Note to Self: I Am Not a Machine

This is for anyone left wondering what ever became of my Very Large Project of drapery fabric.  After having everything come together so amazingly smoothly for this project, I must admit I suffered somewhat of a defeat.  Although I measured the pattern repeats as I wove and tried to keep my beat consistent, when it came to assembly the panels' stripes did not line up along the entire length of the drapery.  In this photo (courtesy J&L Draperies), you can see that the hem in two adjacent panels ends at a different part of the repeat.

Despite this, I'm happy to see it made up and installed, and the effect is similar to the original ones that were disintegrating after 50 years of use.  If I ever get an opportunity to do something similar again, I would.  It was fun and I have learned the lesson: if it involves horizontal stripes that will need to be matched, proceed with caveats or modify the design.

A Little Road Trip for my Fabric

Here's what 60 yards of that 60"-wide fabric looks like, loaded up and ready for delivery to the drapery-maker.  I almost can't believe I actually did this.

Destination:  J&L Draperies.  This storefront is where they meet with customers and have sample books lining the walls.  They have a separate workshop where they actually cut and sew the products.

I also got to visit the house where these are going to be installed.  The drive and carport sort of look like a hotel or something, but this is a private residence.  The layout is a square with a courtyard with pool in the center, terra cotta brick walls, brick floors and lots of glass.

These are the old curtains which will be replaced with the fabric I wove, in the family room area.

The Home Stretch

Almost done weaving this drapery yardage!  Here is the warp for the second of two runs going onto the beam.  It's sure nice to have a tension box that's meant for the loom.  I should get the right one for my other loom.  This one from AVL has adjustable tension rods, rotating reed on the front, a yardage counter and heddles to form a cross.

VLP - Weaving !

After some adjustments I got the weaving going this week.  I immediately determined that it is physically impossible to throw by hand through a 60" shed on this loom.  There's just not the leverage to impart the velocity needed to get the shuttle to the other side.  So I learned how to use the fly shuttle and about adjusting the drop boxes which is critical.  If the box is lower than the shuttlerace, the shuttle launches over the fabric and ends up on the floor at the other side of the loom.  Quite exciting.
The dobby is working great.  It's nice to not have to worry about treadling with a 100+ pick sequence.  The weaving is not as fast as I'd hoped, but acceptable.  I am so fortunate to have got connected with this loom when I did.  There's no way I could have accomplished this on the Macomber; I would have been crying.

VLP Update

Beaming went fairly smoothly, though it took a day.  There were a couple warp ends that somehow didn't make it into the section bundle, so I had to add some weighted ends, and a couple ends which caught on the pegs where I will have to deal with them being loose when I get to where the extra length is.  Threading the 1200 ends was another day.

Very Large Project Start

Spools of warp for the VLP.  20 spools each of 20/2 and 5/2 cotton.  Just the scale of this thing brings up a different set of problems to solve, like how much yarn fits onto my spools.  The spools with the thin warp have enough on them for half the entire project.  The thick yarn would not fit even that much on a spool.  What I have here is enough for 1/3 of the sections for half the project, or 1/6 the total amount I'll need.  For the second half of the project I'll try to get half the sections onto a spool.  I think by the time I'm through I will regret not having invested in an electric winder for bobbins and spools.

A Retro Repro Project

Well, the Very Large Project has materialized (sorry for the pun).  I am producing some window casement fabric (drapery material) for a house with a lot of glass.  The original fabric the customer wants to replace is circa 1960s.  I analyzed the original fabric and of several samples I made, this one was chosen.

Here's a backlit view of one of the samples.  This is the way it hangs, with the stripes running horizontally.  It's kind of an interesting weave, with  long warp floats in stripes.  The fabric is held together behind the floats by a thinner warp.  The horizontal color stripes are tied down sometimes by the thick warp and sometimes by the thin warp, adding extra variation in the patterning.

Long Warp Continued

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions of uses for a really long narrow warp.  Many people said ribbons and trims, and I had the same idea, so I did try weaving a bit of various narrow warp-faced trims.  But that got old after about six yards.  Plus I kept thinking, the shipment of yarn for sampling for the Very Large Project is on its way; I have to get this off the loom.

So the answer was to pull it off the beam a few yards at a time and make it into cords.  Lots and lots of cords, for hours of ply-splitting fun.

That's A Lotta Warp

In contemplating an upcoming Very Large Project, I wondered how much warp can I put on my Macomber's sectional beam?  I've never had it anywhere near full.

And the answer, for 5/2 cotton at 10 ends per inch, is...

...we may never know, because I stopped at 80 turns.  On my 3/4-yard beam that means 60 yards.  More, I guess, since the circumference grows as the yarn piles up.

Now, it didn't really occur to me when I got the bright idea to do this little experiment, but what on earth am I to do with a 1-inch wide, 60-plus-yard long warp?