Jutta's Band

Day 126: Another loom emptied! And I'm having a little problem...a little grey fuzzy problem...with reloading this one because the warp has to be stretched across the length of the living room. Merry thinks suspended threads are a kitty zip-line, so I have to wait until he looks like he's going to stay soundly asleep for an hour or so before I can even think about stringing a new warp. That's one major difference between a Leksand loom like Jutta and a Scandinavian band-loom like Nelda. A warp destined for Nelda can be measured off on a warping board, chained and managed exactly like the warp on a shafted loom. In my experience, tension problems occur when warping a Leksand loom unless it is direct-warped like a rigid heddle. This particular band was woven with 16/2 cotton for the ground (white), 10/2 singles for both the border and pattern threads. It is a little over five yards in length. Jutta was built by Ed Stevens, and was his prototype model. For that reason, she is very precious to me, and I have to figure out a way to foil Small Cat so she can be about her work again.

Warping The Big Inkle

Day 48: Nothing preys on my mind quite so much as an empty loom. For some months now, the big inkle has been serving as a cat-baffle in a location forbidden to Merry, its pegs sufficient to render access almost impossible. It's been driving me nuts to have it sitting unused, so now that he's bigger, I was able to replace it with something else, and spent yesterday warping it to its full capacity of 110". So anxious was I to start inkling on it again that I didn't consider how difficult it was going to be for my old eyes to see the threads of a rich blue 10/2 cotton ground. I keep getting them on the wrong side of the nine 8/2 white pattern threads as I do Baltic pickup.And that's not the only woopsie I keep making. The last band I wove contained seven pattern threads, so my verbal shorthand of "3-1-3" means something different with nine threads, namely that the first and last are ignored in this case. Had I chosen to use 11, 15, 21...anything with more than just one more thread on each side...I wouldn't have confused myself quite so thoroughly. That said, now that I'm a few motifs into the band, my thinker is beginning to readjust. Better lighting is helping with the thread pickup issues as well. As I've mentioned a few times recently, I currently have the attention span of a gerbil, working on any one project until I've completed a single motif, then moving over to the spinning wheel to spin up a six-inch chunk of wool, then knitting five rounds on a sock. I suppose it doesn't matter because my hands are always busy, and I complete every project, usually bringing three or four to fruition within days of each other. Now Inky-Dinky Inkle is empty, giving me baleful glances from the shelf. I have to do something about that fairly soon.

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.

The Gatorade Method

Day 356: When I first began weaving, I had an assistant to help with warping in the person of my husband. "Help" is perhaps a mis-statement, because although I had heard that combing that warp with the fingers to straighten out tangles was a bad idea, he refused to listen to my instructions and we invariably wound up with a mass of thread spaghetti after only a few yards had been wound onto the warp roller. Once he was out of the picture, I had to devise a way to warp solo, and came up with what I jokingly call "The Gatorade Method." I saved up empty 16-ounce bottles, tied loops around their necks, loaded them with equal weights of water (which, I might add, can be changed depending on how tightly you want to wind the warp), and fastened my warp bundles to them so that they were barely suspended above the floor. Obviously, the bundles have to be retied roughly ever two feet, but the system allows me to wind the warp under even tension. When moving the bottles, I untie one, shake out the warp as if I was "giddyapping" a horse, then re-tie it and move to the next bundle. On a warp 16-24" wide, ten bottles is usually enough. Re-tied every two feet on a 24' warp...well, you get the idea. It's a lot of re-tying, but thread spaghetti is no longer an issue. And this warp, destined to be an overshot holiday tablecloth, is now ready to be threaded through the heddles.

S And Z

Day 281: I spent a large part of yesterday pacing a U-shaped path as I ran individual warp threads from the back beam to a post roughly 12 feet away, around it and up the other side to the cloth beam, then repeating my route in the opposite direction. This is the process known as "direct warping," i.e., dressing the loom strand by strand, as opposed to measuring threads on a warping board and then transferring the whole warp to the loom. It is a technique common to rigid-heddle weavers, but used less often when weaving on a floor loom because of the space required. After a period of trial and error, I decided that direct warping worked best for the Leksand loom even though the threads must follow that U-shaped path. By evening, I felt like I'd taken a 15-mile hike, back and forth, back and forth, and was almost too tired to finish tying on so I could begin weaving. However, I was anxious to get started, so after I'd had a rest and dinner, I finished the job. Here, I have used doubled warp threads for the light green S-and-Z pattern with single strands in the coloured border, both in 8/2 weight. The dark green background threads are slightly finer at 10/2. The photo doesn't do the vibrancy of the colours justice. The band is 1.5" wide.

The Gator-Ade Method

Day 29: This stage of weaving (winding the warp onto the beam) is really a two-person job, but not entirely impossible to do without a second pair of hands. After many years of rigging soup cans in a variety of unsatisfactory slings, I devised the "Gator-Ade Method" which provides even tension on the warp bundles. Any 16-24 ounce bottles (filled) would do as long as they have a neck around which yarn or cord can be tied securely. After wrapping the neck twice, tie a tight knot to prevent the cord from slipping over the top of the bottle. Leave the ends about six inches long and tie a second knot to make a loop big enough to accommodate two fingers and thumb. Draw a loop of all the warp threads of any given bundle through the yarn loop and clip a clothespin to it to keep it from sliding back through the yarn. When properly adjusted, the bottles should hang slightly above floor level, creating tension on the warp threads. Repeat the process all the way across the warp and then wind the available length onto the beam. Rehang the bottles and wind again, repeating until all the warp has been wound onto the beam. Necessity is the mother of invention, or as I put it, "Find a way or make one."

12 Dents Per Inch

Day 59: So long ago now that I can't recall when it was, an internet acquaintance who was giving up weaving sent me a boxful of spooled thread remnants. I put them away, thinking that some day I'd incorporate them into a project, but I always seemed to favour buying new threads instead. Then my best weaving supply store closed its doors suddenly and I found myself without a source. Although I have some large cones still in my stash, I took this as a message from the weaving gods: "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." Yesterday, I decided to warp a new project at 12 dents per inch. I usually like to weave at least three items from any one warping, but in this case, I was simply hoping there would be enough thread for two scarves. Halfway into measuring the warp, I realized I was going to fall short. I pulled the thread off the warping board and started over. In doing so, I created a major mess despite my best efforts to prevent it. This silky rayon thread was unpredictably self-attracted, leaving me to waste the better part of two hours undoing tangles. Getting it on the loom offered a few issues as well, but those bridges have been crossed and I am now ready to tie it to the front apron, one step away from making the first throw on somebody's 2018 Christmas gift.

Half-Warped

Day 89: Between participating in the Park's winter fitness challenge and trying to keep up with daily tasks and obligations, personal time is at a premium. Today, I managed to get the warping of the loom halfway finished.

Here you see the warp wound onto the back beam and the 288 ends threaded through the heddles. Next up, I will mount the reed in the beater bar (disassembled to facilitate the threading process) and will bring each end through a single dent (slot). When that task is finished, the warp will be tied to the cloth beam and I will be ready to start weaving (hopefully tomorrow).