Hi all. In october 2018 I completed the construction of my new house and studio, we were 4 months. The studio I think of as "The Crows Nest", well unofficially anyway. :D With an awesome view. My ceilings are 9' up to 14'. Here old Bertha sits, my home built loom.  I have added three 7' tall cupboards for yarn since this photo and rearranged some tables for sewing and serging.

I did weave a few items before and after Christmas, they are posted. Erica and Oli are piecing things back together and now we can finally post images and do our project and draft pages again. A ton of work I guess reconnecting things. But it's time to move foreward and hopefully folks will find their way back.

Come on in and let us know what your working on at the loom. :)

 

Here is a video of me weaving warp pile.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X2LbUle31Q&t=161s

Another of me pulling yarn of a spool, and no twist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik_ml5ikf5Q

Have a good one. ;)

 

Comments

Fri, 03/08/2019 - 23:10

ReedGuy

A view of Mount Katahdin from the studo window back in February. Another crisp morning here at -2 F.

I have been planning a mohair throw using Harriville shetland for warp and either doubling the mohair silk or winding together with some shetland onto ski shuttles. Not sure I have enough mohair for doubling. Planning on 10 epi in the reed. That will be on hold a bit until I finish up some wood work, which I have been spreading out over the winter. I'm sanding right now by hand, and that is quite a work out. :D

Fri, 03/08/2019 - 16:28

Grethe

One of our sons left Denmark 4½ years ago and vent to Australia. He left a lot of his clothes an other stuff at our home. There is a bunch of T-shirt and I have decided to use them for a rug.

We are going to Australia for a wedding next year. 

 

Sat, 03/09/2019 - 14:53

ReedGuy

You did a great job Grethe, looks like you captured it.

I am saving material as time goes on for some rugs. I have not been to yard sales, just materials at home since I had the contents of 3 homes to deal with over the last 6 years. At those yard sales or flee markets one must really consider what the cost per yard is. If the used item is marked $5-10 and there is barely a yard or even if there is 1-1/2 yards, it really is not a deal for rugs. New material can be had at $3-4 a yard and no waste. Thank goodness for Marden's surplus and salvage stores near by. :) Most what you see in thrift or global textile outlets is polyester, polyester, polyester. ;)

See ya

Sat, 03/09/2019 - 19:09

Grethe

Thank you, ReedGuy. It's really fun to weave and I'm lucky that my weft is free.

Fri, 03/08/2019 - 23:17

ReedGuy

My yarn cupboards I installed after Christmas for $100 each. Cheap and effective. Doesn't look like a lot of yarn, but I emptied 6 - 50 lb totes. A small fortune. :D

Notice the inkle up top.

Happy weaving.

If your not seeing notifications it's because that part is broken at the moment. Hopefully, it gets resolved soon. :)

Sat, 03/09/2019 - 16:14

sandra.eberhar…

Hi Reed Guy,

Your studio is knock-down-drag-out gorgeous.  The view is lovely, but having grown up a flatlander in Michigan,  I have found (my husband and I spent a week touring thr Olympic penninsula with my brother and his wife) that mountains are pretty, but very inconvenient.  

I thought I saw a draft for 24 shafts that you had posted.  Am I misremembering?  Have you gotten into dobby looms?  Electronic dobbies are addictive.

Sun, 03/10/2019 - 10:59

ReedGuy

BWSD, thanks for the nice compliment on the studio. Yeah the mountian there is at quite a distance, probably 55 miles away. I am closer to a smaller one called Mars Hill, 3 miles off. There is a little town at the bottom of the same name. It is in the state of Maine. The terrain here is rolling mostly with large farm fields. But when your on the tops of knolls you see a fair distance for sure. The picture was with telephoto lens. My woodland up the road from here is flat as a prarie farm field. :)

I'm always doodling in Fiberworks with more shafts than I have. :) And no, I have no dobby or jacquard, but have been planning on adding a drawloom bridge and 4 more shafts (to give 12) and whatever shafts needed for the drawloom. Whatever I add will be self made. Commercial made equipment is too pricey for me. Used for sale stuff around here is like looking for gold in the desert. :)

Have a nice day.

Sun, 03/10/2019 - 03:22

sandra.eberhar…

Making your own drawloom isn't as hard as you think, and you can get a lot of information on it.  Go to Sally Eyring's website and see if she will send you the booklet that she gave out to peiple that took her seminar on building your own drawloom at Complex Weavers' last summer in Reno.  Good instruction, lots of pictures.  I took it, but then AVL sent out notification that they were doing a 25% off sale on used looms, and I fell hard for a 48" 24 shaft TDL.  Have just warped it backwards (not easy, but this can be done if you are persistant) and am threading all 24.   Now I have to get the brake to work backwards.  I have done this before.  Eventually I will put a big sign on it; COUNTER CLOCKWISE!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Then I'll set the brake on the other AVL frontwards and put the same sign on it 

Mon, 03/11/2019 - 03:32

sandra.eberhar…

Those sources would work; Sara's husband took Sally's class in Reno last summer. 

Mon, 03/11/2019 - 12:37

ReedGuy

Interesting, maybe he and Sara are going to build a prototype.

Tue, 03/12/2019 - 04:26

Sara von Tresckow

Sorry, we were simply interested in Sally's concept. We are swamped with stuff to do and are not going into production of anything new. We do offer plans for an extension on the Lilla for people wanting to make it into a drawloom and sell the assorted small parts as well as offer lessons. That's enough for mom and pop who are feeling their age.

