Talking about Weaving

WEIGHTED WARP ENDS

noreply@blogger.com (Peg in South Carolina) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 16:51:00 +0000

I beamed on the warp this morning. This is the picture from the front of the loom showing the weighted warps. At this point I had only about six more inches to wind on.

The white strings hanging from the top of the loom have loops in the bottom. Through these loops I thread my floating selvedges so that they raise and lower more easily the way I want them to.

I now have the warp ends removed from the top of the loom and thrown the the heddle frames. I am reweighting them so that I can easily get the lease sticks moved up close to the heddles in preparation for threading.

The raddle is still sitting on the back of the loom. I will not remove it until I am done threading and sleying. If then.

PRAYER SHAWL RADDLED

noreply@blogger.com (Peg in South Carolina) — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 23:51:00 +0000

Swollen throat, hoarse, headache—reactions to a strong antibiotic. Called doctor and she took me off of it. Whew! Had been given it for bronchitis (why? almost 100% of the time bronchitis is a virus). In any case, have not had had it now for a few days and the antibiotics have been much worse on me. So, to celebrate my no longer taking it, I thought I would practice my singing, no. Sob. I decided instead to wind the rest of the shawl warp.

Then, having done that I thought, why not raddle it. After all, I’m still alive. And I’m not light-headed any more.

So, here is a photo of the raddled warp as seen from the back of my loom. If you look carefully at the table at the front, you can see that the end loops of the warp, slipped through a metal bar, are lying on it. It is ready (tomorrow!) to be dropped to the back beam so the winding on process can begin. Currently masking tape attaches it to the table so that neither human nor cat can easily upset the thing.

If you look at the top of the loom, to the right of the warp, which is thrown up over it, are the 9 weights I will use to attach to the warp to make for even beaming on. Each color section will have its own weight. This is my version of a warping trapeze, and it works just lovely for shortish warps.

Tomorrow I will set that up the weights and then I can beam on. Or maybe, pretty-please-with-sugar-on-it, I will be able to sing????

CONFUSED?

noreply@blogger.com (Peg in South Carolina) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 18:26:00 +0000

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I realized that those of you may be coming to my blog for the first time might be a bit confused by my last post. Here is a brief explanation.

I spent months (actually, perilously close to a year) designing a silk warp for a shawl, dyeing the yarns, and getting the warp on the loom. The warp on the loom of yesterday’s post, is the warp in the waste basket. Why did it end up there?

The original intent had not been a shawl at all. Rather it had been a piece I intended to submit to a competition. The deadline passed, so it became a shawl. It had all become way too much for me. I had to rethread at least 3 times because the complexity of the threading gave way too easily to errors. The treadling, not yet finally decided, was also going to be extremely complex. Moreover, many treadling decisions would be made as I actually wove. Also I was using many colors, entailing multiple shuttles at a time. I had over-reached myself and the joy was gone.

Add to this the fact that voice lessons, innocently started over a year-and-a-half ago, started taking over my life.
It took months, however, for me to come to grips with the fact that the warp, unwoven, had to come off the loom. The prospect of weaving a simple prayer shawl made its removable possible.

Confused?” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on April 26, 2011. ©2011 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

THE WARP IS HISTORY

noreply@blogger.com (Peg in South Carolina) — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 20:49:00 +0000

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

But first I had to take a photo………..

For those who are curious and want to see what this lump of silk looked like on the loom, here it is:

And to read about how happy I was to reach this point, go to this post.

THANK HEAVEN FOR DOCUMENTATION

noreply@blogger.com (Peg in South Carolina) — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 17:51:00 +0000

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

And thank heaven for the wonderful search function in Windows 7 which quickly brought up my files on the acrylic baby blanket I woven several years ago for our grandson.

And why should this matter?

Our church has started a prayer shawl group. I went to the first meeting, but when the meetings were set on a day I could not come, I fully expected I would knit on a prayer shawl at home. The more I thought about it, the less I liked it. I have too many other things right now that I would rather knit and not enough loose time (i.e., car travelling, doctor waiting, etc.) to do it all. But…………..

