RECENT POSTS FROM OTHER BLOGS

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Exquisite design and execution:
Making Wood -- Avalanche Looms

Collapse Scarves -- Tangled Threads
Summer & Winter Samples 1 -- Leigh's Fiber Journal
Yarn Sources -- t'katch
Unlikely Combinations -- Weaverly
Preparing a Sampler Warp -- Weaverly
A Weaver Under the Influence -- A Movable Feast
GCW Hand Towel Exchange -- Dust Bunnies Under My Loom

A new project by Laura (Weaving a Life)
Red Warp #1
Red Warp Pattern

Buying Bits and Pieces -- Swifter than a Weaver's Shuttle
All Back Together Again -- Sampling
Chevron Scarf, Part II -- The Weaving Studio
To see the yarns he start out with, go here:
Chevron Scarf, Part I
The Curious Adventure of the Curious Weaver – Curiousweaver
Random Pickup (on-loom shibori) – Constance Rose Textile Design
How Do I Get My Warp to Tension Evenly -- Ask the Bellwether

Weaving with their own handspun:
Autumn Neckband -- The Weaving Studio
Spinning a Warp -- Renee Weaves
Daring to Use Handspun -- t'katch

Conversations in Fiber -- Cyber Fiber Scriber
Ny Varp -- KDes Inspiration Blog
An Online Sketchbook -- Magic Warp
Voting and Warping -- fiberewtopia
Bare Loom No More -- Deep End of the Loom
Some Assembly Required: Attaching a Sectional Beam to the Glimakra Ideal -- Tangled Threads

The Master Weaver Loom (from Seabreeze Spinners)
Master Weaver Loom Questions
Master Weaver Project

Lilibet's Debut -- Thrums
Ninth Gamma -- Weaverly
Saori Salt Spring Studio -- Weaving a Life (Salt Spring Studio)
Festive Towel Exchange -- My Offering -- Centerweave
Back to Work, Finally -- Weave4Fun
Warping the Next Water Series -- Sandra's Loom Blog
Swedish Lace Sampler -- Fibres of Being
Shed Improvement -- Sharing the Fiber Fever

Blog posts on color (or not):
Two from t’katch:
Which Weft?
A Dash of Red
Two from Weaving Spirit
Finding the Color Within
More Finding the Colors Within
The Periodic Table of Color -- Color + Design Blog
Eye for Color -- Dot's Fibre to Fabric
Colour and Weave -- Fibres of Being
White??? -- Fun with Fiber
Pretty Picture -- Tien's Blog

On selling your creations:
Online Venues -- Constance Rose Textile Design

"Recent Posts from Other Blogs" was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 11, 2008. © 2008 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

THREADING MULTIPLE HEDDLES AT A TIME

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I began threading.  As you can see, I did a rather sloppy job of tying off that third bout. I was ready to get up quickly to do something else!

As you can also see, I did not make a lot of progress in the threading. 

A  straight draw is very simple so I decided to return to a threading technique I used regularly before I embarked on this much more complex crackle threading. And that is one reason I made so little progress.

SETTING UP HEDDLES FOR THREADING

First I pull out the heddles I am going to use for a group.  In this case I decided to work with three heddles on each shaft, for a total of 3 threading repeats.  This gives me 24 ends, which is 1” worth of threads.  I want to end up with 1” groups of warp ends because that is how many I am going to include in each group when it is time to lash on.

What you see in the photo on the right side are 3 finished bouts of 24 ends each, or 3 threading repeats each.

HEDDLE HOOKS

Second, I always use a heddle hook. I find heddle hooks easier, faster and less awkward than fingers.  Certainly that is true with fine threads.  With less fine threads it might be just a matter of what you are used to.  So I insert my hook into the appropriate heddle, grab the correct yarn from the group that is in the finger spaces of my hand and pull the yarn through.  Then I repeat the process.  And repeat.  And repeat.  And repeat………

THREADING FOUR HEDDLES AT A TIME

With the technique I am returning to after many months of threading crackle one heddle at a time, I pull only a bit of the loop through the heddle. I then slide that loop down onto the neck of the hook. Keeping that loop on the hook’s neck, I insert that hook into the next heddle and pull only a bit of the loop through the heddle and then slide that loop down onto the neck of the hook.  Now I have two loops on the heddle hook. 

I do this twice more, ending up with four loops on the heddle hook.  Then I pull the heddle hook so that all the threads are pulled through their respective heddles and start all over again.  I do this a total of six times and then I am done with a 1-inch group of 24 ends.

Pulling one group of four thread all the way through is faster than pulling individual threads, one by one, all the way through.  At least once I hit my stride, it is faster!

PROBLEMS

It’s been awhile since I did this, probably over a year, since I wouldn’t dare try it with crackle and 60/2 silk.  So things did not go completely smoothly.  I had forgotten, for example, how I have to watch for the heddles on shaft 8.  Somehow they can get lost so that I end up beginning threading with a heddle on shaft 7 instead.  And I only realize when I come to the heddle on shaft 2 that it is really on shaft 1 and so I have goofed.

A heddle on shaft 8 I find can also easily get caught up, unthreaded between a group of threaded heddles.  What this means is that I would have something as follows:  heddles threaded on shafts 8 and 7.  An unthreaded heddle on shaft 8, then heddles threaded on shafts 6 through 1. All that has happened is that an empty heddle has gotten caught where it doesn’t belong.

If I wanted to, I could forget about this and just grab an extra shaft 8 heddle from the group at the left. But because I am used to weaving at high densities and so might find an extra unthreaded heddle troublesome, I usually unthread to the caught empty heddle, move it to the next group on the left where it belongs, and then rethread.  Also, when I get to the center I will find that I have to move a heddle from the left side of the loom to the right side.  That means unhooking the shaft from its two posts, not my favorite activity.  What is more, should I break a thread in that area while I am weaving, finding two empty heddles in close proximity might be momentarily confusing.

NEARING MY STRIDE

By the time I got to the third bout, I had not quite hit my stride in threading, but I was moving close to it.  Tomorrow is just around the corner.

Related Post:  The Threading Process

"Threading Multiple Heddles at a Time" was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 10, 2008. © 2008 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

GETTING READY TO THREAD

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I have removed the front beam.  I have removed the top of the beater.  And I have removed the cloth beam.  I have inserted two books to lift up the shafts so that the heddle eyes are at a convenient height.  I have set up lamps to help my vision.  I have moved my bench closer to the heddles.

The last, and for me the most difficult, thing I did was to count out the heddles I needed on the right side of the center posts.  Difficult because it meant first doing some arithmetic. 

CALCULATING HEDDLES NEEDED

I have a total of 684 ends.  Or, at least, that is the number I should have if I have done everything correctly so far.  That, however, is a judgment that is not yet ready to be made.  I need half those ends on each side of the center posts.  Half, my calculator tells me, is 342 ends.  That means I need 342 heddles on the right side.

I am going to thread straight draw on 8 shafts, beginning with the back shaft, #8.  To find how many heddles I need on each shaft, I divide 342 by 8.  The result is 42.75.  Now I know I am in trouble.  Sigh.  3/4 of 8 is 6.  So I am not in trouble.  So I figure what will happen if I have 43 heddles and shafts 6 through 8 and 42 on shafts 1 and 2.  That gives me 344 heddles, or 2 too many.  So I try 43 heddles on shafts 7 through eight and 42 on shafts 1 through 3.  Well, that gives me 341 heddles or one too few. 

Since the second figure, while not exact, comes closer to the number I need, that is what I will go with.  But I know that the ground under me feels very unsupportive….  On the other hand, I know that if I learn when I get to the center posts that I have made a mistake, it is not the end of the world.  I can release the heddle holders from the center posts (the posts are at both the top and the bottom) and move heddles one way or the other.  But it is awkward, and if I have to release all of them, the skin on my thumb gets very sore. 

READY TO THREAD

In this close up photo, the lease sticks are visible behind the heddles.  They are at a pretty good height for me to be able to thread the heddles while I am sitting on my regular weaving bench. One bout is at the right of the heddles, only to ensure, while I am away from the loom, that those carefully counted heddles will not somehow slip back to the other heddles at the far right.  I do have a cat…..

I enjoy the threading process. Threading is an activity I can easily fit into those bits of time between other activities.  And right now those other weaving activities in particular are going to include dealing with the warp I have removed from the loom.  That is very high priority.  Also, I need to update the paperwork for this current warp.

Related Post:  
The Threading Process
I Ought Not to be a Weaver

"Getting Ready to Thread" was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 07, 2008. © 2008 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

BEAMING ON

Posted by Peg in South Carolin

I’m done raddling.  I’ve attached the warp rod to the apron rod.  I did that by bringing up the apron rod so that it rested on the table.  At each end of that rod (not in the photo) I have a piece of texsolv cord.  I slip the end of the warp rod into the holes of the texsolv.  Then I tie the rods together at several other places, using heavy cord.  The reason for the texsolv is primarily that it helps me keep the two rods spaced evenly apart.

The warp yarns are a little wonky right now.  I will get that straightened out before I continue.

There is something else I need to do before I wind on.  I need to throw the warp over the castle. Once over the castle I weight each bout individually.  Normally I have always made slip knots and attach the weights to them.  But I noticed that the red bag savers I use have holes in them, and I can fit my weights through the holes.  So I decided to try that.

At this point I notice something.  Yup, a twisted bout.  Twisted bouts are really easy to spot with the colored stripes.  That is good because it will happen all the time as I beam on, so I will be spending time straightening bouts as well as winding on.

At this point I can begin to wind on.

The first thing I have to do is to get the rods onto the beam itself. I wind the beam with my left hand and hold onto the rod gingerly with my left hand as it moves off the table down onto the warp beam itself.  This requires a bit of calisthenics as the handle to turn the rod is on the left side and the loom weaves 45” wide, which means it is actually a bit wider than that.  So I am stretched a bit as I do this.

It is very important that I do this carefully. I want the warp rod and the apron rod, when they get themselves on the beam, to be absolutely parallel to the beam and to be an equal distant apart.  It went easily this time.  Sometimes it takes a bit more work.

Notice that the warp ends still need to be moved and adjusted a bit.

And now I am ready to beam on. 

My new way of hanging weights worked well except that I learned I had to check for ends coming loose.  If I could really carefully flatten out those warps, this would be a perfect setup.  But I didn’t so that the places where I attached the weights were usually a bit bumpy.  The flatter parts then would not get held as well because the grip is really not that strong.  Still, the flattening out of the warp that did result did create a warp much easier to wind on. 

And here she is, ready for threading.

 

Related Posts: 
Recent Comments and Questions
Question on Untwisting Warp Bouts
Winding on the Warp
 

"Beaming On" was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 05, 2008. © 2008 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

RADDLING

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Before I started the raddling process, I went to the front of the loom and attached a somewhat heavy potato chip package clip to each of the bouts. I enjoy the fact that these clips are bright red!  What they do is make the unbeamed warp tight enough so that I can easily pick out the ends to drop in the raddle at the back of the loom.

So now to return to the front of the loom.  After she read yesterday’s blog post, Dorothy asked the following question:

I'm curious about the newspapers to lay over the raddle, I'm wondering why and how do you use the raddle? I have one raddle with a removable wooden top (that secures with locking pins), the other is a small homemade raddle with short pins and I tie a piece linen around the length of it when the threads are in place.

Here is a close up of the raddle. It is made by LeClerc.  The teeth are quite long and, instead of going up and down, they project towards me.  As the nails are quite thick and the heads very small, they do not pose as great a personal threat to me as do the nails in the raddle I made for myself. 

To the right is the first part of the warp I have raddled.  To the left is warp waiting to be raddled.  If the raddle didn’t have the newspaper underneath to support the warp ends, those warp ends would drop erratically into the raddle spaces, get hooked up on the tops of the nails, and in general get a bit tangled.  With 8/2 cotton it’s not too hard to get them out and untangle them.  But doing that is no fun with 60/2 silk!  As I raddle more ends, I keep moving the newspaper to the left.

But let’s take a closer look at that unraddled bout on the left.  That is the second bout. The bout I worried so much about getting right because I had not tied the end loop.  Well, it is all caught on the rod so I was successful in getting all the loops.  But.  Yes, it is twisted on the rod. What to do?

I had to remove it from the rod so I could untwist it.  That meant I had to remove the already-raddled warp ends from the rod as well, not to mention untying the cord that was keeping the rod from accidentally slipping out of the bouts.

First I put a cord through the loops of the already raddled ends.  I tied that cord so that when I was ready to slip the rod back into them, it would be easy to find the loops. In the photo to the right you can see the red cord I used to secure the loops, and the white cord that serves to keep the rod from slipping out of the loops.

So I had to put a cord through the already raddled ends on the right, so that I wouldn’t lose the loops when I took the rod out.  Yes, I took the rod out, after, of course, also undoing the tie that was designed to keep the rod from accidentally slipping out. 

Then I removed the twisted ends.  These were easy to untwist and slip back on. I have done this a fair number of times, so now it is really only an annoyance. I slipped the raddled warp back on and untied the red cord.  Then I tied the cord to keep the rod from slipping out.

I was off and running. Or so I thought.

The next bout also proved to be twisted.  Well, again, no big deal.  Or so I thought.

I went through the same process again but this time the troublesome bout would simply not untwist. So I just started kind of combing from the cross to put the loops on in the proper order, one by one.  But that is really impossible when I have used a paddle to wind two ends at a time.

Winding two ends at a time creates double loops where one loop is also attached to the next loop.  I should have taken a picture but I was a bit out of my mind by this time. Suffice it to say that I did get the bout back on….kind of right.  Better than it was.  Everything is fine between the rod and the cross, but it is a slight mess on the rod itself.  But I think it will be fine.  I cannot see how this slight mess can affect anything other than my own sense of neatness and order.  I don’t think this will come back to bite me……. 

"Raddling" was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 04, 2008. © 2008 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

PREPARING TO RADDLE: SOME PROBLEMS

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Here is my loom ready for the warp to appear for raddling.  I have removed the reed from the beater.  I have put on two wood cross bars the length of the loom to hold the rod and lease sticks level. The heddles are pushed to the sides of the loom.  A raddle with half-inch dents is clamped to the back beam.  A chair is there for me to sit on.  To the left is a waste basket.  To the right is the taboret I use for keeping tools close by.  On the floor, but not visible, are newspapers to lay over the raddle.  Missing is the table at the back to hold the rod while I raddle.

The loom is ready.  Now to get the warp ready.

I had made seven bouts and labeled them 1-7.  Or so I thought.

Here they are, waiting to be slipped on to the rod, visible in the front, and then slipped on to the lease sticks, which are barely visible at the back of the photo.

All these bouts had tags but two had no numbers on them.  Since I am dealing with stripes, the order is important.  Actually, it is not the order of each individual bout that is important because the middle five bouts are identical.  And the outside two bouts are different from the other five but identical to each other. 

After checking, it was clear that one of the bouts was an outside bout and one was a middle bout.  The outside bouts have more of the brown stripe warp yarns, and this particular bout, unlike any other, has a narrow stripe at both the beginning and the end. So the lack of identification turned out to be a non-problem.

But the next step revealed a more serious problem.  I slipped bout one onto the warping rod, with the brown ends on the selvedge side.  I noted which direction the bow ties were facing.  All the bow ties of the remaining bouts needed to be slipped through the rod in the same direction. Then I went to slip on the second bout.

In the photo the first bout is at the front of the photo.  It has a piece of red yarn tying off the loop at the end.  The bowtie faces left.  That is the directions all the rest of the bowties will have to face.

But wait! The second bout, just above the first one, has no red bowtie! I just plain forgot to tie it off while it was on the warping board. If I had wound the warp with one thread at a time, this would not have been a problem.  I could easily have found the loop where the rod was supposed to go.  But warping two ends at a time with a warping paddle creates a false cross and an end loop that is not  clearly defined once it’s off the board.  So I struggled by stretching out the warp and looking through it to find uncaught loops.  I did this several times, each time finding one or more uncaught loops. I think I have them all, but when I raddle the warp I will have to watch this group carefully to make sure that all the loops are indeed caught.

Here is an image of the bowties that tie off the leases.  These two face the left. When I do the raddling, I will have to make sure that all of the rest of these bowties face left as well. Also, you can tell this is an end bout because the extra number of brown threads on the selvedge side is clearly visible.

Then I inserted the lease sticks, one stick on each side of the cross.  I still don’t like that second bout, but I think everything is the way it should be. But I will be vigilant.  So I put in the ties to hold the lease sticks and tied a cord around the rod to keep the warp from slipping off.  Then I picked up the whole thing and moved it to the loom.  A photo of that would have been interesting!

You might have noticed by now that the end of each warp bout is in a plastic bag.  I do this to keep the warp clean and also to keep the bouts from tangling with each.

And here is what the loom looks like now that I have brought the warp to it.  I put the newspaper over the raddle before I brought the warp in.  This way, warp ends will not get caught in raddle ends where they do not belong.  The whole raddling process is made easier.

I have also brought my little table to the back.

I have also  taped the rod onto those long cross sticks.  This way I can go take my much needed walk without worrying (too much) about the rod being pushed off the loom.  The table in front will also help, as will the chair in front of the table.

I am now almost ready to begin dropping ends into the raddle, but not quite.  I have to weight lightly the bouts at the back.  This will give a little bit of tension, just enough so that it is easy to pick out the ends to drop in the raddle.  And I have to drop the rod down onto the table at the front of the loom.

Time for that walk!

 

Related Posts: 
Preparing the Warp Bouts for the Loom 
Ready to Raddle 

 

 

"Preparing to Raddle: Some Problems" was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 03, 2008. © 2008 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

HANGING SAMPLE: BETTER PHOTO

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

While in Asheville a weekend ago, I also purchased a photography book. It is called simply Digital Camera, Fifth Edition. It is written by Dave Johnson. I do have several photography books already, but when I took a look at this one today, I saw a chapter called “Understand Exposure.” And in that chapter was a section called “Tricky Lighting Situations.” There, in language I can finally understand, it explains how to use metering modes and exposure lock in order to deal with problematic images, like the one on yesterday’s post.

The image on yesterday’s post was really difficult to see. I didn’t know what to do about it in the software. Today, after reading this section, I got my camera out and took some more photos. I tried out the techniques I had learned in that section on tricky lighting situations. To the left is one of the results.

Not a perfect picture by any means—it is now a bit too bright. I could have fiddled some more with the camera or I could have worked some with the software. But I was too excited to get a photo where the fabric was basically visible and somewhat close to what it actually looks like!

Related Post:
Photographing Textiles
Why I Weave as I Do

"Hanging Sample: Better Photo" was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 01, 2008. © 2008 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina