will bring the warp over the beater, and then up over that support beam in the back, like a trapeze. From there, I can hang weights on it to provide the tension. So I’ll have a second warp, but it will need to have a manual pick up for each pick. (Have you seen my double-weave pick up projects for Winter and Fall? NO PROBLEM!)

After a few picks, I can pull the slinky out, narrow it up a bit, and slide it back in to the reed again. Repeat several times, and I’ll get to the waterfall portion. I may let it flow freely, I may try to pull a few strands into the weaving to give it a more textured, bubbly feeling. And once I get to the top of the waterfall, I hope to pull each strand across to become part of the weft. So the water will shimmer in the sunlight at the top of the dam, cascade down the dam in a silky torrent, and then widen out into a shallow river with gentle waves from the honeycomb.

Whew – what a relief to have it figured out finally. The rest will be easy. Right?