A Little Summer Weaving

This past summer has been busy for me, with many activities involving friends and family.  Something about the heat and pace of summer has kept me from working on any substantial weaving projects.  My weaving equivalent of summer reading has been of short stories, rather than novels, with little Weave-It and Weavette looms.

Weave-Its originated in the 1930’s; they are no longer being made, but I found various listings for used ones on eBay, which is where I purchased my 2″x2″ and 4″x4″ looms.  My 2″x4″, 2″x6″, and 4″x6″ rectangular looms are the more modern Weavettes, made by Buxton Brook Looms.  These looms use a continuous yarn in a simple warping and weaving method to make a small panel.  A simple nail sequencing originated by the Weave-It looms make them easy to thread and weave; Weavettes preserve that same spacing.  You can find new Weavettes online, or in some stores, but I could only find their rectangular looms.  From what I heard, these looms used to be made in China, and production of the square looms (as well as the rectangular one) will begin again when a US manufacturer is found. 

All my Weave-it/Weavette looms fit into an Artbin container.  Both squares or the 2″x4″ rectangle can fit into an even smaller sandwich-shaped plastic container; with the addition of a few yards of yarn, they are easy to port along to the park or other impromptu outing for a creative fix.   

It took me several trials before I understood how to read the nail positions to quickly warp the looms.  The large compilation of information found on the eloomanation site and blog is very helpful.  After I was able to create plainweave panels, it was fun to try my hand at other patterns, simple twills, and bias-weaving.  My attempt at a log cabin colour-and-weave failed, but with so little investment in time and yarn, I’ll be sure to try again later.

What got me started with these little looms was a small and charming pouch that a spinning friend had, hanging on her spinning wheel to hold stray bits of fibre.  It was something a friend of hers had woven out of leftover strands of handspun; what a super way to use up those precious bits of yarn!  Once I started, it was difficult to stop, and have found myself breaking into new yarn skeins just to play, I mean weave, some more.

I’ve found the pouches to be convenient to dangle from portable looms, and have made larger ones without handles to protect things like my tapestry forks and GPS.  Panels may be sewn into booklets (or not) for keeping track of needles and pins, and for lining little boxes.  I’ve seen projects where many panels were pieced together to make larger items like scarves, ponchos, or afghans.  I have no plans for anything so ambitious, as I really enjoy them for aimless weaving, doodling with yarn, and playing with colour. 

I’ve a 7″ quilt weaver’s square and triangle set, made by Hazel Rose Looms, on the way.  These differ from the Weave-Its/Weavettes because they use alternating light- and dark-coloured nails (instead of spaced nail sequences) to aid the threading, and I might report back if weaving on those is substantially different.

Mystery Solved!

The thingy pictured on my page, “What Is This?”, has been identified!  A huge Thank You! to Laura R for the information.

Just Say “No!”

Last year, I brought home my first loom the day before Father’s Day.  Two months ago, during the week of Father’s Day, I had an encounter with an even larger loom.  The timing wasn’t planned, but I really wonder if there’s some cosmic force at work in June that affects me with loom craze.

The largest number of shafts I have on a loom is currently eight.  Leafing through weaving magazines, it’s easy to quickly develop a case shaft envy.  I can’t imagine what it would be like to have to thread so many shafts, but I do love the idea of having a computerised model to avoid treddling mistakes.  Last year, when I first purchased my Bergman loom, I also saw an ad for a lovely AVL production dobby loom (PDL).  Even at that time, when I had absolutely no weaving experience, I thought it was a good deal.  But knowing nothing about weaving, I thought it best to err on the conservative side of caution and spend a few hundred rather than a few thousand dollars on this new hobby (not to mention the fact that the AVL PDL is a loom with a large footprint because of its boxy frame, within which the weaver sits).  Imagine my surprise when the very same loom reappeared earlier this year in April, still for sale.  I had to learn more, and so began a month of friendly dialogue with the seller of a 16-shaft AVL PDL with compu-dobby.  I really agonised over that loom, as it was in lovely condition.  But I was very worried that if I did acquire it, I would not spend as much time with my other looms, my 8-shaft Bergman loom in particular.  That bothered me no end, because I know that even looms having no shafts at all can occupy weavers for a lifetime of beautiful creations.  I suspect that having a computerised loom with so many shafts would change my path as a weaver.  While that definitely can’t be viewed as a negative, I feel I would miss out on some foundational basics.  Plus, I feel as if I have some dues that must be paid, lessons better learned on fewer shafts.  I remember when studying watercolour, that beginners are encouraged to limit the colours in their palettes, in order to learn to mix the available ones more extensively.

