A Tale of Three Looms

 

They're all dressed up (well, almost) but not ready to go! Pictured above: At top, my 16-shaft Toika Eeva, threaded for a differential-shrinkage pattern in double weave; in the middle, my 16-shaft Germaine table loom threaded with gossamer-weight silk still in the gum (which I wrote about at length in my previous post); and on the bottom, my 32-shaft Louet Megado only partially threaded (I have to thread the second back beam) for an 8-shaft differential-shrinkage pattern.

So why are they all sitting idle? Well, as you know, weaving is hard because there's lots of preparation. And sometimes you don't even know how much preparation it takes until you're in the thick of dressing your loom. (And sometimes you change your mind -- halfway through dressing your loom -- about which pattern you're going to weave. Does anyone else do this?)

Some details about what's on these three looms...

On the Toika compu-dobby (first photo), I have an 8-shaft double-weave pattern threaded and ready to weave. The only problem is that two shafts were rising when they shouldn't, so I couldn't get the proper sheds for my design. I sent a quick email to Claudia Spaulding (thanks, Claudia!), who is CFO of the Hartford Artisans Weaving Center and happens to be a Toika rep -- and also happens to be a physician. I thought the problem was humidity but her diagnosis was that the posts inside the box on top of the loom had to be adjusted. She also cc'd Bran Gardner in on her reply, the weaving manager for Webs and the chief U.S. support for Toika. Bran has put together very detailed instructions on how to adjust the posts so that the magnets assigned to each shaft are connecting properly.... My electrical-engineering in-house consultant (and husband) did the rest. He's a weaving angel, really.

The pattern uses two layers -- one layer being a yarn that is active and one being a yarn that is inactive. (The red layer is on top and the black layer is on the bottom, while the long black rectangles represent where the two layers weave together in a tied double weave.) After fulling, the active yarn draws in and causes the inactive yarn to buckle, with the tied double weave giving the fabric some stability. Here is the drawdown.

It's threaded as a double-two-tie-unit weave, which can be tied up and treadled to create a range of designs, including double weave. I learned the technique in a workshop I took with Ann Richards in London in 2014, based on her book, Weaving Textiles That Shape Themselves. The two warps are 18/2 superfine merino from Jaggerspun (no longer in business but still available from Jane Stafford Textiles) and 20/2 Mora yarn (which, unlike the 18/2 merino, doesn't full), a Swedish yarn available from Vävstuga. 

The two wefts are 20/2 Mora (in red, below) and a black wool overtwisted yarn, 52/2 nm Z-twist, from the Handweavers Studio and Gallery in London, an excellent source for energized yarns.

Here's an idea of how the design should look after finishing -- although the sample in this photo differs somewhat, using 30/2 silk and 52/2 nm Z-twist wool in both warp and weft.

So, for all intents and purposes, the Toika is dressed and ready to weave!

On to the Germaine: ah, the Germaine. It's a Purrington copy, really. And this particular iteration was pretty badly made. I'm just saying it straight. But the latest generation of Purrington Looms is very well made, back up to the traditional Purrington standards, by the Bannerman family in West Virginia. I bought the Germaine because it has 16 shafts and, at the time, our guild had a very skilled "loom doctor" who fixed it all up so it works well for me.

What's the warp on that loom? Undegummed silk, very fine, that I will also use as weft to weave a 16-shaft twill pattern with added threads for tying the fabric up warp-wise in order to create a shibori resist. My thinking is that, if I de-gum the silk when the fabric is tied up in a tight shibori "package," I should get some really interesting horizontal pleats in the cloth. I will report back on this experiment.... Here's the pattern. (The red threads in both warp and weft represent potential positioning of threads for shibori ties.)

Lastly, what's on the Megado? Only half a warp, again using 20/2 Mora. The second warp, going on my second warp beam, will be a silk noil purchased from a now-defunct mill in England many years ago. I plan on weaving the piece all in beige to emphasize the texture, using differential-shrinkage techniques.

Trouble is, because the yarns are so fine, calling for a sett of 60 epi (or something close to that) -- predictably, I didn't have enough heddles. It took me two orders from Jane Stafford Textiles to get it right!

