Field trip!

So, I’m headed off to Sandra Rude’s for the next two days, to visit, delve deeper into her absolutely GORGEOUS work with woven iridescence and interleaved threadings, and check out her new digs (she used to belong to my weaving guild, until she moved to Atascadero).  Her husband B. is also being kind enough to help me with my warp beam woes, and make me a cone adapter for my double-ended bobbin winder.  (Hopefully this should solve the problem of my electric cone-winder starting up too fast – it breaks fine threads immediately on startup!)

In order to free up the warp beam before leaving, I had to cut off the last warp, which was stripes of rayon chenille alternating with a VERY sticky alpaca/wool weft.  But I have no regrets; I would have cut it off anyway because it was sticking so badly.  Life is too short to weave sticky warps, and my lesson from the 10-yard piece I had to set aside is very clear: if the warp isn’t good, stop weaving!  If you can fix it, great, if not, it isn’t worth it.

I DID weave an 8″ sample, manually clearing every shed, and didn’t like the results, either, so I think it’s just as well.

Once I get back, I plan to put a mohair warp on the loom – unlike the nightmarish alpaca/wool, this is a tightly twisted yarn with just a trace of hairiness, but I am considering sizing it (off the loom) anyway – I don’t want ANYTHING like what happened last time!