After a month of e-mails with the seller, and talking with Syne Mitchell (who generously invited me to see her 16-s AVL PDL), I decided that the loom was not for me.

I wanted at least 24 shafts.

I thought I would settle back into my 8-shaft existence for a while, but barely had time to blink before I found a 24-shaft AVL PDL compu-dobby for sale in Canada.  So began another month-long correspondence, with a new seller.  I received pleasing responses to all my questions, and with exchange rates in my favour at that time, I thought the asking price a very advantageous indeed.

All was ready for our trip, but on the day we were scheduled to make the four-hour drive up to Canada, we found a radiator leak in our truck.  This is the same ancient truck that we use perhaps four times a year, only for local trips (usually to the dump), and that DH believes will break down at any moment.  Me, I’m more sanguine about it, and can’t believe such a thing.  The worst thing that ever happened with the truck was years ago, on the Friday before Labor Day weekend (the Labor Day holiday is the first Monday in September, coming upon us again).  We were fully loaded with furniture we were delivering in Oregon, when something like a belt snapped and wrapped itself around an axle (I’m not clear about the particulars), and, well, the truck broke down in the middle of a four-lane highway an hour north of Portland.  We managed to get the truck towed to a small repair shop that afternoon.  The auto repair shop was preparing to close down early that Friday, in preparation for the holiday weekend, in which case we would stranded until they re-opened on Tuesday, but they took pity on us and fixed the truck by that evening so we could continue our trip and return home.  DH recalls it as a near-death experience (he was driving), and has never trusted the truck since, but I see it as a brush with the miraculous .  I felt we had the break-down because we had recently returned from a long-distance trip to Idaho only weeks before, and had not taken it in for inspection afterwards.  But, back to the AVL: we purchased a radiator temporary patch kit and sealed the holes ourselves.  Four hours to set and cure the patch, then another four hours of travel, and we were in the presence of the loom.

It had been stored for almost two years, and was already taken apart in pieces.  I had only the barest familiarity with AVL looms, and hoped all the necessary parts were present in the dusty boxes.  I handed over the money, and we started to load the loom into our truck.  I chatted with the seller as we passed the loom parts into the truck.  I didn’t realise that the software was for the mac, and wouldn’t work on my pc.  I had assumed, from my little exeperience buying software, that both versions were always bundled together.  I balked, knowing this would be a large additional expense.  “Your’e getting a real bargain here, Elizabeth”, the seller told me.  I knew this, but something about her statement didn’t sit well with me.  I paid more attention to the grimy parts, and started to calculate how much time would be needed to clean everything up.  Then I found a back beam that had a groove in the round part of the wood; the wood was slightly split.  It looked to me as if the part had been glued at least twice before, but the split was still apparent.  The seller said, “That can be fixed with some wood glue.  This is a really good deal, so if you don’t want it, I’ll give you your money back.”  The loom was still coming home with me, but I was beginning to think I a re-negotiation of the price was necessary.  The final straw came when I found that the wood of the box structure encasing the computer dobby to be mouldy.  When the seller said, “Oh, a little sandpaper will take that right off”, it was more than I could bear.  I do happen to know that mouldy spots on wood grain do not come off easily; in fact, it’s difficult to sand away all the mould and more so to re-stain the wood to it’s original colour.  At this point, I conferred with DH, aka The Voice Of Reason, to make it clear to the seller that a price cut was in order.   DH’s opinion was that while this loom might have appeared a deal, it wasn’t cheap.  If I wanted to spend so much money on something that was most likely for enjoyment, then why not spend more to get something that suited me better?  I confirmed that I wanted to be in the business of learning to weave, not fixing up looms, and that this loom would cost me a lot of time in cleaning, repairing, and refinishing — something I did not relish.  (Not to mention the possibility that the loom might not work after all that effort.)    DH went on to remind me that my priority was our son, and I simply did not have the time (or the space) to easily perfom any repairs on such a large loom.

