It's a Shed, Not a Barn

One of the reasons I like my small counter balanced loom is that it makes great sheds.

What is great about this shed, you may be asking?  Isn't it a problem that the upper 'ceiling' of the shed is split?

Actually, no, it isn't a problem.  In fact I didn't even notice that it wasn't even until after I'd woven a towel and was halfway through the next.  :)

The thing with sheds is that they are just that - a shed, not a barn.  The threads only have to open sufficiently to  let the shuttle pass freely from one selvedge to the other.

IMHO, a shed to be considered good needs to have the following:

The floor of the shed must be even.

The floor of the shed should not change elevations every time you open it.

If the loom has a shuttle race the shed floor should be on the shuttle race, not floating above it in a different place with every opening.

Counter balanced and countre-marche looms form their shed floor by pulling down on the ends that form the shed floor.  Jack or rising shed looms create the shed by lifting the ceiling ends to form the shed.  Some rising shed looms do this better than others.  For example, my AVL forms a fairly small shed but with a good floor because of how the shafts are situated - they are not all on the same level but slowly descend in elevation and are held in place with springs which keeps the shed floor tight against the shuttle race as the rest of the shafts lift to make the space between the ends.

So, am I going to change the tie up on my Leclerc Fanny to make the ceiling of the shed more even?  Probably not.  I'd rather be weaving.  :)

Distractions Galore

More distractions today, starting with a panicked phone call at 4 am from the other mother.  Poor Doug wound up having to deal with getting her situation sorted out as well as battling through with the work to be done on mom's house.  We should know tomorrow if the buyer will wait until the work is done or if the sale collapses.  But the work has to be done regardless, and the sooner the better.

In the midst of all this I managed to thread the small loom with a towel warp and started weaving.  I consider the first 6 inches to be loom waste/header so when I spotted the threading error I didn't fuss about it too much, just cut the offending ends...

...and pulled them out of the cloth.

There were only actually two ends that were wrong so I fixed those...

sleyed them through the reed and pinned them to the header.

Here is how it looks after weaving the hem and beginning the towel body.

first towel, hems (you should just be able to see the cut line woven in) and the beginning of towel #2

It took me a while to find the 2/16 beige cotton I wanted to use for the hems - the bin had gotten shuffled to the bottom of the pile in the store room.  I could have used natural white, but I really wanted to tone down the colours so that they would go more gracefully with the earthy tones I'm seeing for pottery/dinnerware in the shops.  While the white would have diluted the intensity of the colours, they still would have been quite 'pure'.  With the beige cotton slub and 2/16 cotton for hems, these towels should go quite nicely with the new design colours for interiors.

Mom was up walking today but it looks like they are going to keep her for an extra couple of days, which may mean that she won't come home until the 28th - the day I leave.  But frankly, I'd rather they kept her longer and made sure that everything is going well than send her home too soon!

Currently reading Restless in the Grave by Dana Stabenow

Dreaming of Summer

These colours are right out of my usual palette but aren't they pretty?  Well, I think so, anyway.  :)  (The blue down below is the bit that tied the last warp onto the apron which will get cleaned off right before I tie this one on.)

Before I could even get to the loom, however, I had to deal with that stack (stacks?) of bins with the Magic sample pages.  I packed up a box full for Seattle Weavers Guild to benefit the library (the sample pages will be for sale at their annual Plaid Llama Sale in April, I think).  And I sold another copy of the abridged Magic copies, leaving just 3.  Nearly there!

Today I barely made it into the studio, only going down after eating dinner, rough sleying this warp and then getting it beamed.  Tomorrow I've got more errands - stuff that simply must be done before I leave, like paying bills - including a stop at the chiropractor's for a back/neck tune up.  Wednesday I don't have any appointments scheduled so I'm hoping to get stuck into the studio and get some weaving done.  There's been far too little of that the past week.

All that said, however, we have contractors ready to do the work to mom's house that needs doing and we're keeping fingers crossed the buyer will wait for it to be done.  Unfortunately it means a trip to the roof for Doug to cut a hole for access to the attic, which will then be filled with a brand new roof vent.  :}  The bad news is that it is snowing - not the best time to be on the roof cutting a hole into it.  :(

Today I caught up with a friend I hadn't seen for far too long.  Turns out she's been having an equally challenging year with health issues and we compared notes and generally had a good visit, glad to be alive.  :D  We've promised to stay in closer touch, exchanging email addy's to facilitate communication.