I could weave one!

The baby blanket I had made provided the perfect model. Machine washable, the right grist. Perfect. So I worked out the numbers.

I was going to wait a bit before ordering the yarn. And then I thought, no, do it now. So I ordered to cones, one a light dusty blue, one a medium blue. I will weave large checks of these two colors.

But…………..the current warp still has to come off the loom. I am getting close to actually doing it!

Related Post: Reflections on the Baby Blanket

TREADLING PATTERN DECIDED

noreply@blogger.com (Peg in South Carolina) — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 20:32:00 +0000

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

This draft represents only a very small part of the threading. And the colors are not those I will be using. I chose them in order to see clearly what is going on. The treadling is based on overshot treadling. That is, for each given block, I simply repeat that particular treadle x times.

Overshot requires a tabby between shots or the floats will be excessively long. But that is not possible in this crackle draft because there is no plain weave possible. No plain weave; no tabby. So the threads that will be used to prevent excessively long floats will be called binder shots here.

What I would then ordinarily do is one of two things:

Find a treadle for the binder shot which would give me something close to the opposite of the pattern shot.
For each pattern shot in a given block, treadle one of the remaining treadles, a different one for each pattern shot.

I have done something only slightly different here. For each block I have picked two different treadles for the binders and alternated them for the duration of the block.

But I have done something else a bit different as well. Not only are the binder shots a different color from the pattern weft; the shot on one treadle is one color, and the shot on the other treadle is a different color.

The pattern shots will be use 60/2 silk; the binder shots will use 120/2 silk. This difference will obscure a bit the pattern colors, which is exactly what I want.

The trick to all this, is going to be choosing colors. My overall idea is start with everything pretty much the same color—the browns and browned greens of the warp—and then slowly to bring in brighter colors, first in the binder shots, then in the pattern shots.

The photo on the left is from the original sampling, together with the as-of-then uncorrected threading errors. The place to look at is the last 4 blocks. Again, these are not the colors I will be using in the actual piece, but it does give an idea of the kind of effect I am after as well as the possibilities for manipulation of colors for lesser or greater clarity of blocks. In short, the binder shots wil serve much more than to provide a stable fabric; they will be an essential part of the color plan.

ICE BRINGS ME BACK TO LOOM

noreply@blogger.com (Peg in South Carolina) — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 19:52:00 +0000

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Yes, ice resulted in yet another voice lesson cancellation (till tomorrow) and so gave me the opportunity to get back to work on my much neglected warp. The progress is clearly visible.

I did the following:

I cut off the woven segment in the center, letting the warp ends hang loose from the beater.
I tied those ends in groups of 32 ends in loose temporary knots
I replaced all the knots with overhand knots.
I cut the ends off the overhand knots so that they would be even
I lashed the ends to the front bar, using medium polyester cord.
I adjusted the warp ends for even tension
I threw the first shot on treadle 1
I corrected the the crossed warp ends that that shot revealed.
I threw shots on each of the six treadles, repeating this several times.
I readjusted the tension
I stopped for the day

Needless to say, I am mightily pleased with myself!

What I now must do.

Try to figure out which of the sample treadlings I am going to use. A few months ago, I knew which one, but I didn’t make a note and so…………
Figure out what colors I want to start weaving with
Wind the necessary bobbins
Double check the warp tension.
Hold my breath
Breathe
Start weaving

But not tomorrow.

Related Post: Resleying Done and I am Stunned

RESLEYING DONE AND I AM STUNNED

noreply@blogger.com (Peg in South Carolina) — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 20:10:00 +0000

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

We have snow today, with ice promised for this afternoon and evening. I am supposed to have a voice lesson this afternoon. On Facebook yesterday my teacher posted a notice that if the storm came in, lessons would be canceled. Sooooooooooooo…………….

What a perfect opportunity, I thought to myself, to steal an hour to finish sleying the warp. Whoopeee!!