Did you know that, when you purchase Texsolv heddles, those four little blue twist-ties on every bunch of 50 heddles allow you to place the loops directly onto the shaft bars? They're tied completely in order, so once you've got them on the shaft bars, you simply undo the twist ties and you're good to go. (I must say, with great humility, that it took me a while to figure this out.)

My second challenge with this loom has to do with my second warp of silk noil. It's typically not used as warp because it breaks easily (silk noil being made of the waste products from producing all the other kinds of silk yarn). I sprayed it with spray starch to make it stiffer, which should help avoid breakage.

Above, my warp chain of silk noil after it's been sprayed with starch and dried. 

That's my story of three looms, just one of them ready to go. Hopefully you'll see photos and read updates in upcoming posts. (I'm keeping my fingers crossed....) Until then, may the weaving goddesses be with you -- and me!

Thanks for reading.

Learning Curves

 

Learning curves, plural. For example: In the photo above -- a networked Echo threading on 32 shafts -- can you see two threading errors? I will give you a clue: They're pretty obvious ;o)

These are just two of nine, count 'em, nine threading errors in this project so far. I've named it "Learning Curves" because it's the inaugural project for a new-to-me 32-shaft Louet Megado.

I am thrilled, to say the least, to have this loom. However -- and this is a big however -- it may be 15 to 20 years old and may have sat unused for the past four years or more. Which means that, not only did I have to up my game to weave on such a complex machine (which meant hours and hours of designing on Fiberworks), but the loom itself had to be reconditioned, basically. (Spouses are useful in this regard, particularly if they are smart and willing to help out.) And learning how to recondition it involved making mistakes, lots of mistakes, in the process of weaving this first design.

For instance, ends fraying and breaking at the left selvage: Too much draw in (which I should know enough to avoid). My answer was to go easier with the shuttle and, more important, to use my lovely Bluster Bay end-feed-delivery shuttle, which really makes a difference on the "drag" of the weft against the selvages.

And then I needed Texsolv cord. Lots of it.

Texsolv: Don't weave home without it.

I needed -- well, rather, WE needed -- lots of Texsolv because the cords that ran the pulleys that connected to the dobby box that lifted the shafts... kept breaking. But what we didn't know was that, more than Texsolv, we needed Teflon spray to un-gum-up all the pulleys. 

Teflon spray: It works.

We did lots of consulting, too, primarily through that brainy listserve known as WeaveTech (weavetech@groups.io, an invaluable resource for all questions weaving). There I learned how to get in touch with Dave Vanstralen, president of Louet Looms, who got back to me immediately and gave me lots of pointers on how to get this ship out of dry dock. And then there was Mimi Anderson, president of Complex Weavers, who pointed out to me that I should actually check back on WeaveTeach to look at all the answers people had posted. And Fran Osten (www.danforthweavers.com) who suggested using heat-shrink tubing to protect the Texsolv cord from abrading when it meets a screw that's attached to one of the pulleys.

Heat-shrink tubing, which we haven't used yet, because painter's tape is doing the job. 

I won't bore you with a photo of painter's tape! And I may be boring you right now, if you've read this far, because this is a blog about weaving and I haven't shown you any weaving.

Well, long story slightly shortened, I am finally weaving. There is just one more threading error to fix, but here is where I am at this point, weaving an Echo design on 32 shafts.

This same is the same tieup and threadling as the design in the first photo of this blog post -- but here the weft is an azalea-colored 20/2 cotton.

I didn't mention that the warp comprises two highly saturated complementary colors in 10/2 cotton:

These are colors I would not ordinarily have chosen for an Echo warp, but that my previous blog post discussed the use of complementaries with Echo designs. I was thinking out loud about how complementaries can add so much energy and interest to a weaving -- and so I decided to go full bore with these striking colors. Not pretty, but striking.

I really like the results so far.

The top sample uses a dark forest green/emerald weft in 20/2 cotton, while the bottom portion uses a gold/khaki-colored linen singles that I don't think works as well as the cotton.

After this, I hope to do more samples: another Echo design, a few in Jin and a couple in double weave. I'm hoping to try some differential-shrinkage techniques with one of the double-weave designs. Here's the drawdown I'm thinking will work for pleating and puckering.

Meanwhile, I will keep the Teflon spray nearby. Thanks for reading!