Nearly finished Ian Rankin's book with Dana Stabenow's in the wings.

Reality

A while back Handwoven did a theme about studio spaces.  I declined to participate because I didn't want the world to see what a cramped messy place my studio is in reality.

back view of work table as of 3 pm today - green tubes to be wound onto pirns, plum tubes to be wound into a placemat warp.  Box with bobbins and misc. junque, pile of bobbins, bags with yarn samples for Big Project, cloth samples waiting to be cut up draped over back - bins in background are in foreground of next photo...

pirn winder in background, neatly barricaded behind stack of bins with samples for Big Project, box of yarn peeking out from behind chair with misc clutter in and on bin and yarn awaiting a project draped over chair back

some of the bins of surplus samples left over from Magic in the Water.  I've offered a box full to the Seattle Weavers Guild to be sold in benefit of their library.  I need Doug's help to pack the samples into the box.  The rest of the samples will be - finally - disposed of, freeing up those bins for the rest of the samples for the Big Project (and other storage) - there are two more bins with samples still upstairs that need to be carried down

electric stapler and two boxes of card stock to staple samples onto - table to the right is still covered with misc. clutter - it will be cleared off and used during stapling

stack of yarns, bobbin lace materials and on the shelf and on the very bottom of the pile - more shawls needing to be fringe twisted with a box of misc. yarns that need to be either used up or recycled in some way...

I don't encourage customers to come to the studio and those that do are warned that it is a working studio and is always in a state of creative chaos.  These photos don't even show all of it.  There is also the warping board set up to wind the 2nd half of a towel warp, the plastic bin with the first half already wound, the Woolhouse loom with the bookmark warp Mizz B set up on it two years ago and that hasn't been touched since, various counters with more clutter on them.

Part of the reason for all the untidyness is that I do so many different things, have a stash that cannot be contained in the store room, which is also in a mess.  I need yarn and stuff for production, more yarn and stuff for publications (like the Big Project), yarn and even more stuff for teaching.  The office is similarly full of clutter and creative chaos.  Part of the reason for that is I am loathe to throw anything away because I just know the day after it gets tossed I'll need it.

Fortunately Doug is as much of a packrat as I am.  Or perhaps I ought to say 'unfortunately'!  Mostly he keeps his stuff contained in the laundry/storage area and the garage (which has never in it's life seen a car - he moved his tools and woodworking stuff in and his clutter and mess has expanded to fill it, entirely.)

I'm not sure what will happen to all this 'stuff' as we get older.  In the meantime I'll continue to live with the Mess Fairies, the Clutter Elves and the Lord (and Lady) of Creative Chaos.

Currently reading The Impossible Dead by Ian Rankin - I set Peter Robinson's aside until I get home from my trip - too many library books to read before I leave.  :)

Selvedges Are Over Rated?

So this is what my right hand selvedge looks like on this fabric.  You can clearly see the pale green weft being carried up the selvedge and weft tails hanging out.

Does this bother me?  As I said in my previous post, the selvedges are going to be cut away in the end, so no, they don't bother me in the slightest.

For many years I wove yardage for a fashion designer who cut the fabric to sew her garments.  Did she care about the selvedges?  No.  What she cared about was that I wove the cloth as quickly as possible so that the cloth would cost as little as possible.  Since the time a weaver puts into the weaving is the largest part of the investment in hand woven cloth, every little time saving process I could institute was more money in her pocket at the end of the day.

I think that hand weavers get obsessed about selvedges because by and large most weavers do not cut up their fabric so their selvedges are there for all and sundry to see, not just themselves.  Selvedges are therefore an integral part of their cloth and so they want them to look 'perfect'.

As I've posted before, getting good selvedges is not a one-tip-fixes-all kind of thing.  There are several factors that play into getting good selvedges.

1.  Beam the warp under consistent tension using good packing materials.  Make sure the warp is cylindrical, not cigar shaped.  If the tension is too loose and packing material is not used, upper layers can cut down into lower layers causing all kinds of havoc during weaving resulting in poor weaving tension, not just at the selvedges, but within the body of the cloth.