As is clear from the photo, I am still not ready to tie on. I still have to cut off the correctly sleyed central portion and tie those cut ends into groups of 8 (for a total of 32 ends). But the hardest part is done. And even my beloved auto sley hook worked like she should.

Related Post: Getting There But Going Crazy

GETTING THERE BUT GOING CRAZY

noreply@blogger.com (Peg in South Carolina) — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 20:44:00 +0000

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Today I went back to the loom—at last!—to continue the interminable sleying. Much to my joy I finished sleying the right side. That was all I had intended to do today. But……………..there really wasn’t a whole lot to sley on the left side…………….why don’t I just make a start?

Sleying the left side has been a nightmare, largely because of the threading. On the right side, the loom was threaded such that every 4 threads were pulled from one set of shafts and every other 4 threads were pulled from the second set of shafts. And there are 4 ends in each space.

But on the left side, I clearly did something with the threading. No threading error really shows because the error was in a transition from one block to another. But because of this error, every 4 threads I pull out to sley has 3 ends from one set of shafts and 1 end from the other. That way lies madness. Even my fancy auto sley hook gave me such grief that I had to resort to pulling out only 4 ends at a time and sleying it with an ordinary sley hook.

I did get 16 ends sleyed on the left side and, given a fresh start on another day, I should be able to finish it in one sitting. Hope springs eternal…………..

I do actually have plans for this miserable warp. It had, long long ago, been intended as a shawl for a competition. Forget it. What I am now thinking of is creating some pillows out of it, perhaps cutting it up into patchwork. If I do the patchwork thing, it could possibly work into an interesting vest.

I do hope my imagination returns when I start the actual weaving!

Happy New Year!

Related Post: Pulling My Head out of the Sand

PULLING MY HEAD OUT OF THE SAND

noreply@blogger.com (Peg in South Carolina) — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 17:15:00 +0000

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

My warp still sits on the loom, waiting patiently for me to find the time(?) to finish the sleying, tying on, and in general just getting it ready to be woven. I have lost interest in it.

It has been hard for me finally to say this: I have lost interest in it.

I have not, on the other hand, lost interest in weaving. But I no longer have the kind of energy that I originally brought to this particular warp. The tremendous energy I have been bringing to weaving these past few years, and which has culminated in this particiular warp, has been diverted. To music. To singing. To working on the development of my voice. And this requires more physical and mental energy, more purely physical strength, than weaving has ever required. The work is exhausting. The result? I simply have neither the physical nor the mental energy left that this warp demands.

To give me the energy that singing demands, I have upped my levels of aerobic exercise and of strength-building exercise. I sleep like a baby!

So I have been tempted to just cut the warp off and throw it away. Get it out of the house. Out of my sight. But I cannot seem to be able to do that either. Doing that would break my heart.

THREADING PROBLEMS YET AGAIN

noreply@blogger.com (Peg in South Carolina) — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 22:51:00 +0000

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Before I started winding bobbins I decided I needed to do just a bit more testing of this warp. I wove two blocks. Whoops.

PROBLEM ONE
I learned that I cannot do the kind of treadling with six blocks that I had intended. When I get to using treadles five and six as the pattern treadles, I cannot use the same pattern of treadles for the binders that I used on the first four pattern treadles. What I will do is keep the original treadling for the first four blocks and when I start blocks five and six, figure out which treadles will work as the binder treadles.
Why didn’t this show up in the software? Probably I didn’t know what I was looking for.

PROBLEM TWO
There are, yes there are, threading errors! I fussed and fumed for a bit. Well, actually, for quite a bit. Then I began to wonder if there was a way I could correct these errors by either removing heddles or adding repair heddles, depending on what I found when I started investigating.
These threading problems all occur when, and only when, I change blocks. This means that I do not quite understand the process of changing blocks in terms of the threading. It also means that when I check the drawdown for errors in the future on this kind of crackle, I need to watch especially carefully those places between blocks.

THREE THREADING ERRORS
I was glad there were only three!

