I'm playing with a practice warp of 8/2 cotton until my Season 2 kits arrive. I originally had it sleyed at 20epi in my 10 dent reed (2 per dent). After weaving a few yards and practicing the "throw, beat, change, beater back" mantra, I decided to re-sley at 18epi following the master sett chart. I have an 8 dent and 10 dent reed with my David 3. So my question is this: is it better to use the 8 dent and sley 2-2-2-3 and yield a true 18epi or use the 10 dent and sley 1-2-2-2 and yield 17.5epi?
Oh gosh Scott, that is 6 of one, half dozen of the other, LOL....Honestly, you won't be able to see the difference.
Somewhere way back in Season 2 I wove 8/2 cotton at different epi's right down to 12. This simple little yarn gives us so many different types of cloth. But honestly, ....the difference between 17.5 or 18 won't be noticeable. What you do get from these uneven sleyings, especially in plain weave....is the bonus patterning from the reed. I love it. Have fun.
Thank you Jane! I didn't think it would make a difference, but coming from the quilting world where a thread's width can change your seam allowance and dramatically change your quilt size, I wanted to ask for clarity. I have watched Episode 2.1.3 (and rewatching it now). I'm totally cool with dent lines. I'm guessing the different sleyings will give different dent line effects or prominence? If there is enough length left on this warp, I may change dents and re-sley so I have a visual reference for my notebook going forward.
I’m always up for trying different things :). Let us know what happens.
Here are the results from my experiment (before washing & shrinkage). It appears the 8 dent reed sleying yields warp-dominant dent lines while the 10 dent reed sleying yields weft-dominant dent lines.
They definitely will look different before washing. Can you post pictures after washing….wet finishing changes things remarkably. That will be very helpful :)