1st Law of Motion

You know Newton’s first law of motion – a body in motion tends to stay in motion; a body at rest tends to stay at rest. You’ve surely had personal experiences to prove this law. It applies in weaving, too.

I am short. I have short arms and short legs, and the fact that my belly is too large shortens my reach. When my warp is as wide as it can be, that adds to the reach challenge. So when I weave baby wraps on the Macomber, I typically get up every time I have to advance the warp and advance it from the side of the loom. This weekend I decided to try doing what I should do – use the foot pedal to release the brake and advance the warp from my weaving stool.

In fact, not only did this work, it saves lots of time. Not because of the few seconds more it takes to stand up, advance the warp, and sit back down, but because of that Newtonian law. Once I stand up, it’s so much easier to add ‘one more thing’ to the movement. “I’ll just ______________.” That might be get a drink, go to the bathroom, load the wood stove, check my email, see what’s on TV, stir the soup, or anything else that jumps to mind.

Then, when I finally sit back down, odds are that I’ve thrown my stool out of alignment. It shifted incrementally to the right, or the left, or lowered slightly, or something. I rarely fixed the adjustment every time, which meant that it wasn’t too long before my body was out of alignment to the loom – never a good idea.

Advancing the warp while still sitting eliminates all of those problems, which means I get more weaving done.

Here’s how great E’s wrap is looking.