Sunday, October 14, 2012

Weaving wise... the loom is warped...

I had lots of time to work on threading the loom today, the result being the throw is now fully warped and waiting for the shuttle to start flying. That, plus I need to keep spinning more yarn for it.

This warp is the full width of my loom: 45". After eyeballing it this evening I realized that the colors don't come out even on each side so I'm going to remove the rightmost 20-something warp threads. That will create a balanced pattern. So the throw will be a tad less wide than I planned, but not much: a couple of inches.

Here is the loom all warped up:

(See the two pelargoniums in the background? They were given to me this week by a co-worker who picked them up from one of the lower Manhattan development organizations. They were giving away 4,000 plants! I'm pretty sure these are the pelargoniums that were planted in Bowling Green this summer. The blossoms are a deep red color.)

I came up with a nifty (to me) system yesterday while threading my loom, and it is a real time saver. I was so excited about it I decided to make a short movie, and here it is:
Keeping warp threads tidy while threading the heddles

2 comments:

  1. Oh I am so glad to see someone weaving on a Herald! I love mine. There are antique posts online about what an awful loom this is, but I happen to know the poster and she is not particularly mechanically inclined. Your throw looks great! I discovered (again) that warping a loom full width makes for more resistance to the reed and I should have set my reed somewhat more openly - instead of 20 epi for 8/2 cotton, I should have set it at 18. If you have trouble beating to square, think about re-sleying (now that your have dropped a few threads and have the space!)

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    1. Hi, seequel. I love my Herald too! I'm weaving this throw in handspun and have it sleyed at 10 epi. That should produce a nice light throw. My yarn is slightly thicker than Harrisville's New England Shetland if you're familiar with that. If not, it's roughly 15 wpi. So far the sheds have been clean and the beating smooth! Thanks for the tips...mentally stored away for future reference. :) Bernard

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