The seller didn’t budge, and reluctantly, neither did I.  My money was returned to me, but I still wanted the loom!  The seller was very upset, and didn’t say another word to me as we unloaded the parts back into her garage.  I moved numbly; everything felt surreal to me.  When the last part was returned to her garage, the seller pressed the button and her automatic door started to close down on us.  I jolted back to life, and called to her that her door would hit some boxes that I had unloaded from from my truck (it might have hit one of us first).  She opened the door again, and we hastily scrambled to take our things and ourselves out of the way.

During the trip home, my body started aching; the moment I stepped out of the truck, I was sick.  Within a week, I had pneumonia, and my husband and son also became sick (to a lesser degree, thankfully).  “I’m just getting over a bad cold,” I recalled the seller’s first words to me when we met.

When I exchanged money at my bank for Canadian funds, I thought I would get an exchange rate close to what I found on the internet.  For example (these are similar, but I don’t recall the exact numbers), if the rate was 1 US$ to 1.2 CAN, I thought my rate would be something like 1.15.  Not so.  In this example, what the bank would give  would be closer to 1.03.  With a transaction in the thousands of dollars, that’s a serious chunk of change to lose.  Unfortunately, when you want to give the bank back the exact same Canadian dollars that they gave you two days earlier, they get to ding you again.  All told, I lost a little over four hundred dollars by playing this game.  (I used to know the exact figure, down to the cents, but I’m pretty good at sublimating this kind of pain.)  Factor in the hundred dollars that my gas-guzzling truck ate for the trip, and that’s the most I’ve paid for something I didn’t get.

I think it took me too long to become outraged, because this was the first time I’d met an unscrupulous seller.  All the loom and weaving transactions I’ve had prior to this have been such marvelous experiences.  Two transactions are extra-special, as the sellers have become friends; I’ve maintained contact with several others as well.  Just last week, I met the sweetest woman who insisted on driving sixty miles to deliver a loom to me, then returned the next day to pick it up as it wasn’t what she thought was in the box (neither of us had opened the box to check).  She repeatedly refused my offer to pay for her time and gasoline, and even hugged me several times before leaving.

The owner of the 24-s AVL had posted on Craigslist, but I found her first through a weaving association board.  We had been in frequent contact via e-mail and telephone, so it was exceptionally discourteous of her not to inform me she was sick, at least to give me the option not to expose myself and my family.  During my month of  e-mail correspondence with her, I had asked very specifically as to damage, if any of the wood parts needed repair or polish; or if there was any rust on any metal parts, including the reed.  The response was very emphatic as to the excellence of the loom’s condition; that nothing needed repair, and no rust was to be found.  I did not recall any of this when I was looking at the loom, and I certainly didn’t remember this when the seller passed the very obviously rusty reed for me to put in the truck.  I guess I saw only what I wanted to see.

I lost time, money, and even health over that fiasco, but I am so grateful not to have purchased that loom.  DH said, “How lucky that she didn’t lower her price by $500 — you would have found it difficult to walk away.”   I said, “I would have been hard pressed to leave if it had been only $100!”   I’m fortunate to have found out in time how rude and deceitful that seller was, and feel blessed I own no object that was hers.

Now being separated from that misadventure by two months’ time, I am astonished anew by how well the situation resolved, despite my own follies in the matter.  I’m also very satisfied with the life I have among my motley assortment of looms, my Bergman being foremost in it.  I still believe there is a 24-or-more-shaft loom in my future, but I’m in no hurry for it.

It Fell Off The Back Of A Truck

“Can you meet an hour earlier, same place?” I hear from my mobile phone.

“Yeah,” I say, “the sooner, the better.”

