Designing the Afghan Warp

meter/counter set up for winding spools


meter/counter with tensioner



meter/counter with channeled wheel for measuring yarn

Got the stripe sequence for the afghan warp designed and numbers crunched for how much yarn to wind onto the spools.

I'm working with four different coloured stripes, one of which will be a varigated yarn that will get changed out after weaving two afghans. The varigated yarn will be wound onto the second beam, which is a half yard circumference and is positioned below the big (one yard) main beam.

Over the years I've found that it is much easier to beam the small lower beam first rather than after the big beam has been wound, so I'm starting with the varigated yarns.

The counter is a very accurate (and very expensive) meter made for the textile industry. I bought it back in the '80's when I started weaving for a fashion designer, doing humongous warps and weaving many yards of the same fabric. I needed a way to measure how many yards I'd woven so that I didn't weave too little or too much of each fabric. A measuring tape was not efficient, so I asked Doug to source a proper meter for me. We eventually found this and bought it through an industrial supplier. I think it was around $150.00 at the time, but since I was using the meter to bill the fashion designer and she needed to have an accurate measurement of the fabric, it was well worth the cost.

There were several options for measuring wheels, and we bought two of them. One is a textured wheel that is used for measuring fabric on the loom. The one shown here has a channel and is used for measuring yarn.

This particular meter measures feet - in terms of billing the fabric, a foot meter allowed me to bill in units of 1/3 of a yard.

For doing yarn, it was awkward to hold the yarn as it was winding to provide tension so Doug scavanged the tensioner off the second pirn winder to use to tension the yarn from the cone. With the yarn under tension (a yarn under tension is a yarn under control) I can pay attention to winding the spool and watching the numbers flip by on the counter and not worry about what's happening at the cone end of the yarn.

To work out how much yarn to wind onto each spool I first worked out my stripe sequence in units of one inch (my sectional has 1" sections).

Then I counted how many sections for each colour. This number was then multiplied by the number of yards I wanted my warp to be - with a small fudge factor in case of oopsies.

This number was multiplied by 3 (the meter measures in feet, remember) so I then knew how many feet each spool required.

I only have 60 spools, and since I need 20 spools per section, I have just exactly enough spools to wind the varigated yarn. Once that beam is wound, I'll strip whatever is left on the spools in order to do the other three colours required for the warp.

It's a lot of standing around watching numbers flip by, but since I can only get the Bambu 7 on cones and I didn't want to invest in sufficient cones to beam directly from the cones, standing winding is what I'm going to be doing for the next couple of days.

The Games We Play

I confess that I am getting tired of this warp already. Part of that tiredness is due to the looming deadline for the dance skirts. I'd really hoped to be done this warp by now but I'm only just barely half way through.

I'm tired of having to wind the pirns by hand, thereby needing to use the lighter weight AVL shuttles.

I'm tired of having the shuttle yanked off the shuttle race to go flying into the wild blue yonder. Well, into the wall, at any rate.

I'm tired of needing to walk around the entire loom to pick said shuttle up and re-insert it into the fly shuttle box.

I'm tired of just getting my zen mo-jo happening only to have the pirn run out.

I'm tired of having to adjust the cloth take up because it's picking in at 17, not 18 - and I'd rather beat a few extra times every couple of minutes than have a cloth that is too loosely woven (at my next option, which would be 16 picks per inch).

Since it's hard to keep track of how much I have actually accomplished - which would give me the illusion of being productive in spite of the above list of complaints - I installed the meter onto the cloth so that I can see exactly how much I have woven and therefore do a count down. Right now I am feeling a little bit in limbo because I don't know precisely how much is left to do.

Being able to see precisely what I have accomplished will help to keep me going back to the loom and continuing to weave so that I can see those numbers add up.

It's all an illusion, but it's one that works for me. Carrot and stick - smoke and mirrors. Whatever tricks that work............ :^)

Measuring

One of the ways I earned my income as a production weaver was to weave yardage for a fashion designer. Since I billed per yard woven, I needed a fast and accurate way to measure the fabric, both on and off the loom.

I found a meter - a very expensive one, I might add - built for the textile industry which is accurate in the way that the cheap small ones aren't. Since I was going to rely on the meter for my invoicing, accuracy was of the highest priority.

The meter could be purchased with various measuring wheels so I bought two - one with a textured circumference (as shown above) for measuring fabric, the second with a channel for measuring yarn (for when I'm filling spools for beaming sectionally, etc.)

This meter has been well used and was well worth the price - for me. It's probably overkill for most.

Doug made a wooden gizmo to use for attaching it to the bottom of the loom between the cloth storage roller and the front directional roller. It sits just inside (about an inch) of the selvedge, and counts in feet, rather than yards or inches.

Once done weaving, I would transfer the cloth to my inspection table (also built by Doug - what can I say - he's a keeper!) where I would measure for billing purposes, then inspect and repair the cloth before shipping.

I still use the table for inspection and repair although I no longer weave for the fashion designer. It's just so much easier to stand at the table which was built for me and Doug to do this job than anywhere else. (Doug used to be my studio assistant.)

This method of measuring was much more efficient than any other. Since I was weaving anywhere from 3 to 50 yards (or more) of any particular fabric, using a measuring tape or string or any other method was not going to work particularly well. All I have to do is figure out how much length I need in feet, and then check the meter from time to time to see how close I'm getting to the finish line.

Speaking of finishing lines, I figure I need about 20 feet of this 20" wide fabric to do the samples for Seattle Weavers Guild. They send out between 350 and 360 newsletters, so it's a pretty big job for everyone involved. OTOH, they are still sending out actual samples most of the time, and that's something that not every guild is doing anymore.

On Noise...

Am steadily working my way through the red/blue warp. It is now officially more than half woven. :) This is a shawl woven with 2/10 black Tencel in twill blocks. The ribbon you see pinned to the cloth is one of several I have in various lengths. Rather than use a tape measure, I bought some hemming tape in different colours, cut them to various standard lengths, and pin them to whatever I'm weaving to measure the length I want. For shorter lengths, I'll program the actual number of picks but for longer lengths, like shawls or scarves, it's just as easy to measure with a cloth tape.

About noise.....

Some looms, like the Leclerc Fanny (and almost every Louet loom I've woven on) are very quiet. With the Fanny all you really hear is the slight clatter of the metal heddles as the shed is changed, and the low whump of the beater as it strikes the fell. Not even that if the weft is being placed, rather than beaten.

Other looms, like my AVL, are extremely noisy - unless you weave v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-ly. Since I'm trying to earn money by weaving, I don't have the luxury of weaving slowly/quietly.

When I got my AVL in 1984, I realized that it was much noisier than any loom I'd woven on before, partly due to the sharp clatter of the plastic pickers on the fly shuttle, partly due to the larger sized everything - more shafts, bigger beater and so on.

At the time, Doug was working for an industrial supply house, with a particular interest in safety equipment. He brought home a set of ear muffs, specifically for high impact hearing protection.

Eventually I got headphones so I could listen to books on tape or music, but always rated for high impact hearing protection.

During a recent discussion on a chat group I belong to about wearing hearing protection, one weaver commented that after weaving on her AVL for 20 years - without ever thinking about hearing protection or wearing it - she now has 50% hearing loss.

While we all have to make choices, and ultimately it really does depend on how much you weave, if you have a large AVL at least thinking about hearing protection would be a good idea. Especially if you are a young weaver with many years of weaving ahead of you.