1. In the case of the first error, the last thread of one block was not on the correct shaft. I added a repair heddle to that shaft, removed the errant warp end and rethreaded it into the repair heddle, sleyed it and pinned it to the woven fabric.
2. The second error involved simply removing a heddle and removing the warp end. That solution will cause me to have to resley everything from there to the right side of the loom. And I will have to tie on the whole warp. Still, that is not as bad as rethreading!
3. And the third error, like the first, involved adding a repair heddle to another shaft, remove the warp end from the incorrect heddle and thread it through the correct one.

Before I made these corrections, by the way, I checked VERY CAREFULLY the drawdown
So now I can cut off a small bit of warp on the left side of the loom and a larger bit on the right side and prepare for some re-sleying. Again.

FOUR BLOCKS AND SIX BLOCKS

noreply@blogger.com (Peg in South Carolina) — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 20:56:00 +0000

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I have treadled the blocks in twill order and in that case, adding the two blocks at the end is really a distraction to any pattern. That does not mean that I will not use them. It does mean that I will have to plan what blocks I treadle when, focusing as well on the color interactions that will occur.

To complicate matters still further I have included an Italian manner of treadling this crackle. It works beautifully with standard 4-shaft crackle. This, however, is not standard 4-shaft crackle, but rather an innovative threading of crackle explained by Zielinski. I really like this because it creates a more complex surface effect. But would Italian treadling work here?

Here I have used blue for the pattern wefts. The only real difference between the two treadlings is that the first treadling has two (different) binder threads between each shot of pattern weft. But this second treadling has only one. the result, in this second treadling, is a greater emphasis on the pattern. And again, when treadled in twill order, the last two treadles are a bit of a distraction to any pattern.

So, do I want the weft pattern strongly emphasized or not? Actually it also seems that in this second one, the warp emphasis blocks are also stronger. So, do I want those patterns emphasized or not?
Why not do both? I plan, in the weaving, to move from primarily dull and dark colors to brighter colors, and perhaps I could move in a parallel manner with the way the binders are treadled. We shall see. I am probably getting far too complicated for my own good.

Still, I think I am ready to try to see if I can substitute the actual colors I plan on using for these rather strident colors and see what happens. I suspect I will not have the patience, but I will try. Or perhaps that is a foolish waste of time. After all, these colors that look so strident in the software are the colors are used in the sampling and there is certainly no stridency there. Perhaps it is time I shed my fears and get back to the loom.
But first I have to wind bobbins………………

PLAYING WITH THE SOFTWARE

noreply@blogger.com (Peg in South Carolina) — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 20:34:00 +0000

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

In the sample weaving that I did at the beginning of the warp, I had tried different treadlings. The one I saw as having the most possibilities was the last treadling. Before I start working in earnest on the warp, I decided to work with the software. And here is the result as displayed in a page from my e-sketchbook.

The image at the top of the page is about half the warp, reduced so as to give a sense of the fabric.

The second image is a blown-up detail to give a sense of what is actually going on. The red wefts are the pattern wefts and they are twice as large as the other wefts, the orange and the blue, which are the binding wefts.

The tieup and treadling are to the left. And finally a photo of the actual fabric.

I used a black warp in the software, but I used the same colors in the weft as I did in the sampling.

How much more garish the drawdown appears than the actual fabric. The black warp plays into the garishness, but even so………. It is really difficult, though probably not impossible, to get the kind of subtlety the fabric displays in the software. The most obvious problem here is that the impact of the smaller binding wefts is far greater in the fabric than it would appear in the computer drawdown. That is why I would never trust choice of colors to the software. Only actual sampling will work there.

I realize now that this used only 4 of the possible 6 treadles that I have available in the tieup. Looking at the tieup on the reproduced page will reveal that. So the next thing to do is to create a version with all 6 treadles next.

Related Post: E-Sketchbook

READY TO WEAVE ONCE AGAIN

noreply@blogger.com (Peg in South Carolina) — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 00:55:00 +0000

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

This has been really really slow going. My heart has not been in it. My juices have not been flowing. There has been no eagerness.

