Glimåkra Assistance

I received an email from the Townsend Guild (sent to a few of us members) asking if anyone was able to help complete the re-construction of a loom at a Maryville Elementary School.  I was either the first or perhaps the only one to reply that I would be able to help.

Turns out the loom is a large Glimåkra Standard loom that is a little over 20 years old and from initial pictures appeared to be all there.  It had spent some time gathering dust, and many pieces were stored, all mixed, up in a large bin.  There was a couple of bags of bits and pieces and a good range of shuttles and bobbins.

The lucky recipient of this loom is an Art Teacher (Yvonne) at the school. She is setting up the loom in a corner of her room so she can demonstrate how the weaving her students are undertaking in her class can be directly related to weaving on any kind of loom.

The installation instructions are in the red folder of the above photo and are fairly minimal after setting out the main components.  Yvonne's husband had done a good job getting it as far as can be seen in the photo and after seeing the instructions I can quite understand how the progress stalled.

My first job was to have a good look at all the pieces and see what was there/not.  It is an 8 harness model and everything checked out for that.  Unfortunately at least 4 (maybe more) heddle frames had been stored in the bin and had consequently slipped off into a pile of texsolv heddles on the bottom. Not a problem initially as there were 5 sets of tied off heddles in a bag so I'll be setting it up initially as a 4 shaft model.  After untangling more can be added.

After attaching the treadles and lamms I added the texsolve heddles to the heddle bars and hung the first four.  Having never used texsolv cord or heddles before it was a new but pleasant experience.  It is certainly better than having to knot nylon chord the number required on this loom and I haven't even made it to the tie up.

Day one finished

 After adjusting the height of the heddle bars the next task is to attach them to the upper and lower lamms.  I decided to call it a day at this stage as the rain was due and I still had an hour and a half driving to get home.  

I''ll be heading up in a couple of days to finish the 'construction' part of it and then tie up the treadles.  I'm working in completely new territory for that as my looms are either counterbalance or jack looms. I've never had anything that goes both up and down for each treadle.  The instructions are a limited but luckily there is a wealth of information on the web and I think I see a way ahead that will have the loom tied up for tabby or twill.  I'll then dress the loom so that Yvonne can begin weaving.

More to follow.

 

2017 Christmas Towels - Final Run

For the 4th year in a row we wove Christmas towels to give to the family, and like previous years I hit the deadline to deliver to everyone before Christmas but to do so had to cut off the first run and leave some warp on the loom to finish afterwards.

Final warp ready to be re-tied.

Woven on my 'Pete' loom - the 4 shaft jack loom made of black walnut.  The set-up went pretty well and I was well into my first towel when I noticed the friction brake cable was slipping down between the main brake 'drum' and the outside ridge (made to stop the cable coming off the sides).  In a commercially built loom it would have been made from solid turned piece of wood, but I had to compromise and glue nail my side pieces on.  With the prospect of having to free the cable after nearly every warp advance things were looking grim, and of course, I remember now I had thought about updating the brake after my last project on the loom.  Sigh: memory!!

Luckily I was able to work out a fix for this run of towels by placing some tiny nails into drilled holes around the circumference of the brake on the side where the cable was jamming.  This worked fine and this time I'll make a more permanent fix by replacing the whole wooden brake drum.

All the rest of the weaving went smoothly and the pattern being a simple herringbone I was able to weave fairly fast and eventually was weaving a towel in around an hour and a quarter.  With enough warp on the sectional warp beam for 30 towels there was a little bit of tension unevenness, but not enough to be concerned and it came out with the wet finishing.

Weaving on the loom - with the between towel marker threads visible

I had a total of 23 towels to weave to meet the family requirements and also two for sale to a woman at Anne's work who saw one that Anne had taken in to give to a friend.

Wet finished, ironed and cut up prior to hemming.

 I cut off the whole run and zig-zag stitched the ends and trimmed any cotton ends etc then wet finished by running it through a standard cycle on the washing machine.  After ironing I separated them at the between towel markers and pinned and machine sewed the hems.  The old sewing machine performed well although at times the foot switch behaved erratically by only allowing two speeds - completely off or on at full speed.  I think it happens after use for a while so maybe just needs a good clean-up/dust blow out.

Towels ready for wrapping and the post.

After finishing I wrapped them all and labeled and took a whole batch to the post office to get to both NZ and various US destinations in time.  We also managed to hand deliver a few while we were out and about.

I haven't decided on a design this year, but the 2017 towel was a change from small stripes and a huck lace feature to full colors (and small white stripes).  It is certainly easier than previous years where I have dyed the stripe colors here at home.  It depends entirely on being able to get reasonably priced 8/2 cotton yarn in suitable colors.

As I'm sure I have written in previous years ' I'll have to start earlier...'  We'll see...

Fall Fiber Work

 With the temperatures in the valley starting to finally slip down into a more comfortable range and even some rain, I've been able to get cracking on several projects.  The highest priority was to finish the weaving on the Guild 2018 challenge bag.  That took about half a day to finish. It would have been much quicker but I had to work around a couple of minor warp problems. 

Finished the weaving, with a celebratory glass of wine!

 Once cut off the loom I ran some machine stitching across the ends and wet finished it in warm water with a little detergent.  Rinsed a couple of times and then dried flat and ironed on a hot setting under a damp cloth.

Finished and ironed.

 I went out yesterday and picked up some iron on backing and some cotton lining.  Along with some cardboard and magnets I now have everything to put it all together.

In the mean time I finished the first skein of llama wool and washed the second batch.

Drying llama locks inside under a fan.

 Once dry it takes another hour to run the lot through the drum carder (in two lots of approximately 1 oz each).  I then diz it off the drum and I end up with very easy to spin roving.

Llama roving ready to spin.

When not working on either of the above I did find time to finish another fall colors dishtowel and start another - I think 3 to go to finish the warp.  And of course there was the outside work - three wheel barrow loads of wood cut up and split and now stacked and drying, and I dug out the silt and fallen leaves from the dam so that we can pump some water up to the hot tub and get it running again.

Return from Oneida, TN

We spent a very relaxing couple of days with friends in Oneida - well almost all relaxing. There was a few hours of digging out a RZR all terrain vehicle after we managed to get it stuck in a muddy creek!

I had taken my wheel and was able to fill two bobbins of a grey romney singles.  The wool had come from an inherited stash of odds and ends and it seemed like it would be easy to spin. It was!  I was able to ply it into a skein of about 2.7 oz., 140 yards 2-ply.  I'll look at a potential weaving project using this wool and some Clun Forest white 2-ply.

Skein of NZ Romney 2-ply

Once home we did some guard hair picking and lock sorting with the llama (Moonshadow).  That resulted in 2.5 oz of white which I washed and dried.  I then ran it through the carder twice and dizzed it off the drum to produce some nice looking roving that should be a dream to spin.

Llama (Moonshadow) roving.

I've also made progress on the guild challenge project - incorporating some of the supplied hand spun yarn as a supplementary weft and one other variegated yarn into a small square (using tapestry techniques).  I'll use up more of the yarn pieces in further squares.

Guild challenge project progress.

 And finally I've also been working on more Fall colored towels - these ones with a brown weft instead of the original white.  I think my towel count is 7 (of 10), but with the trip up to Townsend and weaving up there I've lost count a bit.  I did manage to finish one and a half towels up there while still talking to visitors most of the day.

Moonshadow

I dropped off the Neme skeins and picked up another fleece to process.  Pam had mentioned that the most popular skeins she takes to barter with are white colored because people like to dye them.  A quick check of her fleeces found a 2015 one from Moonshadow that is mostly white with a dark black as well.

