Up Against It

You make one mistake and it leads to more problems than you thought.

Back when I was weaving the sample wrap, I used one extra safety pin/marker, weaving 20″ more than I wanted to. When I finally figured out what I’d done, my first thought was that I wouldn’t have enough warp left to weave Meghan’s ‘real’ wrap. I went to my record sheet and said, “Whew!” I’d have enough warp and some left over.

Again, Hah!

When I did that math I didn’t take loom waste into account. There’s thread wasted at the beginning of a piece when you tie it to the loom and thread wasted at the end. I kept my beginning waste to a minimum, although I could have lashed on instead of tying on and made it even less. But no need to…I had enough.

Till I got to the end. I kept advancing the warp farther and farther, and finally it was about 3″ behind the last harness.

With the end of the warp so close I couldn’t get a good shed anymore. I used a yardstick to separate the threads and stood it on end behind the reed to make a better shed. I wove until I couldn’t fit my shuttle through the shed anymore. Still, I was almost 10″ shorter than I wanted to be. Damn, damn, Double Damn!

Nothing I can do but email Meghan and tell her. She’s an extremely rational woman and suggests a great approach. After I’ve wet finished, pressed, and hemmed the wrap I’ll mail it to her. If it’s long enough for her, great. If not, I’ll weave her another, on a priority basis.

Amazingly, the finished wrap ended up being 180″ long, just an inch or two shorter than I wanted. All my frustration and time consuming fussing at the end of the warp was worth it.

It’ll go in tomorrow’s mail to Meghan.

Today I spent an ungodly amount of time figuring out how to get my computer to print in mirror image so I could print on transfer paper, ultimately making the mandatory permanent labels. I’m not sure they meet all the federal requirements…I’ll change them if I need to.

I also got the warp measured for a special order of two baby blankets. You’ll see them in the next post.