Color Challenged

A project for my color study group, where we each picked an artist "Master" to study.  I chose the impressionist painter Henri-Edmond Cross.  His work certainly has me putting together combinations of colors I would not have thought to try before!

Newwwww Shoooooelaces!

Great news for those of us who use a shoelace method for tying onto the front apron!  Nadine Sanders, aka The Singing Weaver, is once again offering flat braided polyester shoelaces.  I was getting pretty concerned since I was unable to find these at a decent price and mine were starting to wear out (not to mention a couple I've accidentally cut - oops!), so I'm glad to see she has brought them back.  My order of 40 laces arrived earlier this week.

The "shoestrings", along with her booklet "Warping on A Shoestring", are available at Nadine's site singingweaver.com.

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 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.

Loom Christening - First Warp

Something spicy to try out this loom.

Sea Shore Warp

Mmmm... fresh warp!  More 22/2 cottolin for another run of towels for the upcoming holiday sales.

I realized as I was winding this one that it reminds me of the sea shore: ocean, sky, seaweed, kelp.

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?

Tomorrow Will Be Beaming Day

Apron Ties - Variations on Shoelaces

Here is the traditional method that most sources teach to tie the warp onto the front apron rod.  Take sections of warps on bouts, smooth them out so the tension is even, and separate each into two equal-sized groups.  Put the two groups over the apron rod, keeping them separate, and bring one up onto each side of the warp.  Tie the first half of a square knot, or better, the first half of a surgeon's knot (pass the end twice around the crossed ends instead of once).

Then proceed with tensioning and when it's good, complete the square knots if needed for extra securing.

Next I'll show you two alternate methods using shoelaces...  They both start by first tying those smoothed-out warp bouts into an overhand knot at the end.

Here's the method that Nadine Sanders (aka the Singing Weaver) teaches.  She calls it "Warping on a Shoestring".  (I'd put a link to her web site singingweaver.com but it seems to be down right now.) Take a shoelace and hitch it at its center over the apron rod. Take a knotted bout, separate in 2 and make a "snitch knot" (lark's head) with the warps, then feed the 2 ends of the shoelace through the snitch knot.

The beauty of this method is the tensioning mechanism.  By just pulling toward you with the shoelace ends, or by separating the two and pulling, the warp is tightened and held in place as the snitch knot constricts, creating more static friction.  You can also see that there is less warp waste than in the traditional tie-on.

I use shoelaces, too, but it's sort of a hybrid of the two methods above.  Instead of forming the snitch knot with the bout of warps, make a lark's head in the center of a shoelace.  Put this around the bout of warps above the knot and tighten it.  This is similar to the way I attach my warp sections to the strings on my sectional beam.

Then use the two ends of the shoelace to tie onto the rod, in the same manner as in the traditional method above.  The shoelaces are basically acting as an extension of the warp bout.  The shoelaces are much easier to deal with in tying on than trying to keep the two halves of the bout separated while getting it around the rod in the traditional way.

This method is even more stingy with the warp.  Other than whatever length you use up in getting your warp initially spreaded prior to weaving, that overhand knot is the only wasted bit.

What method(s) do you use to tie on a warp?

Progress

Some "in progress" pictures... threaded...

sleyed...

Next project on the loom - baby blanket

For my about-to-arrive-any-day-now newest niece.

Here I have the warp all beamed and ready to thread.  The colors are rather dark and sophisticated for a baby blankie, but they match her older sister's blanket.

September TotM - Sett and Yarns - some color for end of summer!

Here are the colors of pattern warp that I picked out based on the color names in the article and yarns available to me.  Don't they make a pretty late-summer-harvest kind of palette?  I got this 22/2 cottolin from Yarn Barn of KS.  The ground warp is a 40/2 linen like the earlier towels, and the Barrett article calls for unbleached.

I was so intent on trying to explain the draft in my last post, I neglected to mention that this towel is set at 30 ends per inch, just like all the previous towels so far this year.  At least, the linen ground warp is at 30 ends per inch, and the total linen ends are 570 ends for an in-reed width of 19".  In the colored pattern stripe areas, the pattern warp is a supplementary warp - that is, it is not a part of the basic plain weave ground cloth that the linen forms - so it goes in right on top of the 30 epi linen, one pattern thread per ground thread.  So in the pattern areas, the sett is actually 60 ends per inch.

I wound and beamed this pattern warp separate from the ground linen.  For most of the colors you'll wind a few ends, then cut and tie off and start the next color.  But if you're using a warping board or pegs, for colors that repeat near each other like all those greens in the center of the main stripe, you can set the yarn package aside while you wind the other colors if you like, then return to the color set aside as you need it again.

