I'm relatively new to weaving and have a Glimakra Standard Counter-march loom that I bought second hand.  I love this loom and have been weaving happily on it, first on 4 shafts, then on 8, with no problems.  What stumped me recently was a pattern for tea towels (Handwoven Sept/Oct 2003) that spell out the word "Tea" in the design--perfect for a friend who has nothing but drab towels and loves tea. Now for the question.  In the description of the project it was mentioned that this was a "skeleton" tie-up.  I should have known when I saw that two treadles would be depressed at once that this wouldn't work on a counter-march (!), but I somehow missed this little detail until everything was tied up.  In looking everything over, it seemed that I would need 16 treadles instead of the 10 I have in order to complete the "Tea" part of the pattern .  My solution was to retie some of the treadles as I went along for the additional shaft combinations needed.   Is there another way I should have done this?  Many thanks in advance for help with this!

Comments

Thu, 12/03/2009 - 02:07

Joanne Hall

Hi gweft,

I do not have this issue, but I assume that it is a summer and winter weave, or it may be called a tied weave.  These weaves are often woven with a skeleton tie-up.  I have done this with a six shaft weave and 8 treadles on a countermarch Ideal loom.  Tie up the plain weave as usual.  Then you will just use one foot for the tabby, alternated with two feet for the pattern. 

Look at the tie up for the pattern sheds.  You will probably see that each has either a 1 or a 2.  It can also be written with two other shafts, like perhaps the last two, but you will see that each treadle has one or the other treadle.  If these are 1 and 2, tie up those treadles with just two tie-up cords each, to raise one alternately with the other.   Call them A and B or as Mary Atwater did, X and Y.  Then you just need to tie up the last treadles with the other shafts (3 to 6 or however many there are) according to the draft, without the two that you have just tied.  When treadling use X with one foot and a pattern treadle with the other.  This will alternate with the Y used with that pattern treadle.

Joanne

 

Thu, 12/03/2009 - 14:28

Su Butler

HI Gweft.....you need 9 treadles to do this weave, so you should have no problem weaving it. 

You will tie up a little differently than "normal" for a CM loom.  Note in the tie up in the draft that no sinking shafts are indicated with an X.  You can tie up the treadles on to rise and weave the project using more than one treadle at a time.

You can tie your tabby treadles as normal - i.e. risers and sinkers, but your tie down warps, residing on shafts one and two, will be tied so one treadles has only shaft one to rise tied and another has only shaft two tied to rise.  Your pattern treadles will only be tied to the shafts that rise.  This allows you to use two feet when treadling.

I often weave this way on my Toika CM loom.....Summer and Winter (more correctly called Single Two-Tie Unit weave) is a real treadle hog and this method allows you to use as many pattern combinations as possible.  A skeleton tie up for Single Two-Tie Unit weave requires a minimum of three treadles for the structural elements and the rest are left for pattern.

Have fun weaving those towels......they are really cool!

Su

 

 

Fri, 12/04/2009 - 16:12

gweft (not verified)

Thanks, Joanne.   Yes, it is a Summer and Winter structure.  It's great to know that you can actually tie up treadles 1 and 2 as rising only, and thus can use these in alternation together with the pattern treadles.  I'm going to ponder all of this sitting on the floor behind my treadles with the treadling directions so I can actually see what's going on.  Thanks to your wonderful book, Tying Up the Countermarch Loom, I was able to get my Glimakra assembled and weaving in the first place, and I'm most grateful for this update!  

Gretchen

Fri, 12/04/2009 - 16:17

gweft (not verified)

Thanks, Su.  As noted in my reply to Joanne, I didn't know that one could tie up treadles on a Countermarch to rise only -- thought they had to be "countered" by the other sinkers.  So this is great news for a newbie!  I struggled through one not very successful towel by retying midstream (you could at least see the "Tea"), and now can proceed with the others--hopefully with better results!

Gretchen

 

Fri, 12/04/2009 - 16:25

Joanne Hall

Hi Gretchen,

When I did this tie up, I tied up shafts 1 and 2 in the usual way, with one cord to pull a shaft down and one to pull the other up.  I have not tied to just raise a shaft without the 'countered' tie. Su mentioned just tying to lift one shaft.  If you tie to raise only, that is a jack type tie-up for those two treadles.  If you have the type of balance where the shafts naturally want to fall like a jack loom, then it would work.  If you have the type of balance where the shafts do not move unless you treadle them to move, then I would include the other tie as well.  If your lower lamms are longer than your upper lamms, or are heavier, then your shafts will not have the tendency to sink. In this case tying that extra tie would be important.  Since there is no reason not to tie the pull down tie, I would put that tie on also.

Joanne

Sat, 12/05/2009 - 20:46

gweft (not verified)

Got it -- I think. . .  I'm still a bit slow in figuring out the sinking/rising lamms, where cords go (front/behind), etc. and have to reread parts of the book each time, but hopefully I'll get better at this.  It was helpful to read an online article by Madelyn Vander Hoght (sp??) orig. in Weavers' Magazine that went through the steps of tying up according to specific notches/distances on the Tex-Solv cords.  I'm going to give this a try to see if it works for me.  It certainly seems as though it will make future tie-ups quicker--and it includes skeleton tie-ups for S&W and Taquete.  Thanks again for taking the time to help me!!

Gretchen

 

Sat, 12/26/2009 - 11:05

Diane Roeder (not verified)

I have two questions.  I'm still not clear on what is meant by a skeleton tie-up.  Also, Gretchen, would you please share a little more information about that article that you found online?  Do you have a link?  Thank you.

 

Diane

Sat, 12/26/2009 - 15:14

Joanne Hall

A skeleton tie-up means that you need to use both feet to make a shed.  Mary Atwater had this information in her book and called it the X Y tie-up.  It is described in her book because summer and winter weaves often require more threadles than the loom normally has.  It means that one foot on one treadle may be controlling only two shafts and another foot on another treadle will be controlling the rest of the shafts. 

Madelyn van der Hoogt has a webpage and has a copy of a Weavers magazine article she wrote on suggestions for the countermarch tie-up.

Joanne

Sun, 12/27/2009 - 21:38

gweft (not verified)

Hi Diane,

I've been out of town visiting kids and grandkids for several days, so I'm just getting to your request for the article about countermarch tie-ups.  The online article by Madelyn Van Der Hoogt (originally published in Weaver's Issue 26) can be found at www.weaversschool.com/docs/Countermarch.pdf.  I'm not sure where I found this reference, but I thought it was on Weavolution.  I tried the recommended system, but may have raised my treadles too far off the "grond." The result was a bumping of some shafts into the short lamms (or short lamms into long ones, or treadles into long lamms). I never could get the whole thing figured out, so I went back to a less radical raising of the upper lamms and lower treadles, and now things seem fine.  In any case, the hands-on experiment was valuable in reinforcing some of the general principles of tying up--which I still struggle with, I'm sorry to say.  Maybe you'll have better luck.

Gretchen

 

Wed, 01/13/2010 - 06:51

janenedriscoll

I'm glad I found this group.  Sometimes I love my countermarch loom and some times I hate it!

 

I just finished a warp from hell and am making peace with the loom.  To help with the healing process, I retied the whole works, starting with the article by Madelyn.  I followed it to the letter.  But I'm still having some trouble with getting the lowered warp threads to be even.  The problem seems to be that the bar holding the bottom of the heddles that raise go up higher than the eye of the heddles that lower, lifting some of the lowered warp threads.  This is especially a problem when there are lowered shafts in both the back and the front of the loom (say shafts 7. 6 and 1 are lowered- 7 and 6 will have interference from the other shafts but shaft 1 won't).  I'm not sure how to fix this.

Also, some of the treadles touch the floor and others don't.  I can't figure out the variable that changes that.

 

Thanks in advance for any help,

Janene

Wed, 01/13/2010 - 15:37

Sara von Tresckow

 Jeanne

You have a couple of things here:

1. That article of Madelyn's has an extremely large shed, perhaps too extreme - it may well be that your shed exceeds the length of your heddles. If the lower shaft bars are bringing up the lowered threads, even by a little, you need to adjust your shed a tad smaller so that the lower shaft bars are not coming up as far. Actually, if you skip the elastics and odd lam angles and simply do a plain Jane countermarche tieup using the pegs at the lams and go for a more "normal" shed height you should be just fine.

The article you reference is based on Texsolv 330/12 heddles where most countermarche looms in cicrulation have 280/12. Remember, too, the working shed height is where you insert your shuttle after pushing the overhead beater back. If you make ANY shed too extreme, you are putting excessive pressure on your warp that is not really needed.

2. As long as you get your shed floor adjusted, where the treadle stops is actually of little importance. I generally have mine adjusted so that they do not dome all the way to the floor and stop pressing when the shed has opened sufficiently to pass the shuttle.

Fri, 01/15/2010 - 00:42

janenedriscoll

Sara,

Thanks for your reply.  When you say to skip the odd lam angles, that I should have both the lower and upper lams parallel when I tie up?  I'll try that.

Thanks again.

Janene

Mon, 01/18/2010 - 13:36

Ellen (not verified)

I have been weaving on a Glimakra countermarch loom for close to 10 years and have loved it. It is 150 cm wide and has 10 treadles and shafts. Since it is so big I don't have room for it at home, but have a nice big weaving loft in my "summer house" on the coast.

I wanted to tell you that I have just come back from 3 enjoyable weeks of weaving, and have had great success with:

1.Madelyn's system of tying up, slightly modified to my liking, but not much

2. The new longer lower lamms I bought after Su cleared up for me why I have had difficulties with the balance of the shafts

All thanks to you wise and knowing people here on Weavolution my precious waving hours have become even more of a joy.