I can tell when I’m getting really close to a show ‘cuz the ‘I’m not ready’ frenzy hits. The fact that I’ve been sitting on my butt perhaps compounded it a bit this time.
Anyway, in a four-day weekend I wound 3 warps, beamed them, and wove them off for a total of 11 scarves. Then in the evenings after work I fringed and wet finished them, doing the hard press and tagging them on Thursday evening finishing just moments before Project Runway started. It’s one of the very few shows I make it a point to watch.
Friday morning I had plenty of tasks to do – like vacuuming and washing the dishes – before I could pack up the rental van and get in the car & head to a show. Unfortunately, downloading a photo and writing a blog post fell off the list, so you don’t get any pictures with this one. Not even one of my latest rigid heddle oops.
When I was working away frantically on Thursday I didn’t think I’d get everything done that needed to be completed, and figured I’d never have time to warp the rigid heddle loom to bring with me. Since I did get everything essential, business-wise, done on Thursday, I beamed an already-wound warp on the RH loom on Friday morning. This was a to be a 5/2 pearl cotton warp, sett at 15EPI using two 10dent heddles. I hadn’t done this before but figured I’d just follow the directions in Betty Davenport’s book. No problem.
HAH! Took me three tries to get the first heddle threaded correctly, then I HAD to leave. Ok, I got it figured out, I’ll thread the second heddle at my sister’s.
DOUBLE HAH! Again, three tries to figure it out. (I believe the directions are a little bit wrong.)
Got it all threaded, tied on – oops, lots of sticky threads. Re-tie much more carefully, try again, nope, still a terrible shed with lots of threads not moving well. Get some pickup sticks behind the heddle and see if you can lift sheds that way – works for one, but not for two. Untie. Unthread heddle two and remove it. Unthread heddle one and re-thread to just 10 EPI – one thread in each hole and slot. Cut off lots of dangling threads.
I know that 10 ends per inch will be way to loose to be a useable fabric when I’m done, but at least I will be able to demonstrate weaving in a way that won’t make me crazy and will interest the people who might be watching. Having all those ‘extra’ threads hanging off the end of the loom that will need to be cut periodically will also give me a chance to explain about the time it takes to plan, to thread, to correct, to try, so that people can perhaps begin to understand that when they watch me throw the shuttle it’s just one small part of the weaving process.
Off to set up now for two full, glorious days!
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