But now all that is beginning to change just a bit. I feel as though deep inside there is a spring that is beginning to come alive and reveal a bit of its bubbling water.

It is true. My heart is in singing. Nearly my entire heart. I was beginning to think that there was no room there for weaving. But I think that maybe there is. The real trick will be to pace my energies.

INITIAL TRIAL WASHED AND PRESSED

noreply@blogger.com (Peg in South Carolina) — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 17:39:00 +0000

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

A quick and dirty shot reflected in the mirror.

I am much happier with this sampling than I was when it was on the loom. Washing in very hot soapy water followed by hard pressing on a wooden board has resulted in a fabric that is delicate and drapes beautifully. I now believe it will be very worthwhile to take my time to get the color decisions and the weaving right.

Related Post: Crackle Threading Issues Emerge

CROOKED CONE

noreply@blogger.com (Peg in South Carolina) — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 18:09:00 +0000

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Well, it’s not the cone that is crooked; it’s the winding.

When I got to this point, I could no longer turn the handle. Something was jammed. I am not a mechanic. Still, I took the cone off the winder, turned the winder upside down in my hand. I looked through the tiny opening and it seemed to unmechanical Peg that there were bits of threads caught in the gear mechanism. What to do?

Could I take it apart to get at the gears? I saw 4 screws on the bottom. I removed them and proceeded to pull the bottom of the winder away from the top. But it wouldn’t come apart. Was there something else I could do?

I’d had this (relatively) inexpensive winder for close to 10 years. I knew I wouldn’t feel badly about buying a new one. But I was still determined to try to get it back into working order.

I could not find another way to separate them into the two pieces. But, there was enough of an opening that I could clearly see the threads caught in the gears, but not enough of an opening for even one finger to slip through.

I tried a long beading tweezers, but even that was too wide. So I took a crochet hook and poked around until a thread came to where I could grab it either with my fingers or tweezers. Then I pulled it out of the gear. I did this any number of times, pulling out not only threads but bits of dust ball sort of things. Finally, the gear mechanism seemed to be clean of any garbage.

I put a fresh cone on, attached the thread, took the handle in my fingers and turned. It turned freely. It wound out correctly. I am so proud of myself!

WHY I RAN OUT OF HEDDLES

noreply@blogger.com (Peg in South Carolina) — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 17:55:00 +0000

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Today I cut off the right side of the initial weaving. Then I tied the previously sleyed ends of the right side in bow knots so that they would not slip through the reed as I sleyed the left half. So far so good.

Then I began sleying the left side. I hadn’t gotten very far when I ran into a clump of empty heddles on shaft 2. Oh dear. I don’t know how I managed to do that! But at least I know why I had to add all those heddles on shaft 2 at the end of the threading.

But what to do now? Do I rethread yet again? I decided that there was no way I was going to do that. I decided to leave those empty 8 heddles on. Because of where they are in relation to the threading, i don’t think they will cause a problem when I weave. And if they do………….off with their heads! The monetary cost of 8 heddles is hardly worth all that re-threading!

Related Post: Adding Heddles – Take Two

ADDING HEDDLES – TAKE TWO

noreply@blogger.com (Peg in South Carolina) — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 00:37:00 +0000

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I am done threading, but the warp didn’t let me off easily. When I got to the last block, I discovered I needed 8 more heddles on shaft 2. Huh? I didn’t need them when I originally threaded this side? Obviously, I have done some things differently. Did I make other mistakes in my first threading? Or did I make mistakes this time? It will be interesting to see what happens when I start weaving.

Also, irony of ironies, the first time I threaded this project, I discovered at the end of the threading that I had to add more heddles. You can read about this at my June 14th post, “Adding Heddles”

Adding heddles to a loom is not all that hard. When the loom is empty. A warp on the loom makes it, at least for this loom, a much harder job.
In the photo at the left, I have tried to give an idea of how tight things are at the shafts on the left side of the loom. It’s not that there are heddles right up against the left side that is the problem. The problem is the tiny space between the left side of the shafts themselves and the side of the upright.
Look at the top flat metal runner that slides through the tops of the heddles. You can see that it ends on the left by slipping through a hole in the vertical piece connect the top and bottom of the shaft. Just between that vertical piece and the loom upright, barely visible is the gray metal rod that gets clicked into the hole at the end of the vertical piece. There is barely any room for my fingers to work!

I definitely was not going to remove heddles from an overloaded shaft and move them to shaft 2. I did not want to have to deal with more than one shaft.

So I pulled 8 heddles off a string of heddles that I had not used up earlier. I pulled them onto two knitting needles, one needle inserted through the tops of the heddles, the others through the bottoms. That is what I normally do when I add heddles. The knitting needles keeps them neatly in order.

But the space here is much too cramped for the knitting needles. So I then cut another string and poked the string through the bottom and top of the heddles and tied the ends together in a bowknot. Simple.
Then came the hard part: getting them on the shaft.

That involved getting the runners that the heddles slide onto unlocked from the top and bottom of the shaft and then pulled out of their slots. A screwdriver for leverage helped quite a bit. But putting on 8 heddles at a blow in a tiny space with little room for maneuvering was not easy. One at a time would have been easier. But I did get them on. The runners are back in the slots but I could only lock the top one. I doubt that the bottom will present a problem.

And I am done threading!

“Adding Heddles - Take Two” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on September 3, 2010. ©2010 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

NEW GLASSES FOR COMPUTER, I MEAN, FOR WEAVING

noreply@blogger.com (Peg in South Carolina) — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 21:00:00 +0000

Posted by Peg in South Carolina
I got a new computer a month ago and also a great big LED screen. The screen is wonderful, except that I was getting a neck ache because I was lifting up my head so I could read the screen through the lower part of my bifocal glasses. I knew that the next time I went to the eye doctor, I would have to talk to him about what to do.

But then I got an idea. What if I got a cheap pair of plastic frames and had the whole lens be the prescription for the reading part of my bifocals? I went to the store. And yes, though she was not happy about not having a prescription from the doctor specifically for that. I practically had to swear in blood that I would not complain if they did not work.

Three days later, I had my glasses. I can read the computer beautifully with no neck strain.

I can also thread heddles much more easily. That was a surprise. That means that sleying the reed will be easier with these glasses as well.

But the biggest surprise was how well I could see all around. Things are a tiny bit wonky when I look into the distance but still quite clear; so just to get up to go the bathroom or to get something, no need to change glasses. I am shocked because I am so very near-sighted. Or at least, I thought I was. Without glasses, I am hard put to even find the chart in the eye doctor’s office with out my glasses on, let alone try to read any of the letters.

I have been told that I have extremely bad astigmatism. I wonder if, in reality, I am not particularly near-sighted, just stuck with astigmatism! I will have to ask.

“New Glasses for Computer, I Mean, for Weaving” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on September 3, 2010. ©2010 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

RE-THREADING

noreply@blogger.com (Peg in South Carolina) — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 17:59:00 +0000

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

PREPARATIONS

Chuck held warp ends taut and pressed treadles. I got the lease sticks in.
You can tell from the tautness and neatness of the threads, those that are still attached to the woven cloth. And it is clear that these are not tabby sheds. As I said, you cannot get tabby on this threading.

The messier side is where the warp ends had been disconnected at the fell and Chuck was holding them. Though I don’t have perfect tabbies, these sheds, combined with the raddle divisions, should give me a good enough way to make choices when I start threading.
My next step was to pull all those ends out of their heddles. When I did this, I discovered that there were some ends that had not been caught in the lease sticks at all. I was able to use my raddle (still sitting on the back beam) to determine where those ends were to be inserted into the lease sticks.

RE-THREADING MORE DIFFICULT THAN THREADING

So I have begun the threading. Not quite halfway through. It is harder going than when I did it originally. Normally when I thread, I remove the back beam and the cloth beam. Doing this allows me to get closer to the heddles. Since, however, the right half of the warp is still attached to the cloth beam, I had to leave both beams in place. This means some awkward leaning over to reach the heddles. Not easy on the back.

Sometimes I stand. Sometimes I sit. Neither way is perfect but at least it changes my body position.

When I inserted the lease sticks, I did not choose the best sheds. Not realizing it, I had chosen sheds that always left 3-4 warp ends next to each other either going under or going over the lease sticks. I am hoping that this will not create a problem when I start to weave. I worry about sheds not clearing properly. Only time will give me the answer to this one!

“Re-Threading” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on September 3, 2010. ©2010 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

FAITH AND WEAVING

noreply@blogger.com (Peg in South Carolina) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 13:51:00 +0000

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I just found the following tidbit on a sewing blog. I couldn’t resist making the connection to weaving and wrecking thousands upon thousands of yards of yarn (not to mention, fabric).

To paraphrase Kenneth King (big shot teacher), if you don't wreck thousands of yards of fabric, you're not really learning to
sew. That makes me feel good and terrible, all at the same time. I mean, hello, I'm well on my way to meeting that goal :-).
And yet, really, who has that much fortitude?

From a post called Faith-Based Education by K-Line.

RE-THREADING: GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS

noreply@blogger.com (Peg in South Carolina) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 18:36:00 +0000

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

THE GOOD NEWS

I carefully checked the threading errors in the draft itself against the actual threading on the loom. I discovered that there are no problems at all on the right side. The major threading error in the draft I must have caught while I was threading, because the threading at that point is absolutely correct. The other possible errors on the right side were not errors at all, at least visually.

In short, the threading errors begin on the left side, a little left of center. I pinpointed where I needed to start the re-threading, both on the warp itself and on the the draft. With great confidence, I then cut off the left side close to the fell. I should always worry when I do things with great confidence. For that led to

THE BAD NEWS

I no longer had the lease sticks in. I no longer had a cross. Once a pulled the threads out of the heddles I would have to way to tell what order to pick up the threads for threading in the heddles.

BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLY BAD NEWS

1. I still had the raddle on the back beam. There are 15 ends in each raddle section. That represents 1/4-inch worth of warp ends. So I could use the raddle to select my threads from. How would the weaving go? Definitely better than having no order. Otherwise, I don’t know. I would worry about crossed ends, so at least for awhile I would always be checking the back of the loom each time I moved the warp forward.

2. I have a husband who I think could hold the ends taut and step on the appropriate treadle. Standing at the back of the loom, I could then insert the warp sticks into the sheds. The sheds would not be perfect tabbies, as that is impossible on this kind of warp. And it will not be easy to clear the sheds in order to put in the lease sticks. But I think it is worth a try. So tonight I will put him to use.

QUESTIONS

1. I almost always leave the lease sticks in when I weave. Maybe 3 times in my weaving life have I removed them. Why did this have to be one of them?!?

2. Having removed the lease sticks, why didn’t I think to put them in before I cut off the warp?

CHECKING THE THREADING IN THE SOFTWARE

noreply@blogger.com (Peg in South Carolina) — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 19:02:00 +0000

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

And it does not look promising. At this point, just looking at

1. The threading – noting the blocks and finding some definite problems and some possible ones

2. The fabric as it appears on the computer screen – finding definite problems

Here is a view of part of the fabric as it appears, treadled in the Italian manner. This is the treadling I am strongly favoring right now:

How many threading errors can you find? Two of them really stand out, but there are others. Why, why, why did I not do this before I even started to thread? Truly, I am not stupid! I guess I simply did not realize just how well the software could display the smallest of errors if I used it well.

And here is a clear threading error illustrated in the threading—actually a small cluster of threading errors covering 12 ends:

If you can’t find it in the threading, look at the drawdown and the error is clearly visible. This, by the way, is on the RIGHT side of the warp, where I did not think there were any errors. I had seen errors only on the left side…………..

