Tweaking the Set Up

Little by little, the studio is taking shape.  With the replacement of the AVL with the Megado, changing the old computer cabinet into a music storage cabinet, I needed something for the laptop to sit on.  We jury-rigged something until Doug had time to fetch the table from the annex, but I asked if he would put a shelf underneath. 

There were a few things I wanted to have beside me, rather than behind me - pads of post-it notes, pencil, scissors and a place to put bobbins.  And the boombox.  The Megado has a fairly loud solenoid click, and with hearing loss a reality, I felt it would be prudent to wear hearing protection while weaving with the Megado - just like I'd done for 40 years with the AVL.  Different looms, different noises, but still...noise. 

There are still lots of things to be done, but these little steps of progress feel good.  The studio becomes a little more functional every week.

The corner at the back, behind the computer stand, will have another set of shelves installed, but they need to be fitted to the space so will take some time and effort yet.  Once those are done and whatever I decide to store there gets stored there, the final position of the loom and stand will be determined.  And then the rest of the studio can be adjusted as well.

In the meantime I managed three sessions at the loom today.  The bad news is that I'm so far 'behind' where I'd hoped to be I don't know if I can get the shawls off the loom and fringe twisted in time for Doug to press next weekend.  But the press is waiting for this warp to be done as these will be the last things pressed on Puff.  The end of an era!  Then it will be back to the small flat bed press.  So in all likelihood I probably won't make shawls in the future, just scarves.  To be determined.

Now that I'm almost at the half way mark on this warp I have been thinking about the next warp.  I will return to tea towels, so the width will decrease to 24" but the length will increase from 32 turns of the beam to 45.  The warp will be 2/16 cotton at 32 epi.  The yarns are already pulled for two tea towel warps, each one intended to use up as much linen as it takes to weave them off.  I just have to decide on a design.  I will continue to scale up slowly until I'm sure I've worked out all the processes so that I'm getting good results.  This warp was 32 turns and so far the tension is fine, so that is feeling positive.

And it just dawned on me that the Megado has almost no vibration to speak of so I could actually listen to CDs on the boombox, not just the cassette tapes.  Hmm....more options!