Beam once, thread many

Here's something I'd heard of, but had never tried before.  If you have multiple projects which use the same number of warp ends, but different threadings, you can re-thread between projects, and save the beaming step on the subsequent projects.  I got to the end of this project...

...opened one tabby shed...

...then placed a lease stick in this shed behind the castle.

Next, open the other tabby shed and place a second lease stick.

Tie or secure the lease sticks however you normally do for threading.

Then just cut off the first project...

...and unthread it by pulling the warp out to the back, and you're all ready to thread the next one!

Warping Back to Front

At our guild's spring "by-member, for-member" mini-workshop day, I shared my method of warping the loom "back-to-front".  I was asked to share my photo sequence, and since my posts on sectional warping seem to get a fair number of views, I thought I'd put these on this blog as well.

If I'm going to make a mixed warp, I will sometimes warp front-to-back, especially if I want to randomly mix the warp ends in the reed as I go. But most of the time I like to warp back-to-front.  It just seems to me like I'm "messing" less with the warp so it goes on the beam more cleanly.

 If on your loom you (a) sley the reed, then (b) thread the heddles, then (c) wind your warp onto the warp beam, you are warping "front-to-back".  Back-to-front warping basically reverses that process: wind, then thread, then sley.

You need a raddle for back-to-front.  The raddle is like a really coarse comb that spreads the warp out gently as you wind it onto the beam.  (There is a way to pre-sley a reed to act as a raddle, but I use a raddle.)



1. The first step is the same, though: you need to make your warp!  The only thing different is you need a way to tell yourself how to spread the warp out as it goes onto the warp beam.  I make a regular thread-by-thread cross at one end of the warp...



2. ...and make a "raddle cross" at the other end.  (Instead, you can place a "counting thread" here.)  Just mark somehow the number of threads that go into each section of your raddle.  My raddle has one-inch sections,
so if for example I will be sleying at 24 epi, I count out 24 threads in one "arm" of the cross before switching to the other (or before placing a counting thread if you prefer).



3. Here are several warp chains draped over the loom.  We are looking at the back of the loom.  The thread-by-thread cross is away from us at the front, and the raddle cross is toward us at this end of the chains.  I have
my warp beam's apron rod hanging from the back beam to help me hold it while I do the next step.



4.  The loops at the near end are placed onto the apron rod, with the apron strings interspersed.  You might attach your warp using a different method depending on your loom.



5. Then I insert the raddle.  Mine is just a wooden rack with dowels at 2" intervals; I added nails between them to make one-inch sections.  The raddle is just clamped to the back beam.



6. I take each warp chain's raddle cross and spread it in its appropriate sections in the raddle...



7. ...until all sections are filled for the width of the warp.  I might twine rubber bands over the pegs/nails if I'm worried they might "jump" out.



8. I put a weight on a slip knot in each warp chain, proportional to the number of ends in the chains (i.e. if one of my chains has fewer warp ends, I put a smaller weight on that chain).  The warp is coming from the weight
at the front of the loom, up over the castle, over the raddle on the back beam, and onto the warp beam.  Your loom may dictate a different route than mine.



9. I find the winding on goes quite smoothly; I usually don't have to do any combing, jerking or tugging.  I keep an eye on the raddle and keep any twists away from the pegs/nails.  The weights keep a steady tension on the
warp.



10.  When the weights reach the castle I just move them down to a new slip knot in the warp chain, so they have room to move up again.



11.  I add plenty of packing on the warp beam so "hills" don't develop for the warp to slide down.



12.  Eventually the thread-by-thread cross is reached.  I put that cross on lease sticks and hang the sticks behind the heddles.



13.  Now we're at the front of the loom, ready to thread.  I set out a few heddles; I like to do 4 at a time...



14. ...because that's how many threads I can hold.



15. This makes it quick to thread those four, then move on to the next set.



16. Finally we sley the reed, then tie on and tension as usual, and... ready to weave!

February Towel of the Month - Warping

Beaming the warp onto a standard beam is always nicer  if you have a helper to turn the crank while you keep tension on the warp.  If you're a solitary weaver, you've probably developed your own method of getting the warp onto the beam neatly and evenly.  Here's what I do.  From the warp beam, the warp is going through the raddle, just visible on the right in the photo.  Then it is routed up over the castle and is weighted in sections.  I tie a slip knot in each bunch of warp, and hang a fishing weight from the loop with an S-hook.  In this instance, I put 8 ounces on each of four 4-inch bouts of warp, and a little less weight on the bout that is less than 4 inches wide.