2.  Try to be consistent about using the correct amount of tension for the yarn being used.  Too loose and selvedges will draw in, usually inconsistently.  Too tight and selvedge ends may break.

3.  Do not weave too close too the beater/reed.  As the fell approaches the reed the angle the warp threads open at becomes more acute putting stress on the threads and usually results in either broken threads or loops at the selvedge.

4.  Wind your bobbins well.  So many weavers have never heard of winding a bobbin by building up a 'hill' at one flange, then running the weft over to the other flange and building up a hill there, and only then filling in the valley between.   If this is not done the bobbin will jam in the shuttle cavity causing pulls at the selvedge and even broken selvedge threads from the repeated stress of the jams.

5.  Leave a good angle and ensure that the weft is not 'locked' into the opposite selvedge - make sure the weft is loose in the shed when beating to ensure the weft can take up and not cause excessive draw in.

6.  Be consistent advancing and tensioning the warp.  (See #2 above)

7.  Be consistent in beating.

Review my video clips on You Tube for bobbin winding and shuttle throwing/handling.
Laura's You Tube Channel
Currently reading Ian Rankin's latest - realized I'm running out of time before I leave so I'm going to read the two books I'm most interested in.  The others can be taken out of the library when I'm home again.

What's Necessary

....and here we go!

It may have been a mistake to put this warp on the loom right now with so many distractions.  On the other hand, weaving this cloth correctly takes focussed concentration, and perhaps this time right now is the perfect time to get my mind off mom's surgery and the sale of her house, which has been giving us fits and starts - did not even think about asbestos insulation, but of course the house is of the correct era for exactly that issue.  Since the house was built in '51-52 and never sold in that time until now, of course no one ever looked in the attic before!

We've requested an extension from the buyer and Doug is scrambling to find someone who can do the work (not an easy task) of removing the old insulation and someone to install new insulation, all as promptly as possible so that the sale doesn't collapse.

Anyway, back to the cloth on the loom. 

There are times when I do use a temple and this is one of them.  I'm trying very hard to beat this cloth at 24 ppi and was only getting about 21 without the temple.  With it, I'm getting much closer to my goal.  Yes, it is a bit slower but once I get into the rhythm it doesn't slow me down all that much and since I'm using the fly shuttle the weaving goes pretty quickly regardless.

I wanted to include a sample with fringe on all four sides in the Big Project, so this two colour warp/weft sample was the obvious choice.  Since the selvedges are going to be cut off anyway, there is no need to worry about the fact that the pale green is being carried up the side for 40 picks.  I don't even have to tuck in the old weft tail and overlap the new one, just leave them hanging out.  Why take the time to do that when they are just going to be cut off anyway?

So now you know my little secret.  I only do what needs to be done to achieve the result that I want.  Sometimes that means a savings in time; sometimes that means taking extra time.  If it isn't necessary I don't do it.  If it is, I do.

Oh, and mom is doing fine.  The surgery went well and when I phoned the hospital yesterday she was breathing on her own, sitting up in a chair waiting to be transferred out of ICU to a regular ward.  :)

Currently reading Before the Poison by Peter Robinson

Ploughing Onwards

Last night I managed to get the AVL set up for the next Big Project warp although I didn't get very far.  This morning I finished it off.

The warp is a bit different from my usual as I wanted to show a colour and weave effect that can be quite nice.  My sectional beam has 1" sections so every other section consisted of 8 blue, 8 green, and 8 blue.  The alternate sections will be filled with all blue.

Starting to fill every other section with the two colour stripe yarns.  The cord for each empty section has been hooked over the adjacent filled section.  It is easier to change out the different coloured ends rather than start with the all blue and cut in the green.

Filling in the rest of the sections with the all blue yarn.  I've taken the individual cords off the sectional staples and am grouping them together out of the way because they tend to get wound into the section I'm beaming.

Warp sections are taped to a stick which then carries all the sections at once to just behind the heddles.  The stick is long enough that I can tape it to the sides of the loom.  If I'm using both beams the warp from the top beam gets suspended from the loom frame at the top while the warp from the lower beam gets taped to the loom frame as shown above.

Currently reading I Am Half-sick of Shadows by Alan Bradley