Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Gentle Persuasion


This warp is not in an 'ideal' situation.  The threads have been spaced - as you can clearly see - and crammed, which perhaps isn't quite so obvious.

The result of the cramming is that the sheds don't always open cleanly and the weft 'hangs up' and doesn't beat in straight.  Occasionally there are little loops left, which of course are clearly not ideal!

If the loop is close enough to the leading edge of the weft a gentle tug will pretty much straighten it out but if not, the only recourse is to unweave, pull the weft straight and beat it in again.

In order to reduce the number of loops I have resorted to a less than ideal approach to shuttle handling.  Since I have a temple I can actually lay the weft in at a much shallower angle than normally recommended knowing the temple will prevent the weft from drawing the weaving in too much.

And, I did go back and re-sley the 8 selvedge threads.  I was not happy with the extra flick of the shuttle and besides, it really wasn't preventing the build up of the weft at the selvedge.  The only solution then, was to reduce the density of the selvedge threads.

One of the things weavers have to learn is when to vary from the ideal and resort to the art of gentle persuasion.

2 comments:

Sandra Rude said...

Oh, man, does that little loop look familiar. Are you sure those aren't my green tea towels?

Laura Fry said...

You mean I'm not the only one? ;)
Cheers
Laura