Of course, once I am done with this, I will have to check all this against the actual fabric and threading. It is possible that

1. I corrected some of the threadings as I did the threading

2. That I simply did not see some of the threading errors in the woven cloth. Alerted, I will now probably see them.

It seems likely at this point (not yet finished with the analysis) that I am going to rethread the whole thing.

Well, I am not done yet. And tomorrow we leave for a weekend in Charlotte. That will get me away from all of thlis and I will return ready to tackle anything that needs to be tackled. Or, at that is the hope!

Related Post: Process versus Product

CRACKLE THREADING ISSUES EMERGE

noreply@blogger.com (Peg in South Carolina) — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 21:17:00 +0000

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

PLEASED BUT A FEW ISSUES ANYWAY

I am very pleased with how the warp is handling during this test weaving. I still have some problems with clean sheds. The problem is clearly visible in the mirror I use and it is easiily resolved by simply strumming with my hand the top part of the warp. Since I am sampling, I am fairly easily prone to treadling errors, but once I settle on the treadling structure, that problem should begin to clear itself up.

I am also having problems with the selvedges. The selvedges themselves are fine. The problem is that weft threads tend to get caught there and form loops—sometimes long loops. I am using 3 shuttles and that is a normal problem. I have not been particularly concerned with it during the test weave, but when I start the real stuff, I will have to become concerned.

Related to that problem is little loops of weft sometimes appearing somewhere across the warp. They are probably also on the underside. I should be able to resolve that by tightening the tension just a bit on my end feed shuttles.

I am ready to start sampling with the yarns I dyed for this project. No more stash yarns! I have a good idea of what I want to do, but I will have to test it. I was getting so excited.

Yes, the tense of the verb is correct – “I WAS getting so excited.”

THE “BIGGIE”

I have been watching a nasty line develop along the length of the warp in one spot on the left side. The detail below shows it quite distinctly.

I finally checked it out. As I suspected, a threading error.

A SOLUTION

I figured that I could insert the 4 necessary repair heddles on the correct shafts. I could lengthen the 4 yarns by tying on more length to each of them. Then, after threading and sleying, I could put a pin in the weaving and wind the yarns around the pin to tension them. Or I could just weight them off the front of the loom.

Doing this was going to be a bear. I decided to wait until this evening when my husband was home. That way he could hold each shaft up for me while I attached the repair heddles.

But…

ANOTHER SOLUTION

There is at least one more similar threading error on the left side. So I really think re-threading the left side is in order. Also, the sett 0f 60 epi means that the heddles are pretty close together and in the problem area I would have 4 empty heddles taking up the same amount of space that the 4 repair heddles would take up. This, it seems to me, could affect the cleanness of the sheds. Sigh

So, right how this is my plan.

Cut off the warp at the fell, but only on the left side, beginning with the first threading error. To keep the warp rod level and steady, I will insert a piece of wood for it to rest on. I will pool the ends out of the reed and out of the heddles and re-thread that side. First, of course, I have to find in my threading draft where that starts.

I will re-thread, praying that I make no new and surprising threading errors. Resley. Then cut the rest of the warp off at the fell, remove the weaving and tie on the warp again.

Hoping all that goes uneventfully, I will then test-weave one more sample with stash yarns; then start using the real yarns………..

WHO IS IN CHARGE HERE?

Am I getting discouraged? Well, yes. At least at times I feel discouraged. But really, a better word to describe my feelings right now is a kind of calmness. Actually almost a sense of numbness. I no longer care about getting this finished, at least in any particular time frame. I just kind of feel like I am in some kind of time warp (pun?) where the piece is in control. It is going to be ready to weaving only when it is ready.

BLOGGER SIGN-IN SOLVED

noreply@blogger.com (Peg in South Carolina) — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 21:01:00 +0000

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

The magic phrase? Enable 3rd-party cookies. As soon as I did that and restarted Firefox, the issue was solved.

“Blogger Sign-in Solved” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on August 14, 2010. ©2010 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina