Lessons Learned

It's been four months since I got started weaving on the Megado and all I have managed is four warps.  Not my usual level of productivity - at all.  But Life Happened - I was sick, not feeling well, had shows to prepare for and when I did feel able to weave, I was on the Leclerc, trying to boost my inventory of place mats.

The Megado is a different loom than the AVL.  Different enough that I am hopeful I will be able to weave for many more years on it.  But it took time to make friends with it.

There are many differences such that I had to adapt not only my processes, but my expectations.

So I started small and upsized carefully, learning more about the loom and myself as I did.

This warp is 2/16 cotton at 32 epi, 24" in the reed.  The warp is approximately 20 yards and I seem to have finally gotten the sectional beaming sorted.  I prefer the AVL tension box for a number of reasons, but the beam is under the back beam with very little room for my hands to work, or to be able to see what I'm doing.  But after changing some things, primarily where my supplemental light was mounted, I could see better and the warp went on with fewer irregularities.

In terms of the weaving, I needed to know if I could fit the entire woven warp onto the cloth beam and still keep good tension on the warp.  As the cloth roll builds up, what you have is a squishy base instead of a good solid one, and this can sometimes cause issues with getting consistent tension as the fell is moved forward and tension reset.  The AVL doesn't have this issue because of the cloth storage roller at the back of the loom.  The tension is held between the warp beam and the breast beam, not along the length of the woven cloth to the cloth beam.

I also wanted to know if the build up of the cloth would become thick enough to interfere with my treadling.

So - lessons learned.

I can - with care - get a good enough warp beamed, even up to 20 yards.  I doubt I will go further than this - because I no longer need to produce to that level.  I will because I have depth of yarn inventory and it needs to get used up!

The cloth beam will hold about 20 yards of woven cloth without too much being in the way of my knees.

The loom will continue to hold tension as I weave that length of cloth.

In the end, I sacrificed one towel worth of warp so there isn't quite the full length on the cloth beam, but I am running out of time and I had learned what I needed to know.  To sacrifice about $2 worth of cotton so that I could move on to the next deadline on my list seemed like a small enough one to make.

The yarn will not actually be thrown away, but in the direction of a friend who asked for my thrums.  She is playing with them in her spinning.

As the year ends, what happens with 'retirement'?  When people would ask me what I would do, I could not give specifics, just that I would continue to weave.  So my list so far looks like this:  (not set in stone, could change)

Megado - silk warp for two scarves, one a gift.  I still need to wind skeins onto cones, crunch the details.  After that, more tea towels - I have more fine linen to use up as weft.

Leclerc - finish the 2nd lavender warp for the customer who wanted lavender themed mats for his mother.

Weave the special order of mats I received at the guild sale.

Weave the special order of mats to go with the tea towels someone  purchased this month.

Jan.  - welcome company for two weeks where we will have some studio fun and I will possibly get some of the white silk made 'not white'

Write up articles and submit to Handwoven to see if they are interested.

Feb - two Intro to Weaving workshops.  Potentially a follow up for those who decide they want to continue.

April - I am holding two weeks open for a possible level 1 and 2 for an Olds satellite class.
May -  Ditto - both of these to be determined
June - Olds Fibre week - level one
July - meet a friend and travel to Knoxville for Convergence where I will buy day passes and hang out with anyone who wants to hang out with me.  :)
August - local fall fair - I will volunteer to work in the guild display (and have my textiles for sale)

My mother always said she didn't know how she managed to find time to work she was so busy when she 'retired'....hmmm....