Weaving A Gem Of A Life

As I was unwinding the yarn to take it off the loom, it fell into these soft rolls that made me think of ribbon candy. As a kid I was entranced by it, probably because we never had any at our house. As an adult, I’ve never tasted any that I thought was worth it. Looks pretty, tastes….like sugar.

After I got the entire length of the warp unwound and bunched up to take to the garbage, it sure looked like a big mess. Which, of course, is what it felt like. And what it was.

That felt simultaneously cathartic (getting rid of a warp that was nothing but trouble) and depressing (wasting all that time and material). I needed to do something that felt good, and was productive. So I hauled my warping mill out to the porch. The bad fortune of KC & CW is the good fortune of EC & EH. K & C will be getting their wraps later than planned, and E & E will be getting their sooner.

Actually, none of it is actually sooner. I’ve been really busy in June at my paycheck job, so not getting as much woven as I’d like. I’ve got one more crazy busy week. Or maybe two. Then I think I can get back in the weaving groove.

Anyway, I did get E&E’s warp completely measured while the mill was on my front porch. The colors are a nice progression.

Charcoal to medium gray

Medium gray to light gray to turquoise

Turquoise to peacock

Peacock to jeans

I finished winding late Friday afternoon, then did a bit of house cleaning. Left early Saturday morning to play Grandma while Mama & Papa took some time off. I’ll be back home late Sunday morning and will get the warp spread & beamed. WITHOUT twisting any of those bouts!

It’s not perfect, but it’s definitely better.

I brought that re-wound bout to the loom, inserted my lease sticks, and put it over the warping valet, just like always. Then I got my cardboard mailing tube and used Sandra Rude’s directions for making and using a supplemental warp beam.

Here I’ve spread the warp in the raddle and across the supplemental beam, then decided I’d done enough for a while – I needed to sit and ponder again.

See how that that tube is on a bit of an angle in the photo above? Well, I THOUGHT I’d straightened that out as I wound, but apparently not. I do wish I’d spent more time on that, ‘cuz now that crookedness is a bit of a pain.

Anyway, unlike Sandra’s directions, I had 200 threads and decided I was going to use warp packing. Also, she doesn’t mention maintaining tension on the warp as she’s winding that beam, and I decided I had to do that, too. So I hung my weights by the warping valet and starting winding. It seemed to be working well. Until my weight got up to the valet bar.

Hmmm… I hadn’t thought this aspect through. How can I move to the front of the loom to move my weight? If I let go of the supplemental beam, the weight will drop back to the floor and unwind what I just wound.

This would definitely be easier with another person to help for about 1/2 hour. My little dog was not interested. Oh, to be able to turn into Elastic Lad at will, so I could stretch to the front & the back of the loom simultaneously. But that’s not my alter ego.

So I stood there with the supplemental beam pulled taut, thinking. How would I do this?

I set the supplemental beam on the floor and put a bit of weight on top of it. Nope. The counter weight was heavier. In the end I wound the beam up more and turned it over, laying it on top of the lease sticks. My weight dropped a bit every time I did this, but I couldn’t come up with another solution.

Still, the winding went smoothly. Here is is finished.

Then I threaded heddles & reed without incident, tied on to the front apron, and threw a few picks with the shuttle. Hah! The threads on that supplemental beam were nowhere near tight enough, so I untied and retied. Twice. Then started weaving again.

I ended up retying that section of the warp 2 MORE times – a total of 4 times of retying – before I got it right. (Pay no attention to the color in the above shot – it’s nowhere near reality.)

To be sure, it’s still not perfect, but I’ve got 1/4 of the first wrap woven and it’s structurally sound. I may decide to cut off after the first wrap, re-tie, and start again for the second one. I’ll have to think about it, since I’m a bit worried about using too much warp length – I don’t plan enough extra to do that tie-on twice. We’ll see how it goes.

I KNOW that if this wasn’t a custom order, I would have simply left the ‘flipped’ section of the warp stay like it was originally, and called it part of the design, but I can’t do that with a custom. I also KNOW that I will be very careful to never make THIS mistake again!