When I ordered my AVL in oh, 1981, a number of weavers informed me that I could no longer call my textiles hand woven. But I do. Because the loom does exactly nothing if I'm not there to make it happen.
The thing with a loom with so many moving parts is that it will fail more often than a loom with fewer moving parts.
After ignoring the AVL for literally months over the winter, the wood had shrunk, nuts and bolts had come loose, and alignment was altered.
Having a loom such as this perfectly aligned is critical or the loom also makes mistakes for you. As mine has been.
Over the past few days I have been tweaking it and now it is almost behaving - but not all the time. As a weaver, I need to be aware and alert for when the mechanics of the loom are going 'wrong' and causing problems.
Fortunately this warp is long and if something goes awry it's not terminal. It just means one of the panels may be cut into tea towels immediately. That means that I can actually have some hemmed well before the conference begins,
So when the loom tosses a cable or a critical piece breaks, I heave a sigh, fix the problem as best I can and see if it is now happy.
Currently reading Swimming in the Sink by Lynne Cox
2 comments:
Thank you! That happens to my AVL. I always thought it was my fault for not understanding it.
And this is exactly why I have firmly decided not to get a loom any more complex than my 8 shaft Macomber. Although it did take years for that decision to become firm ;-)
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