[Pointed twill header. It's OK that it's not perfectly even]
I did get all set up to weave last night. Whenever I change patterns I weave the first few inches with a thin, high contrast yarn. This helps me to spot threading and pegging errors. As this pattern revealed itself I became more and more excited. It's gorgeous!
Complex pointed twills are widely used in traditional fabrics from around the world because they're exciting but easy to weave without a complicated loom. With a high contrast yarn, this pattern looks like Thai silk to me.
[Cheating non-tie-on]
I experimented with another time-saving trick yesterday. Ordinarily I start a beam by threading the apron backwards from the cloth takeup beam to the breast beam, cutting the knotted threading section off, and carefully tying onto the apron rod. This takes about 45 minutes.
[The last beam, tied on carefully]
This time I decided to see what happens if I trust the sandpaper to hold the raw threads under tension as I wove the header. It worked! And now that it's cloth against the beam, the slipping risk is almost nil. So I just need to start weaving the real cloth. I'll feed it through the loom as it's woven until it reaches the takeup beam. Not only does this new system save time, it reduces warp waste by about a foot. That's an extra $25 worth of cloth on every beam, $300 a year. (When I'm not an apprentice any more, it'll be my own money that I'm saving. I'll get there soon enough...)
So now I'm racing against the clock. Every yard of cloth that I weave between today and the 19th will help me to pay for the move from San Francisco. It's going to be tight, but I think I'll make it. Sorry if I skip blogging a little.
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4 comments:
I love reading about your weaving. I'm anxious to be closer so that I can watch and learn more about how you do what you do. Your loom is mezmorizing. :)
Hi Blossom,
When you put it onto the sandpaper beam, did you attach it to the cloth beam? I've wanted to try this technique for awhile but wasn't sure whether the ends just dangle straight down from the sandpaper beam or whether you run them all the way around the cloth beam. The latter seems more secure, but would increase loom waste, no?
I tried that - once. I did not like having to unroll the cloth from the sandpaper beam then thread it down to the cloth storage roller thereby losing tension on the warp. If you are only doing a very short warp it would be okay, but not for production weaving.
Will be interested to see if you still like the method once you've done that part...
Cheers,
Laura
Tien, I didn't dangle them straight down, I dangled them behind the top roller to increase the contact with the sandpaper. Check out today's photo expo...
Laura, I tried really hard to keep the threads from wrapping around the sandpaper beam because I know that unrolling them would be a nightmare. Besides, letting cloth build up on that beam messes up the auto-advance mechanism.
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