I arrive at the parking lot, and pull up next to the van.  Looking around, I see we are alone; no witnesses.  The woman there greets me, and pulls open the back hatch of the van.  There it is, stashed in plastic bags.  I check each out, sampling each for quality and cut.  I’m too nervous to haggle over price; I just want the merchandise, and to be away from there.  Money and bags exchanged, I toss my purchases into the trunk of our car, and call to my driver (husband): “Hit the road!”

It was a necessity to be on our way as swfitly as possible, as we did not want to be caught in closed quarters with this merchandise for long.  I’m talking about raw fleece, from a local farmer (is that what you guessed?).  Raw Southdown Babydoll fleece, to be exact; yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.  In Sheep’s Clothing, by Nola Fournier and Jane Fournier, describes Southdown as: ”it provides the finest of the down wools — it is full-handling and spongy.”

At home, a closer inspection revealed lots of vm (vegetable matter) — lots of it.  I had been dreaming of rare and exotic wool for spinning, but had not looked close enough before buying.  Now I could see that not only were the fleeces filled with vm, but the staple length was also incredibly short at 1-1/2″.  I would have loved to throw a tantrum, but knew that DH would not be sympathetic, and tears would not wash the fleece clean.  I would never forgive myself for spending so much money on something I’d prefer to throw away, so there was nothing to do but resign myself to the dismal chore of washing it.

I’ve washed raw fleece before, but never this much at once.  It took an entire weekend to wash two fleeces, one almost-black and the other a medium-grey.  The black fleece held more lanolin, and so being stickier, also more vm.  Like all the previous times I’ve washed raw fleece, I resolve it will by my last; I like having cleaned fleece, I’m just not fond of the smells involved.

It’s shocking how much time is involved to process raw fleece into a product that’s ready to spin.  With all the work involved cleaning raw fleece, it may seem that purchasing procesed roving is cheaper.  It’s certainly faster, but for the work you put into cleaning and prepping the fleece for spinning, you get wool that has not been chemically washed to dissolve away the poop, grime, vegetation, or lanolin.  I know I can get away with fewer rinsings, but I do extra ones anyway.  I’ve found that when superficially clean wool is dry, it often doesn’t smell, even when I know it contains traces of dried poop.  With all the rinsings I do, I know that my wool is cleaner, and chemical-free.  I often wonder if the wool used in expensive designer clothing has any of these advantages.  The clothing may look and feel luxurious, but is it truly clean?  And I wonder if those with wool sensitivities are irritated by the chemicals used or the traces of poop present rather than lanolin or the wool itself.

DH has remarked that I might save myself time, money, and grief if I decide to skip the raw fleece step to purchase and use only cashmere roving instead.  I’m not against using cashmere, but the few ounces of it I have exude a strong poopy smell, even though they look clean.  It also bothers me that the over-production of it causes global problems, as you can read about here.

My resulting Southdown Babydoll fleece is very difficult to work with.  There is too much vm in the black fleece to card easily, and most of it might be usable only as stuffing.  Still, the little I’ve spun of it is remarkably different from anything I’ve worked with before.  While it isn’t as soft as merino — I would equate it to soft Romney in softness — it is incredibly springy, with a crisp and bouncy feel that is very unusual and delightful in its sproingy-ness.

I suppose I had not learned any lessons, as all resolutions that this raw fleece be my the last — caved within a week.  I thought I would be more wary the next time around, but I was sucker-punched by the words “award-winning” and “six other buyers if you don’t want it”.   The result was nine pounds of long-stapled white Romney.  Very lustrous and clean, although what I consider only rug-worthy softness.  Perfect for a future tapestry.

I was in a hurry to clean it, so made the terrible mistake of washing too much at once.  I washed about five pounds in a large mesh bag, but it proved to be too much; I found within clumps of tips still soiled.  Sigh, I will need to re-wash that entire lot.

Before I could wash the rest of the white Romney, free Romney fleeces were offered to my spinning group.  I went with my friend forestgnome, (who is at least as crazy as I am; read her post about a CVM fleece that we split) to look at the fleeces, and came home with three fleeces between the two of us.

