Bolt

Day 164: I never thought of weaving as creating a bolt of fabric because when I'm making a big project like a tablecloth or coverlet, I weave it as three panels, each separated from the next by an unwoven space and hemstitched on both ends. When I began the Wall of Troy a mere two weeks ago, I decided to weave it as a single length because I had nothing in particular in mind for its eventual use. I warped 24', remembering that with my old loom, I needed to allow five feet of waste, but Max is far more efficient in that regard, and I wound up with almost 21.75' of fabric. When taking it off the loom, I rolled it into...yes, what could only be termed a bolt, just like you'd find in a fabric store. Now, I still don't know how I'll use it, other than to put it in the State Fair this year as "yardage" (minimum length required, three yards), but there it is, ready to be turned into something lovely.

Under Construction - Wall Of Troy

Day 150: Construction has commenced on the Wall of Troy. I am amazed at how much easier it is to hang a warp on Max, owing to the way he was designed. I have mentioned before that Bergman looms can be folded up for transport or storage even when fully loaded with a project. This feature also allows the weaver to remove certain pieces which otherwise interfere with accessibility. The breast beam comes out and can be laid aside, making it easier to reach the warp threads where they lie across the lease sticks, thence to pull them through the heddles. With 480 ends to work with, I figured I would spend the entire day heddling, but the process went much faster than expected, and almost before I knew it (read, "a couple of hours later"), I was ready to thread the reed. That was nearly my downfall, and brings up the one design issue I find problematic with the Bergmans: the warp roller is mounted above the warp, not below, and therefore the warp itself is in shadow. For someone whose vision is poor in low light, this makes dark-coloured threads difficult to see. I thread from the middle outward both ways. After pulling the warp through the reed, I was ready to tie onto the cloth apron, but when I started on the center section, I discovered my sequence was short by five dark brown threads. Sure enough, they were hanging loose in front of the heddles. There was no recourse but to pull that half of the warp out of the reed to be re-threaded. It went fairly quickly since I was threading two ends per dent, but by the time I was done, I was tired and almost ready for bed. After a few minutes of down-time, I decided I couldn't sleep easily until I knew if I had done everything properly. And I had! The Lego-like structure of the Wall of Troy shows up beautifully in natural across a gradient of eight warm tones.