Aiming for Efficiency

cheat sheet

yarn package set up

Over the years I've tried various things to keep myself on track when doing certain jobs.

This morning I grabbed the stripe sequence I designed a number of weeks ago using the Fibonacci series (5:3:1:3) where the value for 1 is 2 ends.  This translates into a stripe sequence of:

Colour A - 10 ends
Colour B - 6 ends
Colour C - 2 ends
Colour B - 6 ends...repeat 7 times and finish with Colour A with 10 ends.  The information gets written on a post it note or piece of paper and affixed to the wall just above the warping board for quick and easy reference.

This yarn order makes the selvedge colour the same on both sides and creates a symmetric stripe sequence.

My yarns are set up so that I move from Colour A through B, then C, then back to B.

As I was winding the first warp, I wondered how it would look to swap colour B and C alternately across the width of the warp.  Hmm.

I ran out of the dark grey on the left (Colour A) so I will pull a different combination and try one warp with the colour order as given, then a second one alternating the two secondary colours.  This should provide a little more visual interest as the cloth will not be identical all the way across.  With 7 repeats, the two stripes on the edge will have the same colour sequence so there will be symmetry within the alternation, and I'm thinking it will look quite nice.

The repeat is a total of 24 ends.  To help me keep track of the number of repeats, my counting string will count repeats, not a certain number of ends.  This should aid in tracking the alternating colour stripes when I wind that warp.  Odd repeats will be ABCB and even repeats will be ACBC.

With any luck I can keep close enough track to not make any mistakes!

Doug arranged for a young person to come with his strong back to help with setting up shelving at one end of the studio.  We got up early because we needed to do some prep work so that when Doug's helper arrives, the two of them can jump right in and maybe, just maybe, by the end of the day there will be shelving along the south wall beside the Fanny and there will finally be some place to put a lot of the things that need to be put 'away' but have no where (currently) to go.  If so, we will finally be able to see some actual, concrete progress, instead of just shifting stuff from one corner to another.

We are both sick of the mess and clutter and I really need some order in the studio if no where else in the house.  I'm trying to get some production done, but right now the Fanny is the only loom I really have, and I can't get to it while Doug and his helper set up the shelving.  Of course there WAS a set of shelves along that wall - the rayon chenille that I am currently trying to work with to wind warps.  Right now all of the chenille has been removed and put into bins.  I am going to do the best I can to root through those bins and pull colours to wind scarf warps.

But I am mighty tired of all the clutter and rubble.  Truth is I should have waited until the end of the year to do the studio re-arranging, except that the Megado could arrive any day now and things needed to get done before that happened.  So I am scrambling to try and do what needs to be done while in the midst of a major studio overhaul.

Sigh.  It has to get worse before it can get better.