I  had been washing raw fleece, rinsing up to ten times in hot water.  That was very wearing, as I can only do it outdoors in a (horse) watering trough, and it’s slow and difficult getting all that hot water outside.  I had obtained permission from DH to use the bathtub inside, but in the end, I couldn’t bear to bring the fleece indoors.  Too much in energy and resources was being expended, and a new method must be found.  Right after I had that thought, I happened to read about the fermented suint method (FSM) of washing raw fleece on Ravelry.  It is a method developed in New Zealand, but not well-known in this part of the world.  Judith Mackenzie-McCuin wrote an article about it in the 2008 Fall issue of Spin-Off magazine.  I ordered a copy of that issue, but even before it arrived, I already had four buckets of fleece soaking.  Briefly, it entails soaking a first batch of raw fleece for seven days to dissolve the suint, or sheep perspiration; dirt, and poop from the fleece.  Thereafter, that mixture is kept to be reused over and over again, until, in Judith’s words: ”it is too thick to swim in, and too thin to plow”.  Each re-use concentrates and ferments the suint mixture further, and each cleaning becomes more efficient.  Soaking fleece in the FSM for a couple of days, then rinsing well in cold water until the smell is (mostly) gone is all that is necessary for some fleece; others with higher lanolin content may need additional washing and rinsing in hot, soapy water.  

My first trial of the FSM went amazingly well.  My spinning friend Jane (Thank You!) gave me half a dozen empty TidyCat covered bins before she moved back to Florida.  They are a perfect size for the FSM because they are still easy to transport when filled with liquid.  I could soak approximately a 3/4 pound of raw fleece in each bucket.  I use mesh laundry bags to keep the fleece together while soaking.

Of course, I would never consider stopping with only cold rinses to clean; I wouldn’t feel comfortable without the last soapy wash and rinse in hot water.   By the time of the hot wash and rinse, I could tell that the washing liquid extracted mostly lanolin.  While this method does not use less water (in my case), it is still a lot faster and easier, as I can use the garden hose and a little agitation for the cold rinsings.  The best part of this method is that the resulting wool is even cleaner than what I could accomplish in ten hot-water washings without the FSM soaking.

Some of the free brown Romney, after washed with the FSM:

I compared the five-pound lot of white Romney (top, in the picture below) I washed with the old hot-water way with half a pound of the same fleece washed with the FSM:

Even through the mesh bags, you can tell that the fleece inside the bottom bag is much cleaner than the fleece in the top.  A close-up of the two:

The only drawback to this method is the smell.  Start with raw fleece (sheep poop).  Now, imagine that smell concentrated and fermented.  Within minutes of removing the cover from the first of my buckets, I noticed that my next-door neighbour, twenty feet away, was no longer taking the sun on his balcony.  Coincidence?

A clothes-washing machine would speed up the washing process wonderfully.  But even were I not banned from touching our washing machine, I shudder at the thought of using it.  It would be lovely to have a second machine installed outdoors someday.  But then, of course, I wouldn’t need it, because I plan never to buy another raw fleece…

Summer Spinning

It’s summer, but I managed to become sick sick sick with pneumonia, which is why I’ve been absent from things.  Until recently, I couldn’t even sit in front of a computer screen for more than a few minutes without getting dizzy.  But, I’m finally better, and have been able to spin again.  I’ll probably get back into the weaving by next week; it requires more energy.

Some grey wool mill ends that were dyed purple, and spun worsted:

 

Burgundy, pink, and grey wool top, spun worsted:

Lavender, green, and blue superwash merino batt, spun woolen/attenuated long-draw:

Wool and cotton top containing lots of cotton pills, spun woolen/attenuated long-draw for a slubby, bouclé-like effect:

My spinning preference is overwhelmingly long-draw, but I force myself to spin worsted for the practise, and because the resulting yarn is much shinier, cooler, and drapes better.  I’m much faster at spinning long-draw than worsted, but I find I don’t need to look as much while spinning worsted, and can do something else (like watch television or read a book) at the same time.  All the pictures in this post show spun singles.  Everything will be two-plied, and used for weaving.

Ashford Knitters Loom

The Ashford Knitters loom is one that was not on my list of rigid-heddle considerations.  I had seen pictures of the blue plasticky ratchets and pawls, seen that the wood was not maple, knew that the marketing was aimed at luring knitters down the weaving slope (I had already slipped, so what was the point?) and never gave it another thought.

