Thursday, June 26, 2014
Monday, June 9, 2014
Onto the Next Warp
The other day, I stopped weaving on the wool blanket warp; too many broken warp threads from old, overly-tender wool. Not worth it. That said, I did get three yards of nice, scratchy woolen fabric woven in a diaper twill. It fulled very nicely, and retains its rather three-dimensional appearance, on both sides.
On Saturday, I went with Tien to the June meeting of Loom and Shuttle Handweavers' Guild. This time, I wrote the dues check and became a real member of this venerable old guild. It was great fun actually wearing my own handwovens in public (the multicolor/muga superscarf) and hanging out with a surprisingly large number of my fellow weavers. I passed around the things I've woven since the arrival of the wonderful AVL loom. And as it turns out, I was not the only aficionado present of John Marshall's gold thread. It's really cool to address a group of people, and when you say "...and so I think that for the next project involving gold thread, I'd use it as a supplementary weft rather than the ground weave structure..." and see nods of agreement rather than of puzzlement. I really need to remember to be active in the fiber community!
The speaker was Robyn Spady, who gave a really engaging program on weave structure analysis methods. We analyzed speaker cloth from the '40's!
Somebody had made a tart of goat cheese, onion, and roasted yellow squash for the refreshments. I only got a tiny taste of it, but it was so amazingly delicious...
On Saturday, I went with Tien to the June meeting of Loom and Shuttle Handweavers' Guild. This time, I wrote the dues check and became a real member of this venerable old guild. It was great fun actually wearing my own handwovens in public (the multicolor/muga superscarf) and hanging out with a surprisingly large number of my fellow weavers. I passed around the things I've woven since the arrival of the wonderful AVL loom. And as it turns out, I was not the only aficionado present of John Marshall's gold thread. It's really cool to address a group of people, and when you say "...and so I think that for the next project involving gold thread, I'd use it as a supplementary weft rather than the ground weave structure..." and see nods of agreement rather than of puzzlement. I really need to remember to be active in the fiber community!
The speaker was Robyn Spady, who gave a really engaging program on weave structure analysis methods. We analyzed speaker cloth from the '40's!
Somebody had made a tart of goat cheese, onion, and roasted yellow squash for the refreshments. I only got a tiny taste of it, but it was so amazingly delicious...
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Lighting experiments
Clipped to the AVL loom in our garage is a ancient, super-dented utility light with an old 60w incandescent light bulb in it. It's been attached to the loom, first the Cranbrook and now the AVL, since I bought it at Cliff's Hardware in the Castro in 2001. I've dropped it a million times, but the bulb is the same one I've had in it since I bought it, and so far it has not burned out yet. I love the flood of golden light it casts on the fell of the cloth as I weave.
But...electric bills are becoming scarier than they used to be. Most of our lighting upstairs has been converted either to those annoyingly charm-free twisty fluorescent bulbs (great for electric bills, lousy for ambience) or to LED lights. Some halogens too, though I think that those might use a lot of juice. Carlos recently bought a tiny LED spotlight torchere lamp for our living room, and it's wonderful...pleasant light that focuses in a nice pool just wide enough to light up a reading area for one person.
Last weekend, we were out at Home Depot. Ahhhh...how I love a good hardware store. While we were there, I decided to purchase a 12" LED light strip, as Tien did for her loom, for the AVL. Tien mounted hers on the underside of the front piece of the castle of her loom, so I've decided I might do that. There is a small loop hook for the fly shuttle that is already there in the center of the underside of my castle, which if I want to mount the LED strip in the center of the castle will have to be removed. Perhaps I'll buy another of the LED strips since if there were two, they could be mounted on either side of the little hook for the fly shuttle without it needing to be removed.
Of course the electrical cord that came with the LED light strip is about two inches long, so Carlos bought me a long extension cord yesterday.
I held the lit LED strip up to where it would be on the loom, and it worked, but it was somehow odd - a brighter, whiter light than the incandescent I've been using for years, but somehow...it did not seem to look bright enough to see the details of things. Maybe it'll be different when I'm sitting on the bench weaving. And it would be nice to do anything to keep those electric bills down...
But...electric bills are becoming scarier than they used to be. Most of our lighting upstairs has been converted either to those annoyingly charm-free twisty fluorescent bulbs (great for electric bills, lousy for ambience) or to LED lights. Some halogens too, though I think that those might use a lot of juice. Carlos recently bought a tiny LED spotlight torchere lamp for our living room, and it's wonderful...pleasant light that focuses in a nice pool just wide enough to light up a reading area for one person.
Last weekend, we were out at Home Depot. Ahhhh...how I love a good hardware store. While we were there, I decided to purchase a 12" LED light strip, as Tien did for her loom, for the AVL. Tien mounted hers on the underside of the front piece of the castle of her loom, so I've decided I might do that. There is a small loop hook for the fly shuttle that is already there in the center of the underside of my castle, which if I want to mount the LED strip in the center of the castle will have to be removed. Perhaps I'll buy another of the LED strips since if there were two, they could be mounted on either side of the little hook for the fly shuttle without it needing to be removed.
Of course the electrical cord that came with the LED light strip is about two inches long, so Carlos bought me a long extension cord yesterday.
I held the lit LED strip up to where it would be on the loom, and it worked, but it was somehow odd - a brighter, whiter light than the incandescent I've been using for years, but somehow...it did not seem to look bright enough to see the details of things. Maybe it'll be different when I'm sitting on the bench weaving. And it would be nice to do anything to keep those electric bills down...
Monday, June 2, 2014
Weekend at the Loom
No photographs this weekend, though I spent a good long time in the garage at the loom.
I think I wove only about two yards on the woolen blanket warp this weekend, but I spent a great deal of time applying the Slipit to the wooden parts of the loom. After it all dried, I started to weave again, and it was amazing how little friction there was. And no squeaks at all.
I think that before the next project I might take down the mechanical dobby, lubricate between the dobby fingers et al, and then refix the Compu-dobby so that I can do networked twills and long repeats, as well as being able to do such things as tabby at the beginning of a project and then switch to another weave. That's not easy with the mechanical dobby.
Weaving huge wool yarn has its drawback: although the weaving itself goes faster, the need to change pirns every six minutes is annoying, and the number of broken warp threads is up to six.
It is so cool, though, to see the woven cloth edging backwards to the rear cloth storage roller as I go.
Lots of internal stress and worry this weekend about Other Things, so that I did not feel quietened, not even with nice calm music playing. Existential stuff.
I think I wove only about two yards on the woolen blanket warp this weekend, but I spent a great deal of time applying the Slipit to the wooden parts of the loom. After it all dried, I started to weave again, and it was amazing how little friction there was. And no squeaks at all.
I think that before the next project I might take down the mechanical dobby, lubricate between the dobby fingers et al, and then refix the Compu-dobby so that I can do networked twills and long repeats, as well as being able to do such things as tabby at the beginning of a project and then switch to another weave. That's not easy with the mechanical dobby.
Weaving huge wool yarn has its drawback: although the weaving itself goes faster, the need to change pirns every six minutes is annoying, and the number of broken warp threads is up to six.
It is so cool, though, to see the woven cloth edging backwards to the rear cloth storage roller as I go.
Lots of internal stress and worry this weekend about Other Things, so that I did not feel quietened, not even with nice calm music playing. Existential stuff.
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