Curve, learning.

I've finally gotten the very fine organzine test warp onto the AVL loom.  I did it with the AVL Warping Wheel - and there was a learning curve with that.  In the effort I did manage to Thoroughly Shred One Bout, and it had to go into the silk waste bag.  It was only one 3-yard long, 2" bout, though it was a loss of about four hundred yards of nice cochineal-dyed organzine. 

Lordy, how I hate to waste silk.

Luckily, there was more than enough to replace the bout, and they're all onto the warp beam now.  I started threading the heddles, though I will also announce here that I've decided to buy the cross-maker for the Warping Wheel after all.  Let's just hint at that, saying that deciding to make the inaugural warp on a brand-new WW without the cross-maker at 80 epi of super-slippery gossamer organzine in insufficient light was NOT a great choice. 

Coupla things:

1) get a stool that is the correct height for threading the heddles.  The weaving bench is too high.  On Granny Cranny it was the right height so I could see to thread, but on the AVL the harnesses are slung rather further down, so using the bench entails feeling for threads rather than being able to look for them. 

2) consider winding warp from more than one spool, okay?!


I do have to say that while I was winding each bout, 160 ends in all for a 2-inch bout of Nearly Invisible Silk Yarn was a kind of test.  I got much, much faster at it as I went along, which started to reveal to me the beauty of the Warping Wheel and how it can pay for itself, ultimately.  The first bout of 160 ends took me nearly two hours; the second and third, about 45 minutes, and the last bout took me about 18-20 minutes.  It really would not make much difference in time if I had wound 25 yards vs 3 if I had been winding from the same number of bobbins.  I imagined what it would be like to wind a 12-yard warp of 30/2, and in the amount of time it had taken me to wind the 6"-wide, 3-yard warp of organzine from a single bobbin, I could wind a full-width warp (45 inch) from four spools.  That's darned encouraging!!