Loom Upgrade

Okay, who can tell which of these table napkins was woven using a mechanical dobby, and which the electronic dobby? (Hint: I can't, and I wove them both.) These have a section of huck lace in the center of them, with plain weave in the striped borders. In the middle of a run of napkins, the CompuDobby I ordered arrived from AVL Looms. So I decided to swap it in.

 

I had to remove the main roller from the dobby head, and a bunch of parts from the side. Here they are along with some of the dobby chain (wooden bars with pegs) that drives the mechanical system, my box of extra pegs and pegging tool.

The replacement for all that is this black box, magnet, and pair of sensors to tell if I have the dobby bar raised or lowered as I'm weaving. Installation involved drilling one hole, so I had the BF come over and do it -- no way I trust my (lack of) woodworking skills to that! It all went surprisingly smoothly and is working great so far. I like not having to screw in all those little pegs for every project, or swap out chains just to switch from pattern to tabby areas. However it's going to take some getting used to having a loom with an "on" switch!

Shadow Weave - An Acquired Taste

I've never been a huge fan of shadow weave; all those little lines going every which way bother my eyes.  But recently I put a sample warp on the "big loom" and made a pegging error in the dobby chain, introducing a huck spot into the weave that made some interesting warp and weft deflections.  Hmm, this could have some potential.






Then I noticed a weave in Carol Strickler's A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns (p. 72) that she calls "shadow huck".  Well there's another example of there's nothing new under the sun!  It was accomplished by treadling different pairs of treadles - using the "odd" treadle from one treadling block with the "even" treadle from an adjacent block.  So I tried it that way, and got a similar (but not exact) result.





The real difference comes when you flip the fabric over.  The "error" method has floats in the weft, while the "treadle" method has them in the warp.

But, I thought, what if I wanted to have another motif that uses that treadling block, but without that float in it?  If using the "error" method, the floats will show up where I don't want them.








With the "treadle" method, I can make the extra motif without the floats, but what if I like the look of the "error" method spots better?










Answer: add another treadle, so there's one with the "error" and one without.










And as a bonus, here's the "shadow huck" from Strickler, modified a bit.  Front and back sides.

WeFF is happening this weekend!

Sixteen-shaft pinwheel throw, wool and wool blends, woven on my 60" loom.














More fiber fun is coming up this Sunday, at the Weaving and Fiber Festival in Torrance.  The Southern California Handweavers' Guild presents this event annually, with fiber vendors, demonstrations, a finished handmade goods boutique, used weaving equipment and books, fabulous door prizes, a fashion show (2 pm) and more.  Join us Sunday Nov 6, 10 to 4 at the Torrance Cultural Arts Center.

Doup leno sheds - AVL

Continuing the experiment, here are the sheds I can get on the AVL, which has a smaller shed than the Macomber.  Using top doups, crossed shed.

Top doups, uncrossing shed.

The normal shed opening for this loom with the top doups installed.

Using bottom doups, crossed shed.

Bottom doups, uncrossing shed.

The normal shed opening for this loom with the bottom doups installed.

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.

Yuletide Greeting from Me and My Studio

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

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.

Chaos

The portion of my home I have newly-designated as "fiber arts studio" is looking rather chaotic, with books, equipment, tools and yarn piled all over the floor as I move furniture and try to decide where everything is going to live.  What a mess.  And I fear it's going to get worse before it gets better.  
I sold my Mighty Wolf which was my first floor loom, so I'm a little sad, but it's found a good new home.

At least I'm still managing to find time to weave...

...except when someone's occupying the loom bench.

Loom Christening - First Warp

Something spicy to try out this loom.

New (to me) loom.

That pile of loom parts is now a loom.  It's a 1987 AVL 60" 16H Production Dobby.  What a great birthday.

There were just a few small parts, nuts & bolts missing that we were able to find or fabricate.  Dobby and all seem to be functioning correctly though I haven't put a warp on it yet.  It has a double-box flyshuttle but I haven't mounted that.

Most importantly, it's kitty-approved.

Morning After

Oh, my.  What have I got myself into?










And I would have to pick one of the hotter days of the year to bring it home.