Having just begun to emerge from the depths of a cold from Hades (my doctor did confirm that it was not the flu), I finally have energy enough to get back to work. I knew I was feeling better when I woke up this morning and found myself beginning to plan my day.Anyway, I have managed to get the warp on the loom and ready to thread, as you can see in the photo above. The books are there to raise the shafts up to a level where it is comfortable for me thread the heddles. The bottom book is Black's Key to Weaving. The top book is a Spanish cookbook. Well, weavers have to eat as well.
Threading should be a quiet activity, perfect for someone in recovery. I must, however, be extraordinarily vigilant in the threading for I know that right now I am more vulnerable than ever to making mistakes.
Here is the threading:
It is simply the same ascending twill-type threading that I have been talking about recently, but with each threading unit repeated three times. The threading runs for 104 ends.The entire threading is repeated three times. So I have a total of 312 ends.
Well, that's not quite right. Yes, it is repeated three times. But somehow in the stupor of my cold (and yes, I did have a fever), I decided I needed an extra 22 threads, so I wound an extra bout with those number of threads. So now I had a choice. I could either drop those extra ends off at each side and thread the correct number of ends. Or I could add a block of units on each end and use up the extra ends that way. Since I had already wound everything on, I decided to go with the latter.
One thing really gripes me. As I was raddling the ends, many of the deep red ends really seemed much finer than the rest of the ends. Actually, when I started to wind the extra 22 ends I immediately noticed this and I switched to a different red cone. Today I checked. The red cone with the finer ends actually was a cone of 20/2 pearl cotton, not 10/2 pearl cotton. That must have been the cone I used for winding the greater portion of the warp. I would love to know why I didn't notice it when I began making the warp. It was so obvious when I went to make the extra 22 ends and again when I went to put the warp in the raddle.
In any case, another choice was tnow before me: 1) throw away the entire warp and start again; or 2) go on as planned. Since all I was doing was sampling, the first option seemed a bit excessive. I only want to see how this multiple-block crackle on 4 shafts actually works and also if I want to try it on my next silk warp. Also, the idea of alternating thick and thin ends sounds just a bit intriguing. I know it would provide an interesting texture in plain weave, and perhaps in some twill weaves as well. But how would it work in crackle? Do I sound like I am getting intrigued? Do I sound like I might be rationalizing? Do I sound like I still have a bad cold?
Perhaps the name of this blog should be Peg's Weaving Misadventures!
2 comments:
Having done something similar to this, I can relate. It is what my weaving teacher calls a readjustment. I like that word better than correction or anything else. It sort of means the readjustment might just work out better than the original plan! There's less stress with readjustment, I find.
I sympathise with your counting trauma. I am a maths graduate with a day job in numbers and I can still convince myself that I need x more ends in my warp than are really necessary! I think it may be related to my ability to schedule two completely incompatible activities for the same space on the calendar - my practical equivalent of believing six impossible things before breakfast.
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