MY CALCULATOR MADE A MISTAKE!

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

INTRODUCTION

Well…..no it didn’t.  No matter how much I would like to blame that poor little calculator, the fault is entirely mine.

THE STORY

I finished threading the first half.  Then I went to the back beam to make sure that the center of the threading was the center of the back beam. No it wasn’t.  Groan.  Then I counted the number raddle openings I had filled.  First on the right side, then on the left side.  On the left side (standing at the back of the loom), two fewer raddle openings were filled. 

At that point I didn’t concern myself with the cause.  I just knew that I had to move threaded heddles from the right side to the left side (standing at the front of the loom) of all the shafts.  It was easy to tell where the split was supposed to be by gently separating, while standing at the back of the loom, the yarns that were to the left and right of the center mark on the raddle. Returning to the front of the loom, I could eyeball that split and separate  those that had to be moved from the group. Then I retied the slip knots.

The photo shows the ends moved and threaded, so the separation is clearly visible.

Then the dreaded lifting of those thingies (very technical term here) that hold the shafts to the frame. Both to the top of the frame and to the bottom of the frame. If you look at the photo they look kind of like silver screws at the top and the bottom of the shafts.  And you can see the whole row of them along the bottom the shafts.

However, they are not screws.  Using my thumb and first two fingers, I have to push the thick ridged part down (in the case of those at the bottom) or up (in the case of the top). And I have to hold them down until I have moved the shaft out of its grasp (or, in the case of reattaching, after I have moved the shaft back into its grasp.  As I did that, it became clear quickly that they have all loosened up so that it is not the adventure in torture it was when the loom was new. That is, no bloody thumbs. Not even any sore thumbs. I guess I’ve moved heddles back and forth quite a bit since I purchased the loom.

WARP NOT CENTERED ON LOOM

It is not a good thing to have a warp not centered on the loom.  Had I bothered to check the raddle spacings to make sure there were an equal number on each side of center, I could have made the correction then and got the warp centered properly.

But doing what I did at this late point will at least insure that the warp will be aligned straight from back to front through the reed.

WHERE DID I GO WRONG?

So, that is done.  And I wonder, what on earth happened?  Right now, this is my theory. 

When I was just ready to start winding the warp bouts I changed my mind about the number of brown ends.  I decided that at 24 epi, two ends were not enough to be clearly visible.  So I decided to increase that number to 4.  That meant that I had to change the number of brown ends at the selvedge to a larger number.  I wanted those stripes to be the same size as the inner ones.  Because the selvedges would shrink up, they would require more ends.  I wanted 6 ends there, but for ease of making warp bouts 8 worked better.  Then I think I might have been changes to the number of white ends.  But that I don’t remember.

The short of it is that, not having put the revised calculations into my sheet of information, I ended up winding on more warp ends than was indicated on that sheet.  But I used that sheet to figure out how many warp ends I would need on the right side……….

NOTE TO MYSELF

Always keep my paperwork updated.

ANOTHER NOTE TO MYSELF

Always count the raddle spaces on left and right of center to make sure that they are the same.

Related Post:  What Shall I Do?  14 Ends Left Over

"My Calculator Made a Mistake!" was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 13, 2008. © 2008 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina