THREADING HALF DONE

Well, actually, slightly over halfway done. But only slightly.



THE THREADING PRINTOUT

At the top of the loom you can see the narrow cork boards I mentioned on another post. I have attached the printed-out threading to it. The threading goes for two pages. But I arrange the page so that no more that two rows are visible at a time. I prefer having only one row visible. Then my eye isn't likely to wander to the wrong row.

NEED FOR FREQUENT BREAKS

I have discovered, sadly, that if I try to sit long enough to thread two different blocks, I am likely to make errors when I work on the second block. It seems it is difficult for my head to let go of the first sequence of heddles I had been threading. I either want to repeat that first sequence, or else, I want to thread some kind of compromise sequence.

I always seem to catch myself when I make this kind of error. But I certainly know I will definitely not try to thread a third block, with yet a difference sequence of heddles, without taking a break.

DYEING AND THREADING

It is not hard to spread out periods of threading. I still have plenty of dye work and yarn preparation to do and it is easy to fit threading times in between those activities. If all works out right, I shall be ready to weave at roughly the same time as the dyeing and yarn preparations are all finished.

INTERESTING POSTS FROM OTHER WEAVING BLOGS

Here are links to some of the weaving blog posts I have especially enjoyed this past week:

Breaks -- Weaverly
The Embodiment of Weaving Spirit -- Weaving Spirit
Compliments -- Unravelling
The Studio-To-Be -- Sandra's Loom Blog
Weaving with Bamboo -- Shirley Treasure
Hand Manipulated Weavin -- Deep End of the Loom

DYEING IN THE KITCHEN

Janice asked the following question about my dyeing:

"Where do you do this dyeing? I ask because I've been afraid to do it in the kitchen, but don't have another good place. Is it OK if you keep all the utensils for dyeing separate from those for cooking, or is there a danger of fumes and spatters getting on food and eating utensils?"

I am glad that Janice is so concerned about dye safety. Being concerned is very important. There are people who absolutely will not dye in their kitchen. At all.

NO DYE POWDERS IN THE KITCHEN

What I absolutely will not do is bring dye powders into the kitchen. I will not even open a jar of dye powder in the kitchen. Dye powders are extraordinarily light and can move easily into the air just in response to your breathing. Of course you would be using a face mask...........

Dye powders are the primary danger source. So I use my garage to mix up the dye stock solutions. I try to do this on a windless day so that I can keep the garage door open for added ventilation. I close that dye jar as soon as I can after I have opened it and wipe down the area with a damp cloth. Doing that always reveals unseen spilled powder.

STOCK SOLUTIONS

One reason I like using acid dyes so much is that I can make up dye stock solutions in one- and two-liter containers. They will store for a year or two, perhaps even longer. I do date the containers. Then I can use those stock solutions in the kitchen to mix the colors I want.

KEEPING THE KITCHEN SAFE

In the kitchen, I move all items related to cooking to another area. For me, all this usually means is moving the mixer and the coffee maker. I also remove the dishcloth from the sink.

I cover the area with oil cloth and sometimes I put newsprint down over that. Newsprint absorbs spills; oil cloth does not. Any spill, even a small spot left by putting down a stirring spoon, I immediately wipe up with a paper towel. The paper towels go into a closed trash can, as does the newsprint, if I have used it.

At the end of the session, I carefully wipe down the whole area. And the whole time I am dyeing I keep glancing at the floor just to make sure a drop or two of dye hasn't gotten on it.

FUMES

As for the fumes, yes, although I cannot smell them, I know that there are some fumes from the citric acid I use. These fumes are nothing like the fumes I would get, however, were I to use vinegar. Fortunately Sabraset dyes require very little acid, so any fumes do not concern me.

When I dye on the stove, I do turn on my professional kitchen hood to ventilate any fumes (and moisture) to the outside.

I will not do discharging, because the chemicals which are used for that have horrible and dangerous fumes. I won't even do that outside.

MY CONCLUSIONS

I do not dye often or for long periods. If I dyed every day I would carefully investigate the need for a respirator. I suspect that I would find I would not need one. But I do not know.

From the literature I have read, it is the dye powder which is the potential hazard. Keeping this in mind, we need to remember that spilled dye liquid, when dry, will turn into dye powder. That is why I am so meticulous about cleaning up the slightest spills.

CRACKLE AND PAINTED WARPS

Dyeing the weft yarns for this upcoming crackle warp has brought warp painting back to mind.

PAINTING A TENCEL WARP

What popped up was a painted warp scarf I had done years ago. The yarn was tencel. The structure was plain weave. Using MX Procion dyes, I painted the warp yarns in swathes of bright yellowed orange and bright yellow. Then I painted skeins for weft with the leftover dye solutions. I let the warps and skeins cure for a couple of days, then steamed them, let them dry, and got to work.

WEAVING THE SCARF

When I wove it off, I used yellows in the yellow section and oranges in the orange sections. But because the warps were not painted rigidly but very loosely, the yellows and oranges flowed into each other. Thus there were times when yellow wefts crossed orange warps and orange wefts crossed yellow warps.

The scarf turned out to be an absolute favorite of mine. I hung it in my studio (I had a studio back then). Looking at it lightened my heart and brought a smile to my face. It was a joyful, happy scarf. And my heart leaped a bit whenever I glanced at it.

PAINTING A CRACKLE WARP?

Couldn't I just do something simple like that with crackle? Two colors. Paint the warp in swathes of the two colors. Nothing rigid. Paint the wefts with the leftover dye solutions. Steam and dry the yarns. Warp the loom. And weave.

THE RESULT?

I envision a scarf where blocks appear and disappear. Or at least a scarf where blocks lose and gain prominence. I think it might be interesting.

Related Post: Leaving the Comfort Zone

RED WEFTS DYED

I had been planning on using my big pots to dye the weft skeins. At most, I planned that I could handle two at a time. But then I weighed the skeins.

The skeins weighed 10 grams each. Actually, they weighed 9.5 grams, but I decided to round up to 10 for easier calculating.

When you dye anything, you have to calculated the total amount of dye liquor (water + dye solution + additives) needed. The minimum amount is 30 times the weight of the fiber. 30 times 10 is 300. 300 grams, you say? That is dry weight. But since each gram is the liquid equivalent of one millileter (ml), that translates to 300 ml of liquid total.

In case you are choking on the metric system, 300 ml is a tiny bit more than 1 cup.

The wonderful and practical result of this is that I could make much more efficient use of my time. Instead of a large pot with one skein in it, I could use my electric frying pan (cheap, dedicated to dyeing) for a water bath in which to place the five canning jars I would need, one for each skein. And that is what you are looking at in the picture.

The long thing sticking out of one of the jars is a thermometer. It has a metal shield on it to protect it from breaking.

My assumption, in using only one thermometer, is that all the jars in the pan heat up to about the same temperature. And I need the thermometer because I have to control the speed with which the temperature rises, and I can let that temperature, with silk, get no higher than 200 degrees fahrenheit.

When I finished, I let the skeins sit in the jars overnight to soak up any more dye it might soak up. Then I rinsed them and they are now hanging to dry.

Tomorrow, on to the blues.

Related Posts:
Dye Stock Solutions
Anger Despite Playing with Dyes

THE THREADING PROCESS

BLOCKS, UNITS, THREADS

Crackle is a block structure. Each block contains one or more units and each unit has four threads. In this case, each of my blocks consists of eight units.

SLIDING THE HEDDLES

I thread four units at a time. That means 16 heddles. Since this is crackle, only three shafts are involved in any given group. What I then do is to slide the number of heddles I need for that group on each shaft to my right. I slip the bout of threads I am going to use between those heddles and the heddles on my left. Doing this keeps the selected heddles from slipping back into the larger group.

Looking at the photo, you can see in the darkness to the far right the heddles that are already threaded and checked. Then in the light are the 16 heddles waiting to be threaded. Snugged up, almost invisble, against the center heddles waiting their turn is the bout of yarn from which I will draw out the individual ends for threading.

THREADING THE HEDDLES

Since there are four threads in a unit, I remove the first four threads and separate them between my the fingers of my left hand in the order of threading. I slip my threading hook into the first heddle to be threaded, use the hook to grab the first thread in my left hand and pull it through. I do the same thing with the remaining three threads. Then I move on to the next four threads.

With less fine threads and with wools and cottons I can usually just tighten the whole bout with my left hand and then use my threading hook to grab the yarn as it sits on the lease sticks. But this fine silk is not so easily tamed.

CHECKING THE THREADING

I thread all 16 heddles. Then I check the threading by pulling tightly on the threaded ends with my left hand and with my right hand, touching each heddle and thead. In my early days of weaving I used to do a lot of eyeballing here. As long as the setts were not very close and the yarns were fairly heavy, I could get away with that. But as I started working with silk and with finer threads I found out I couldn't just eyeball. I actually had to go there with my hands so I could really see that the threads were going through the right heddles.

SLIP KNOTS

When I am satisfied that the threading is correct, I tie those 16 ends in a slip knot. Then I do the next 16 ends. When I am satisfied that those are correctly threaded, I pull the slip knot out of the first half of the block of yarns and tie the entire group together in a slip knot.

THE PRINTED THREADING

To make threading a little easier, I have attached two long skinny pieces of corkboard at the top of my castle (not visible in this photo). I pin my threading to it, and mark off the groups of threads as I proceed.

This process makes it easy to thread in spare bits of time. I have the printed threading I can check. But I can also count the blocks I have threaded by looking at the slip knots.

Actually, it is much easier for me to thread in spare moments than to sit at the loom for hours just threading.

Related Posts:
Let the Threading Begin
Threading 4-Shaft Crackle

LET THE THREADING BEGIN

MOVING THE HEDDLES

The heddles that I am going to need to right of center have been moved from the sides to the center, as the picture shows. But why do I need to do this at all?

If you look at the center of my shafts, you see a knobby thing sticking down from the top of the first shaft. This knobby thing is on each shaft.. It is on the bottom of each shaft as well. These keep heddles from crossing to the center. So, to make life bearable, I move the necessary shafts from the right side to the left.

How do I know how many to move? Before I purchased weaving software, I took my written draft. I found the center. Then I counted the heddles on each shaft that were to the right of center.

My weaving software, however, computes the total number of heddles on each shaft that I will need. I divide each of those in half to figure out how many I need to push to the center on each shaft. If I have an odd, assymetric threading, this doesn't work so well. But this time my threading is quite symmetric.

TOO MANY? TOO FEW?

Despite weaving software, despite careful counting, I don't usually end up quite right when I get to the center. Either I have two or three heddles too many, or I am missing two or three heddles. Those center bars can be raised so that I can move the heddles across center. Not my favorite activity, but it can be done.

Also, if I have too many heddles, I can just leave them where they are. But somehow that disturbs my sense of .........aesthetics? I just don't like it. Partly, also, I am usually weaving at quite fine setts so I don't think it would be helpful to the weaving to have any extra heddles hanging around. So I always get them where they are supposed to be.

THREADING LEFT TO RIGHT AND RIGHT TO LEFT

There is another alternative to approaching threading. Leave all the heddles at the side. Then thread the heddles on the right from right to left instead of left to right.

I have done this. And it does work. But, for me, anyway, doing it this way is a bit problematic.

First, it is a bit awkward. Practice would probably get rid of this awkwardness.

But what really bothers me is the greater opportunity for threading errors changing threading directions creates. Changing reading a draft from left to right (as you would threading the right side) to reading it from right to left (as you would for threading the left side) can create havoc with short-term memory.

For example, you've just gotten used to threading 1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4.................. And then suddenly you have to reverse yourself and start threading 4,3,2,1,4,3,2,1.............. How easy it is to forget,when you are threading the left side, not to reverse yourself. And if the numbers go kind of crazy (1,2,3,2,1,2,3,4,3,2,3,42,3,4,5,4..........), well, you've got a recipe for disaster!

And here is the actual threading:


Related Posts:
Next Crackle Project (Corrected)
8 Crackle Blocks on 4 Shafts Sampling