2.2 lbs raw weight of Moonshadow fleece

The locks seem to be a good consistent length and apart from a little bit of dust accumulation at the cut end the fleece is in pretty good condition.  There are some minor second cuts, but I should be able to sort those out while sorting and washing.  Anne will be pleased as her favorite activity while watching TV is to remove guard hairs - this being llama it has plenty but they are really obvious and simple to remove in the early sorting/washing.

Llama guard hairs in the locks.

It took a little under 15 minutes to sort the colors into white, black and the rest, then I quickly removed the guard hairs from a sample of black.  In the photo below you can see the sorted color with the small back pile top left being the guard hair removed pile.

Sorted locks.

Next job is to start washing batches after blowing the dust out of them first which will leave clean locks ready for carding and spinning.  They get another wash to set the yarn on completion and that removes any final dirt/dust.

2017 Guild Challenge

The Scenic Valley Handweavers Guild set a challenge at the beginning of the year to weave a 'bag' out of various yarns that were supplied to everyone joining the challenge.  There was a large amount of a gray polyester and varying amounts down to a few feet (of hand spun merino). In all about 10 different yarns.  The bag can be any kind and the idea is to incorporate some of every yarn into the design.

All but one of the challenge yarns.

Having lots of gray and a fair amount of a pink color and both being similar in size I used both in the warp - winding two irregular stripes of the pink (and using it all up) as I went.

Wound warp.

I'm making a bag for my tablet. It will have a folding flap and I'll have to sew in a lining and stiffener if it is to work at all.  Given the size of the tablet there will not be too much weaving - in fact it is pretty close to the loom waste, but as there was a ton of the gray that won't be a problem.  The weft will be all gray with inset 'boxes' of the various colors - some as they are, others twisted together or doubled to balance the size.  The boxes will form a diagonal line across the back and part of the front.  The flap will have a couple of shots of supplementary weft using the hand spun merino which is highly textured. 

Dressing the loom (Pete) has been pretty fast given the small amount of warp, but I do need to address a slipping friction brake before I start to weave.

Warp on the loom.

The project is due in 3 weeks. The weaving won't take long - hopefully that will be the case with the sewing and fastener!

Fall Color Cotton Dish Towels

With the Townsend Blue Ribbon Country Fair coming up at the end of the month I had picked up the Harrisville Design loom and brought it home ready to put some cotton towels on it to weave while demonstrating. This will be my third Country Fair and this time I will do the same as for the Fiber Arts Festival - put a long warp on the loom and weave before, during, and after the event - eventually ending up with a set of towels to put up for sale.

Given the time of year I decided to do a 'Fall Colors' towel and was able to pick up some reasonable dyed cotton at a good price from R&M Yarns in Georgetown.

Half the warp wound on.

10 towels is about as long as I would ever like to do on the warping board (which would probably hold enough for another 3 or 4 towels).  The HD loom doesn't have a sectional beam as do two of my looms.  Beaming directly from bobbins is the way to go for larger runs.

All the warp, chained and ready to dress the loom

Ready to wind on and potential for tangles all the way.

The long warp chains can be a problem, but I was able to keep it under tension as I wound on and only had one snag that led to a broken warp thread.  I caught it in time and was able to tie it up and resume winding. 

Threading the heddles and sleying the reed took a whole day as there are 480 ends.  I also had to supplement the heddles as the HD didn't have enough. Luckily I have the same size inserted eye heddles on one of my looms.  The reed is a 14 dent and it is sleyed at 2 per dent to make 28 epi - right at the top of the range for this 2 x 2 twill design.

First towel underway.

 The weaving is pretty fast as it is all going to be plain white weft - no changing colors for stripes.  The first couple of towels are in a M&W diamond twill design with a 24 thread repeat.  I've designed the next two with a slightly longer repeat that produces a more curved design.  I'll change after every two.

Close up of the diamond pattern

The weather at the moment is great so there won't be too much weaving going on while I'm outside working, but there's always early morning and evening to get some more done.