Introducing Emmy

May I introduce my new-to-me 40-shaft AVL Ultimate Dobby Loom? Here is how she looked before disassembly:

And here is what she looks like now, prepped for the long trip to California:

It took three of us about four hours to break down the loom into shippable pieces. About half that time was spent labeling things and taking photos to make sure it could be reassembled! Fortunately I do have the manual so it should not be too hard to reassemble it. (I hope, anyway.) Many thanks to Sue and Greg Mansfield for helping me disassemble the loom!

I have decided to name this loom Emmy – after Emmy Noether, a brilliant mathematician described by Einstein as “the most important woman in the history of mathematics”. I studied Noetherian rings in my college abstract algebra classes – what a refreshing change to see a woman’s name in an oppressively male-dominated area of study! I took quite a bit of cheer from her mere existence – she provided a nice counterexample to the meme “women can’t do math”. So I think it’s fitting to name my penultimate loom after Emmy Noether. (My ultimate loom? That will be a Jacquard loom named Ada, after Ada Lovelace, who wrote what is generally regarded as the first computer program. If I ever get one, that is.)

Anyway, Emmy is now awaiting the shippers, who will come on Monday to whisk her away from her old home, pack her up safely, and ship her off to California. My part is done, though I am sticking around until Tuesday morning just in case there are any issues with the pickup. After that she’ll have a five day drive to the Bay Area, arriving (most likely) on December 26 or 27. December 28 I plan to have a few friends over to help reassemble her.

And what will I weave first on Emmy? I am debating. There is a blue warp already on her warp beam, which I could thread up and weave off as the commissioning warp. Or, I could put on the warp I want to weave, which would be either 60/2 silk or 30/2 silk, point threading, sea turtles with woven shibori. Like this:

The idea her would be to weave sea turtles with ripple-like waves in between the turtle – the waves being done in woven shibori. Or in traditional stitched shibori, mokune pattern most likely. (The long red floats indicate the location of the shibori ties.)

Point threading isn’t my only option with the sea turtles, of course. As Bonnie Inouye correctly pointed out, I could get crisper sea turtles by going with a tied weave. But that would mean either doing a turned tied weave or weaving with three wefts (one tabby weft, one pattern weft, and the woven shibori weft), and, well, that gets a bit more complicated than I think I want to get for a first warp. Or maybe not. I’ll probably continue fiddling with ideas until the loom arrives.

And now, off to dinner. Now that the stressful part is over, I’m going to take a few days to relax, enjoy myself, and catch up on my reading. And mess around with quilting and beads on the latest phoenix, of course.

In honor of my recent plane flight, I will leave you with this action shot of Fritz the Incredible Flying Kitten, as he attempts to undo the cord holding the hallway drapes open. Unfortunately for Superkitten, the cord was tied in a knot. 🙂