LASHED ON

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I have lashed on to the front rod.  The lashing is visible in the lower right-hand corner of the photo. 

I have adjusted the tension.  And I have started the weaving with waste yarn.

To my delight there are no threading errors.  And to my further delight, there are no crossed warp ends.

On the other hand, I am dealing with sheds that do not want to clear. 

For the first eight shots, I had to manually clear each of the sheds.  Then with each succeeding group of eight shots, sheds began to clear.  I was at that point weaving quite close to the front beam.  So I moved the fell more towards the half-way point between front beam and beater.  And I continued to weave.

Now there are only two or three sheds that have a warp end or two that want to stick. 

When I return to the weaving I will move the fell a bit closer to the beater.  I had learned earlier that doing this forces better shed clearing.  If I feel a bit concerned, I will treadle another group of eight with the waste yarn.  If I feel brave and ready, I will start weaving with the silk.

Here is a close-up photo of the so-called “waste” yarn.  It is a fine tencel which maybe eight years ago I painted with the colors I had used on a tencel warp.  I had not planned on using a variegated yarn on that warp but since I had the dye ready and the yarn ready, thought I would paint it up and try it.  It did not work.

But I have enjoyed trying it on samples occasionally to see if it would work.  And I have enjoyed using it as waste yarn.  I clearly have quite a bit of it!

PHOTOGRAPHY ASIDE

I have acquired a new photography book (no, I am not quite as bad about collecting photography books as I am about collecting weaving books. But I do succumb to temptation a bit too often….).  I was attracted to it because one of the authors is Scott Kelby.  Kelby has written a couple of amazing books about digital photography—books that I can actually understand.  The title is The Photoshop Elements 7 Book for Digital Photographers. 

Now, I do not use Elements;  I use Paint Shop Pro.  But a quick look through at the book store suggested to me that much in there is quite the same as Paint Shop Pro.  Some of the language may be different.  And some of the actual tools may be a little different.  But all in all it seemed useful to me.

And useful it has turned out.  So far I have been working with only two chapters.  First the chapter on sharpening.  Then the chapter on something called levels.  The last has always troubled me and nothing I have read about in PSP has unveiled the mystery.  This book does. 

Thanks to levels, I got the colors in these photos right.  Well, almost right.  The waste yarn, in the second photo, is just a bit too bright.  But the rest of the photo is as close to perfect as I have ever gotten.  In time I will learn how to deal with areas of a photo.  Kelby’s book has the information.  I just need to spend some time with it.

Related Posts: 
   Lashing on to the Front of the Loom: Part One 
   Lashing on to the Front of the Loom: Part Two
   Ready to Weave
   Where is My Fell?
   Learning the Hard Way

“Lashed On” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on May 5, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina