David Morningstar
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I want to start this by giving a big shout out to Jaegoor, Teg, and Sarosh, whose work I am following.
This is the third sling I have made on this loom. Each one has been better than the previous one, and this third one is pretty good so I will show the photos of its making.
My second sling had an asymmetric pouch due to having unequal tension down each side. The loose warp tension that was needed to fit the big wooden shuttle through the warp cords was a part of this. To solve this I used needles instead of the shuttle and I also started weaving from the centre of the pouch out to each edge. Both outer edges would be completed at the same time so getting them equal would be easier.
Here is the start of the pouch on the loom. There are two warp threads running in opposite zig-zags across the loom, two cords in each slot. These paired warps are about twice as thick as the weft thread. The length of the weft is the number of warp pairs multiplied by the length across the warps, plus another metre or two for extra.
I put a needle on each end of the weft thread and centered the weft under the centre warp. I wove out to each end of the pouch and back in again to create a center strip. This strip helps to conceal the seam where the inner edges meet. Then I wove outwards in the familiar expanding shape, one extra warp pair at the end of each row. I did a few rows on one side then a few rows on the other side so that everything would be as equal as possible. When I got to my longest rows I made even more sure that the tension was equal on each edge.
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