However, while seriously considering a Schacht 15″ Flip loom, several things happened almost simultaneously:

• I’ve been chauffering my son to more classes, and wanted slim loom I could carry around easily
• I saw a 15″ Flip in person, so felt how heavy and bulky it was
• I came across a fantastic deal on a 12″ Knitters loom that had only been used once, and
• I discovered that Ashford recently released a second-heddle upgrade kit.

My loom came with all the original accessories, plus a carrying tote.

The tote bag is very well designed; heavy-duty and well-padded, with long shoulder straps (not adjustable, though), and handy side pockets with some sewn thoughtfully narrower to accomodate long thin objects you might need to have on hand, like swords and stick shuttles.  The bag is closely fitted to the loom, with enough room for a book (or two) and some yarn.  I did find that the 7.5-dent heddle it came with to measure 11-5/8″ in length, and can’t help feeling a tad cheated of the last 3/8″.  I suppose 12″ sounds better than 11″ for marketing purposes.  While I waited for the second heddle upgrade kit and additional heddle reeds I ordered to arrive, I put on a first warp.

The warp is a scant three yards of thick Lily Sugar ‘N Cream cotton, with more of the same for weft.  It turned out to be too much of this type of yarn; a brace across the loom close to the cloth beam limits how much I could wind on.  I had to jam in the last foot or so of cloth.  This is the loom pictured from its underside, showing the cloth crammed into the brace:

I used the shoestring method of speed-warping by Nadine Sanders,The Singing Weaver, which contributes a little bulk to the front.  The brace on the other end is farther away from the back beam, so the cloth beam will be the limiting factor to the length of the warp.  Thinking “scarf”, rather than “valance” is probably an good idea for warp length on this loom. 

One thing I did not like were the blue plastic ties attached to the front and back beams.  They are very springy, and push the attached stick away from the beam, making the warping process difficult.

However, when I tried to substitute texsolv, I found I could not thread it in the holes of both the beam and the stick.  When I attempted a work-around with a metal rod inserted at the beam to hold the texsolv, I found the texsolv added substantial bulk when winding up the stick. 

When I tried to exchange the stick for a second rod, I discovered that the combination of the stick and plastic ties would wind around the beam until the stick sat perfectly on the flat side of the beam.  So, I reverted to the plastic ties, which turn out to be a marvel of thought and economy of space.  In fact, as I started to use this loom, again and again I marvelled at the insightful engineering design at every turn.

As to the springyness of the blue plastic ties, I used a bit of blue painter’s tape to tame them.

I wanted to reduce the bulk of shoestrings in the front, so attached a metal rod to the wood stick with texsolv.  I would thread the uncut ends of warp onto the rod to save myself the time of tying on and the bulk of knots — even though that would entail winding onto the front beam, threading the heddles, tying on at the back, and the extra step of re-winding the warp to the back beam.

Another example of the Ashford engineering thoughtfullness can be seen in the pair of blue, plastic, L-shaped pieces, found on both sides of the loom just behind the heddle blocks.  One is pictured below with the single and double heddle blocks.

These two L-shaped pieces prop the back beam so it’s up at an angle from the rest of the loom, and so improves the shed. 

It was quick to install the second heddles on the Knitters Loom; a few taps with a hammer to remove the bolts from the original heddle blocks and put them into the dual ones was all it took.

The loom is easy to fold with the weaving in place; put the weft-filled shuttle between a shed to lock it in place, put the heddle in the “travel” position (the lowest notch in the heddle block), then fold.  I found the loom to be sturdy, extremely portable, and just plain loveable — I’m crazy about this loom!  It’s lightweight, without being a lightweight, if you know what I mean.

Changing My Mind

I blogged about the Dutch Master Box Loom when it was first loaned to me last year.  I was amazed by the small size of the loom and its eight shafts.  Awed enough that I considered booting the four-shaft table loom I had purchased for workshops.  How the tables have turned!  I’ve since upgraded my table loom and am glad to have it;  The Dutch Master loom, however, has been returned to its owner, and I’m very happy not to have it.  The misery of commiting  every beginner’s mistake possible on the loveliest of hand-painted wool/silk warps now clouds my feelings for this loom; while it has many nice qualities (the major faults belong to the weaver, not the loom!), it’s difficult for me to overlook my painful history with it. 

