relearning..

Borrowed Peggy Osterkamp's book ''Weaving and drafting your own cloth' Book #3 in her series hoping that there would be information on Fabric analysis. There is an appendix on it but I also learned that I have been winding my bobbins the old fashioned way instead of building up on the ends it is better to have it built up in the middle instead. So now I'm trying to retrain myself to wind it this way after 30 plus years... can this old dog learn this trick. I think so Just have to keep repeating it and not letting myself do it the old way.
       The lace project is coming along nicely. Have the hem woven and one repeat for the center. The kitten would rather I let her sleep on me or play fetch but I did get to weaving today!

Lace weave scarves

Have warped up the baby wolf with a neat lace pattern and then I'm going to pole dye them when they are finished. . Misunderstood the directions, Kept getting shaft floats. Finally everything is working well and I'm on my way. This loom was moved here and not been warped for awhile things shift and need tightening, balancing.

Wanted to weave yesterday and the kitten wanted to play, all day. She "found" her pink mousey, we think she hides it. Have to get my glasses fixed today then maybe I'll get to weave.Here she is almost asleep. wore us out too!

Back to front warping with out all the extra equipment

Some looms are easier to warp from the back, like the Megado by Louet above. The method I use doesn't require the spool rack or tensioner that is usually needed for sectional warping.  This method allows you to thread with your draft right side up and there is much less waste than usual sectional warping.

Equipment you will need:

1.  Lease sticks,
2.  Some system of support for the lease sticks (I use homemade Angel wings, more below) 
3.  A rake,
4.  Cords from back beam, 
5.  C clamps to attach Angel wings. (forgot the C clamps in the picture above)

 The first step is to wind a few sections  of your warp on a warping board or reel. I usually wind on counting the number needed for my sectional beam or my EPI.  This will work without a sectional beam. Most of us have this equipment vs the tension box and spool rack that is needed for usual sectional beaming. It also cuts down on waste from the spools. I do not wind the whole warp due to some of the tangling that occurs, it is just easier for me.

 Next you take your warp to the loom I put the chain at the front of the loom and carry my cross over the loom to my lease sticks. I put the cross on the lease sticks.  The lease sticks can be supported with cord, wood or in my case, a set of home made angel wings. If you haven't got a handy husband or wood working skills, they can be purchased at puringtonlooms.com.

Then I bring my cord from the sectional beam,  through the rake attaching one cord to every section of the warp I am winding on,. 

 Lastly roll the warp on the back beam.  At times you need open up the threads in the cross for tangles or even gently yank on the warp chain.  When all your yards are wound on  tape the sections.

 If you really want a cross to thread from you can wind your warp with a cross at each end. 

 To thread after all the warp is wound on  unwind the warp over the back beam and rest it on the lease stick. You can sit at the front of the loom and thread, Right side up from your draft. On this loom I take off the front beam and the cloth beam. You are ready to thread. Have fun and Happy Weaving! 

Towels color or off white?

Designing an unusual honeycomb pattern for towels and can't make up my mind should I use White fine with Off white for the heavy? or I have purple fine and pink heavy. It looks like;  one heavy  to every 4-6 fine. I've done this pattern before for some towels for myself and loved them at the time I did all white with colored weft. Must have run out of the fine heavier thread. Decisions, Decisions. I think I'll do a short warp of the colored then tie on the white off white. Hunted forever for this pattern, thought it was in handwoven turned out to be in an old Weaver's magazine. God how I miss that magazine. It was great! more advanced weaving than handwoven. Stopped getting that one two or three years ago it was the same stuff repeated over and over. This is an old piece of the material, not a great photo but these towels were used and abused.

Does computer work ever end?

Like housework I do believe computer work is an ongoing thing! Found out that I needed meta tags on my web page and some updating and added photos and tweaked it etc etc. Have been working the 45 day plan on Artfire and that is how I found out that my website wasn't going into search engines much. ESO oh my. With my Step daughters help my Art Fire site gets a 99% rating on a  free website grading site. Warpology not so much but some of the things they marked it down on wasn't really fair. Tripods picture didn't have a have a description nor did Artfire's Rapid Cart, Basically nothing I could control.

I didn't know about the meta tags because our class never got that far. We got bogged down way earlier than that what with a book that was no good and the teacher wasn't familiar with the new Dreamweaver. Not to mention the computer illiterates in the class, whoops just mentioned them. It has been awhile since I used that program but it came back to me fairly quick. Even code isn't as frightening as it was in the beginning. The Teacher was a real character in that class, he was retired from NASA wrote instruction, job duties etc. Quite the hacker for a 70 year old guy. Off the record taught us some hacking tricks.