Tuesday, June 7, 2011

WEIGHTED WARP ENDS

weighted warp ends

I beamed on the warp this morning.  This is the picture from the front of the loom showing the weighted warps.  At this point I had only about six more inches to wind on.

The white strings hanging from the top of the loom have loops in the bottom.  Through these loops I thread my floating selvedges so that they raise and lower more easily the way I want them to.

I now have the warp ends removed from the top of the loom and thrown the the heddle frames.  I am reweighting them so that I can easily get the lease sticks moved up close to the heddles in preparation for threading.

The raddle is still sitting on the back of the loom.  I will not remove it until I am done threading and sleying.  If then.

Monday, June 6, 2011

PRAYER SHAWL RADDLED

prayer shawl raddled

Swollen throat, hoarse, headache—reactions to a strong antibiotic.  Called doctor and she took me off of it.  Whew!  Had been given it for bronchitis (why? almost 100% of the time bronchitis is a virus).  In any case, have not had had it now for a few days and the antibiotics have been much worse on me.  So, to celebrate my no longer taking it, I thought I would practice my singing, no.  Sob. I decided instead to wind the rest of the shawl warp. 

Then, having done that I thought, why not raddle it.  After all, I’m still alive.  And I’m not light-headed any more.

So, here is a photo of the raddled warp as seen from the back of my loom.  If  you look carefully at the table at the front, you can see that the end loops of the warp, slipped through a metal bar, are lying on it.  It is ready (tomorrow!) to be dropped to the back beam so the winding on process can begin.  Currently masking tape attaches it to the table so that neither human nor cat can easily upset the thing.

If you look at the top of the loom, to the right of the warp, which is thrown up over it, are the 9 weights I will use to attach to the warp to make for even beaming on.  Each color section will have its own weight. This is my version of a warping trapeze, and it works just lovely for shortish warps.

Tomorrow I will set that up the weights and then I can beam on.  Or maybe, pretty-please-with-sugar-on-it, I will be able to sing????