SpinnySpinny

Everything is working fine with the loom, I’ve decided to weave one long strip of fabric and cut it apart for the coasters. The sari silk yarn is very textured, which tends to make the selvedges a little messy. In general, it’s weaving ok although once in a while I have to stop and untwist a snarl. It’s still a single. I’m using a stick shuttle (the only thing I have that will hold enough thick yarn) and doing a very narrow fabric, so I end up fiddling with the weft every pick anyway. I think for a wider fabric, I’d skein and set the twist again under high tension before weaving with it to reduce the tendency to snarl.

So with my first project on the loom, I can tell you one thing I’m not doing again is using all twelve harnesses for plain weave. I did it just to make sure everything was working correctly and get a feel for threading. But every shed is lifting six harnesses, along with all those extra heddles. That’s pretty heavy for no good reason.

The heddles are back on, I decided to only put 150 per harness because I had them already counted out in groups of 50. If I need more than 1800 heddles for something, I think I can go back and put them on. I think it will be a while before I get to that.

Of course, as soon as I got everything together, I had to warp something. That’s what I’ve been doing instead of updating the website. I had just enough on a tube of carpet warp to match some sari silk yarn. I’m planning to do some coasters, if it turns out well I’ll give a set to the guy I got the yarn from. He’s a local, and I’ve helped him out at a few shows.

And, now that the camera is better behaved, I have a picture!

It’s huge. After working with this, I know I’ve been correct all these years in turning down offers of 60 inch looms. This one is quite enough, thank you. Even trying to reach through twelve harnesses to thread the thing is entertaining. And to think I was looking for a 36 inch, 4 harness.

There are a few things to work out in the warping procedure, the first is to find some way to lock the beater in place for sleying. Trying to wrestle with yarn and sley hook while the reed keeps moving is no fun. My other Leclerc had this problem as well, I don’t know why there isn’t some standard way of dealing with it. And there is also the same old problem of getting wire heddles to move around when you want them. I can see I’m going to have to undo the clips that hold the heddle bars in place every time I thread this thing. Otherwise the heddles won’t move. Even after I tied on to the back, I was still trying to get the heddles in place so the warp lies straight. Fortunately, undoing the top clip is enough. I’d never get the bottom ones back on after threading.

So I have 2088 heddles. That’s enough to do the full width of the loom at about 18 ends per cm or 46 per inch. I think that will keep me busy for a while. Now I just have to get them all back on.

This afternoon I started back on getting the loom ready and got quite a lot done. All the major pieces are assembled and the next thing is to deal with the heddles. So I’m counting to determine how many I have and how to distribute them on the harnesses. So far, I’ve found that I’m missing one wing nut (for the treadle assembly) and I could use a couple more tie-up cords (to attach the treadles to harnesses and create patterns.) Nothing major. I decided to not put a rug under the loom so I can get the dust mop in there for cleaning. There are rubber pads on the bottom to protect the floor and I’ll likely pull out a small rug or two while warping to catch dropped items. I still have to think about how to protect the wall and floor from over-zealous shuttle throws. At least it’s not right next to a window this time (and the wall directly to one side is bead board, not plaster.)

This loom is about as large as I think I am capable of handling, as I can barely reach across the full weaving width. As it is, I have to fold the back beam in two stages because I can’t reach both ends of the adjustable braces at once. If I ever attach the second back beam, that is going to be a real problem. Related to that is that this thing is very heavy. I had to adjust the position a few times and it’s a big pain to move once it’s all together. Before I got the front beam assembly attached, it was threatening to fall over whenever I unfolded the back beam.

One thing I’m going to have to get used to is the loose front and back beams. My previous loom was securely attached and on this one they are loosely fitted on pegs. It’s nice for working around the loom, but it also means if you grab the beam it’s going to come away in your hand. This very nearly sent the whole back crashing down on several occasions. When it’s fully open and there is a warp on it, it’s not going anywhere of course. But if it’s folded, that could create a major disaster.

The heddle sorting continues. As does the spinning of solid color singles for sock yarn. I’ll spare you the details, other than to say I’ve got a bobbin and a half done. The president of Spindles and Flyers, a friend of mine, has been trying to talk me into submitting a skein for the San Mateo County Fair. The entry form deadline is coming up fast and items must be delivered near the end of the month. I don’t know if I will have anything finished by then. I have a day or so more to think about it.

So, of course, I went shopping at monthly spinning night instead of actually getting any spinning done. I’ve been thinking I should try some socks from commercial sock yarn before I set out to do with handspun, so I can contemplate what I want. I’ve only done a couple socks and it’s been a while. So I picked up enough to do two pairs, one short and one tall. I’ve been looking at sock yarns but not happy with what I’ve seen in a few other shops, the colors were oddly muted and mostly they were the instant Fair Isle stripy things. Stripes are ok, but I didn’t want funky patterns that would only get weird if I don’t work on the recommended number of stitches. After pawing through an entire bin, I found some I could live with at Carolina Homespun. Everyone was amazed that they were not gray. (There was only one skein of gray in the yarn I wanted.) Now I just have to work out the toe-up thing so I can knit until I run out of yarn.