The first time I threaded all the heddles, I had help, and it took two of us three hours to thread all 218 warp ends with an even number of pattern repeats.  Prior to that, my only weaving/warping experience  was on a rigid heddle loom.

I don’t know why I decided to re-do the calculations, but I did, and divided 218 by 16 (the number of ends in one pattern repeat).  Surprise, surprise.  16 does not divide 218.  In fact, 218 divided by 2 is 109, which is a prime number.  (A prime number is one that is divisible only by itself and 1.)  It gets worse.  I thought I threaded complete repeats of the pattern, but 218 ends with 16-thread repeats would leave a remainder of 10.  How could I have been so horribly… off?  Of course, this was after all the heddles had been threaded. I recounted all the ends again, never mind that they had been counted before they were hand-painted, and that I had confirmed that count.  This time, my recount now came to 221 ends.  How on earth???

Feeling my heart bleed, I pulled out all those beautiful ends from the heddles, chose a different pattern, and resigned myself to re-threading.  (Having now put on other warps on other looms, re-threading is not the major upset it was; but it was very daunting to me at the time as new weaver.)  The new pattern repeated every 12 ends, and I tied off each repeat in a little bundle behind the heddles,  and checked/checked/rechecked everything with an eagle eye this time through.  Even so, I still found three crossed warps when I started weaving.

I created an extra step for myself of having to tie the ends onto the back apron rod, as I had cut through the back loops of the warp.  A small loom means less space for my chunky fingers to operate.

Winding the warp onto the warp beam was an long, drawn-out exercise in tedium. The heddles combed the warp and created a jam of fuzzy lint that brought the winding to a standstill every other inch.

Things might have been different if my first warp were cotton.  But my lovely wool/silk blend warp stuck to itself like velcro, creating non-existent sheds. I was amazed that this smooth yarn would act that way, but in hindsight, I now understand that the dense sett of 24 epi was the culprit.

In order to create a passable shed, I had to pull the beater assembly completely forward, then insert my hands in front of the heddles to carefully open and define the shed.  For.  Every.  Single.  Pick.  Yes, I can blame my wrong choice of sett now, but at the time, I did not have the experience  to determine that.  Even if I could have known that, I am not sure I could have been brave enough (at that time) to triage some of the gorgeously painted ends.

I’m pretty certain I did not wind the warp onto the back beam evenly, as I have since picked up more tips for getting that right.  The unevenly wound warp had to be fidgeted with and adjusted for tension often, and every way I could imagine.  To no avail, as the reed kept hitting the fell line unevenly, and never made contact with the right side.  It did not help that the box frame is made to be taken apart, so is not a fixed rectangle, but has sides that can wobble and skew.

I had read about floating selvedges in weaving books, but as a new weaver, the notion was purely theoretical to me, and I did not understand what they were for until I found how desperately they were needed for the pattern I had chosen.  I had to fuss with the selvedges in order not create extra floats on the sides, creating another a self-inflicted irritation.

This loom’s maximum weaving width is ten inches; my project measured eight.  One can use standard letter-sized paper turned on the eleven-inch side to separate the warp and cloth layers, but the papers must be aligned carefully, as there is very little clearance from the teeth of the ratchet.  In my case, my papers often caught on and disloged the ratchet, and I needed to be careful to keep the beam from unwinding.

The warps winds over back beam, then down from the outside, then up onto the warp beam.  It does the same for the front cloth beam.  This is fine with other looms because there is clearance, either on the sides or the ends to reach in to tuck in separating papers (or sticks) from the inside.  On this loom, because sides of the loom are solid and reach all the way down to the base of the loom, there just isn’t enough room to reach inside to do this easily, hence my problem with papers catching on the ratchets.  There might be a simple fix, like switching the cloth and warp beams (to make them wind in the opposite direction) so papers or sticks may be inserted from the outside.  I haven’t tried, and don’t know if the existing hardware would allow it.

 

Even when the warps co-operated, the sheds were dismally small.  I think the height of the notches (that hold the shafts up) should have been increased to prop the shafts up higher.  The design of this loom is really very clever, with texsolv heddles on frames.  However, my warp was crowded, and the velcro stickiness I experienced with raising each shaft quickly dispelled for me the charm and simplicity of weaving with something like a rigid-heddle loom in a box.  (Yes, my fault, and not the loom’s!)  It helped a little to space out the four shafts on eight slots, an option I would not have if I were weaving with all eight shafts.  Changing the selection of shafts is also a lot more work than selecting levers on a more traditional table loom.

The small sheds, coupled with my sticking wool warps, made some of the weaving patterns incredibly difficult.  There were days when all the clawing and fighting with this loom were so painful, I could weave no more than an inch.  With all the fussing necessary to weave a single pick, it was inevitable that mistakes would be made.  When I discovered an error, I often created many more when trying to undo it.  The warp and weft were the same yarn, and the cloth they made was tight and difficult to cut apart; I was terrified of cutting warps rather than wefts, so I did not take that route to unweave.  I eventually did find that some patterns tended toward cleaner sheds than others.  Because of the difficulties encountered, I abandoned my hope of making this a twill sampler, after weaving only a few inches. Those first inches contain three different twill patterns, riddled with mistakes.

As to beating… having started and stopped work on this scarf so many times, often encountering much frustration, the beat throughout the project was erratic.

The rest of the scarf was completed with only one pattern (of the fourteen planned) that combined the best balance of design and speed (relatively) of weaving.  The ambitiousness of fourteeen patterns on this warp was more beginner folly in itself; it would not have been the best way to enjoy this particular warp as a scarf afterwards.  I think it hurts me the most to know I have dishonoured this beautiful, hand-painted warp with such poor weaving, rife with errors.

Perhaps every (self-taught) weaver needs one unruly warp to slog through, as a sort of initiation.  In retrospect, I am very grateful to have learned so many helpful lessons, with some I might not have taken to heart had I taken a smoother path; and the painful experiences associated with this project fade a little more with each touch of the finished scarf.

Mystery Of The Lost Socks

Losing one sock is a common lament at our household, but I have no idea how I’ve come to misplace a hand-knit pair I’ve never worn!

My first pair of socks was finished more than two years ago, using the pattern was from Silver’s Sock Class tutorial.  Still unused, they were socked away (har har) somewhere safe, waiting to be photographed and shown off here.  I want to wear my new socks, and I hope posting this will help me find them!

It has been many months since losing my first socks, so I finally started knitting a second pair (I’m not counting the two singles I frogged).  The two-at-a-time pair of socks I’m working on (using a single, long circular needle) use the basic pattern from the book, “Sensational Knitted Socks”:

Both skeins of yarn are from the same dye lot, but isn’t it interesting that there’s a difference between the colour progression on the socks?  The skein on the left has much sharper colour changes, while the one on the right shows a lot more blending between colours.  I’m guessing that even if they may have been dyed at the same time, there were variables, such as acidity and temperature, that affected how the dyes struck (adhere to) the wool.

I’ve read that in general, green dyes strike at the lowest temperatures, followed closely by blues.  Yellows, then reds require the hottest temperatures. Perhaps one of the skeins was slightly cooler than the other when the dyes were applied.

My snail’s pace of finishing any knitting doesn’t keep me from dreaming of future socks.   The next ones I want to try are two-at-a-time, toe-up socks.  The best reason for knitting up from the toes is so you can use up all available yarn for more length up the leg.  (That really appeals to my frugal sensibilities.)  Following that, perhaps extreme, two-in-one socks.  At my current rate, that fourth pair should be ready to show off around the year 2014.  Stay tuned.

Weavolution Launches Today!

Weavolution, an online community for weavers, launches today!  My handle there is (surprise, surprise) SpinningLizzy.  I’m looking forward to “seeing” you there!

I’m Published!

I wrote an article for WeaveZine, and just found out it’s live!  (going off to jump and scream somewhere…)