Tue, 03/12/2019 - 09:46

ReedGuy

Yep, for sure Sara. If our minds are still good, sometimes the body says no. :) Glad for your feedback.

Wed, 03/20/2019 - 13:57

ReedGuy

My next project is a plain weave doublewide with striping. 48 epi with 16/2 warp and 8/2 weft. I used this combo before and it is a lot like flannel. I want a lighter blanket for summer.

 

 

Also ordered up some 16/2 yarn and 1000 12-5/8" long heddles so I can weave 48" wide. This will give me nearly 3000 heddles and I need 2300 for this project.

Fri, 03/22/2019 - 13:48

ReedGuy

Looks like we had an invasion of fake accounts and spam here yesterday. I hope that hole gets plugged.

Fri, 03/22/2019 - 14:43

sandra.eberhar…

What a pain!!!!! I don't understand how someone would spend the time to do something so useless.  Must be a spoiled brat of a kid with time on their hands.  Like the kids next door who hacked our wireless network.

Sat, 03/23/2019 - 14:49

ReedGuy

Yeah, I think they really need to find a job or go cut some firewood or something. hahaha!

This latest project is quite a challange with all the color stripes. I find I will have to wind 58 spools 8 times, and each of those will fill only 5 sections. :D Now here is indeed a good reason for a warping square. Most of the times when I work with color I have never had to wind spools multiple times. All that was required is to thread the box 3 or 4 times, and threading is quick. Oh well, I have time while I wait for my shipment to arrive. ;) Either method it is still a time thing when all things are considered for this particular situation. I worked it all out on paper, it took 4 sheets taped end to end to work the color sequence and repeats across the threading.  26 yards/spool so they wind up in a flash. ;)

Happy weaving....

Sun, 03/24/2019 - 15:58

sandra.eberhar…

I have used my new to me wheel twice now and really like it.  Stripes like you  describe would be a lot easier.  I hated all the winding, and hated the resulting waste.  Until I used the wheel, I didn't see why people were so enthusiastic about sectional warping.  I could understand someone who always puts long warps of, say black rug warp, or 8/2, but I have seen arrangements where a wall mounted spool rack fed directly into the heddles for a dedicated rug weaver.  Wheels are not cheap, but used ones can be found.

Sun, 03/24/2019 - 18:19

ReedGuy

Yep, wheels are pricey. I can't justify the layout. The spools, rack and tension box I made myself, but that doesn't make it free. I am fine with winding spools. Currenty, I have to wait for yarn and heddles anyway and by the time they get here the warp is on and the threading already started. So it's not going to go any quicker in this instance, because I am waiting on that order to come before the job is done anyway. This is a very rare case for me, most of the time all I need do is wind the spools once, but maybe thread the order 3 or 4 times in the box. Well I can thread a box quicker than you can wind a wheel.  I am finding here with this warp, that I can do the spools up and wind onto the loom within an 1:20 hr. So I have to do that 8 times. Doable in a day, but I don't work that keenly, so I will probably spread it over 2 or 3 days. I already have the second color order ready to wind onto the loom sections. My rack takes 4 spools per section and it doesn't take more than 3 mintes to wind 4 spools with 26 yards. I'll likely be winding spools 20 years from now. There are so many more instances, that I can wind spools and warp it quicker than a wheel, that for me a wheel doesn't get me ahead in the game. :)

Sun, 03/24/2019 - 22:27

sandra.eberhar…

I think that the wheel is much faster than you think.  I did 18 sections, 32 threads per section, 21 yards in about 4 hours.  Then it took me three days to tread it, but the warping is very fast. I was using 4 cones, spinning 7 times, raddle, 8 times per section.  

Mon, 03/25/2019 - 08:52

ReedGuy

The wheel is faster for this particular warp because of the color changes, 8 of them repeated 5 times. But I rarely run into this with my weaving. I have done lots of stripes where I only have to thread the box over, and not winding spools several times. :) My warps are 4-6 yards mostly and usually wide unless I do a run of towels/face cloths. That's probably around 4 hours for 40 sections, and including making up the spools (~48 of them). I don't use bulky yarns much.

Sat, 03/30/2019 - 09:49

ReedGuy

I have been wainting on sme yarn and heddles now for over a week, so spool winding came to a hault until I get more to wind 10 spools. The last two color orders use 2 sections of 20 spools of white, so that cuts down on the spool count, as well as green, that used 16 in one order and 8 on the last, so I just wind double yardage on 8 of them. Same goes for red and blue on two spools, double yardage on those.

Been looking at getting a window covering on that big dormer window. First option was heat blocking, but way too expensive. Cost more than the window did, $3400 is serious dough. I settled with my first thoughts on a vertical blind. It's still going to run over $700. I need to go into the blind business.  Lordy. :D

Tue, 04/02/2019 - 08:05

ReedGuy

New heddles (1000) arrived yesterday along with a few spools of 16/2 cotton to finish warping up my blanket project. Remember I have 2308 heddles to thread at dent @ 48 epi in the reed afterward.

I have an interesting project, in the form of a sample, coming up after I finish up the blanket. It is a combination of many things actually. It is double weave, triple weave and what I would properlly describe as a tubular cord weave. The end result should resemble honeycomb cells, but from looking into the selvedge, not the surface. We'll see. Hint of what's to come is in the posted photo, upper left corner.

Have a nice day. ;)

Tue, 04/16/2019 - 09:22

ReedGuy

Whatever monkeying around was done recently has broke the image links. :(

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