I timed myself this morning, out of curiosity: 28 picks took about 45 seconds, so I’m weaving at about 1.6 seconds/pick (plainweave on a treadle loom, 20″ wide warp).  This is considerably faster than my previous speed – for example, the dress fabric was weaving up at about 2.75 seconds per pick.  Not really a fair comparison considering that I had to double-beat each pick to clear the shed, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this week of study takes half a second per pick (or more!) off my weaving speed.  Considering that I was estimating the 20 yards of dress fabric at 60 ppi to be about 43,200 throws of the shuttle, that could be 21,600 seconds saved over the course of the weave, or about 6 hours of weaving time.  Pretty hefty savings, especially if my speed improves further.

Another piece of advice Laura gave me was to have the AVL switch sheds when the shed is open rather than when it’s closed.  This makes perfect sense to me, but I might have to purchase the Fiberworks PCW AVL loom driver to do it – I use WeaveIt Pro to drive my loom and I’m not sure whether it has the appropriate setting.  And my laptop just died so I have no access to anything right now.  (Sandra, if you’re reading this, can you tell me whether this can be done in WeaveIt Pro?)

At any rate, I wove off a 5-yard warp today, along with finishing up my first bobbin lace bookmark and starting a new bobbin lace bookmark with some different stitches Laura’s been showing me.  (Don’t look too impressed about the warp; it was a plainweave sett at 20 epi, with a relatively thick weft.  I also wasn’t making any particular attempt at good selvedges, etc. – the purpose of this warp was purely to concentrate on ergonomics, technique, and get the “feel” of weaving smoothly and rhythmically.  It’s definitely not my best weaving.)

I will post photos of the bookmarks tomorrow, I’m hoping to finish the other one tomorrow morning, early, and be able to post photos of both at once.  I botched one segment of the first bookmark (I think it was my second bobbin lace motif ever, so I have some excuse) but the rest of it looks GREAT!  I’m very happy.  Also thinking about how I can fit bobbin lace into the dress.  LOL!  I’m definitely not going to replace that gorgeous Alencon lace with my beginner attempts at bobbin lace, but maybe an edging around the bottom of the dress?

Or maybe not.  Who knows?

Tomorrow we’re going to have some fun sampling.  I wanted to play around with differential shrinkage and collapse weaves (basically anything that does dramatic things when it hits the water, since Laura is the expert on wet-finishing), and Laura has two new-to-her Lycra yarns in the studio, so we’re going to warp up the loom with those two yarns and some 12/2 cotton, 1-inch stripes of the two yarns alternating with 1/2-inch stripes of the cotton.  Then we’re going to weave with a variety of wefts, including a highly twisted singles, a Lycra yarn, a wool yarn (etc.) just to see what happens.  This sounds absolutely delightful, and a good opportunity to practice ergonomic weaving on plainweave.

(Why am I weaving so much plainweave, since I love to dabble in complex structures?  It’s to simplify learning the ergonomics: having to remember a treadling pattern distracts me from focusing on my body, “reading” the movements of weaving and seeing how one flows (or doesn’t) into another.  Also, plainweave most closely approximates my home weaving, since I have a computer-driven loom.)

Now, to answer a couple of questions:

Michelle wrote:

I’d love to see some photos of the warp going on and actually staying in the beam sections.

The warp that went with those photos wasn’t beamed into the sections; it was beamed using the sectional beam as you would a plain beam (ignoring the dividers).  So the ends weren’t fitted neatly into the dividers, though I have some interesting ideas for how this might be managed if necessary.

Ruth wanted to know exactly what steps were “counted” and how long the warp was in the 15-20 minutes to beam the warp.  I was speaking specifically about beaming the warp (not rough sleying or winding the warp), and I’m not sure of the length – Laura’s out of the house right now so maybe she can answer that later.  I’ll time things on the sample warp I’m winding (though it may not be a good example, being only 5 yards long) and maybe that will provide a better idea.

I am, however, COMPLETELY sold on the warping trapeze as an alternative to the “crank the beam, walk around to the front of the loom and jerk on 1″ bouts of all the threads the entire width of the loom, walk to back, crank on 1 turn and repeat” method.  THAT drove me nuts when I was working with a plain beam – aside from taking absolutely forever (I was working with very small back beams, usually about 2-3″ in diameter, so even one yard would be 4 turns of the beam!), it gave me blisters on my fingers.  I’d never go back to that method, having seen this one.

Off to bed!  Tomorrow, bobbin lace, and winding/beaming that warp.  I have two more days left here, and want to get in as much as possible before leaving.

This is GREAT – I’m learning tons and getting to dabble in a lot of different areas of weaving.  I’ve already gotten some interesting ideas for things to explore once I get home.

And Laura is a WONDERFUL teacher.  Do study with her if you get the chance!

So, yesterday Laura showed me how she puts on a warp – quickly and efficiently.

I had asked her how to handle putting a painted warp onto a sectional beam.  I’d never tried doing this before, thinking that you had to beam a sectional beam in sections, but it turns out that you can beam onto it just as you would a plain beam.  So that’s exactly what she did.

First, she rough-sleyed a reed and inserted temporary lease sticks into the cross.  Then, she slipped a rod through the looped ends of the warp, and tied onto the sectional beam, as you would for regular back-to-front warping.

Then she threw the warp over a rod hanging from the ceiling.  (Laura refers to it as a warping valet, but Kati Meek refers to it as a trapeze in her book Warp with a Trapeze and Dance with Your Loom – same thing, different names.)

At this point the warp looked roughly like this:

Notice the rough-sleyed reed (which is used as you would a raddle) and the lease sticks at the bottom of the warp.

Here’s a side view:

Notice the reed hanging between the warp beam and the back beam.  I asked Laura why she preferred a reed to a raddle – she said that, among other things, it was easier to tilt the reed to make the warp wider or narrower.  For winding on warps, she doesn’t use warp sticks, instead she narrows the warp gradually as it gets wound on, creating a trapezoidal cross-section that prevents the edges from slipping off.  It doesn’t work on all warps, though.  I’m not sure I can use this method since my loom is built differently (not enough space between the warp beam and the back beam), but it’s a good trick to know about, and I’m sure I’ll try it someday.

Here’s how Laura weights the warp as it dangles from the trapeze:

There’s a loop of thread (lark’s-head-knot) tight around the warp, attached to an S-hook, which in turn is attached to a gallon jug filled with (I think) water.  This keeps the warp under tension as it’s beamed on.

Next, she cut off the choke ties, spread out the warp, and brushed it with a hair brush:

This helped even it out and identify any loose ends.  (It should be mentioned that not everyone does it this way, and some weavers actively recommend against it, but Laura says it works fine for her.  Kati Meek, in her book on warping with a trapeze, recommends “spanking” the warp with a stick to do the same thing.)

Then she moved the lease sticks as far up as they would easily go:

Once this was done, she started winding onto the back beam.

A shot of the reed, turned to narrow the warp slightly:

As the warp wound on, of course, the lease sticks moved down, and the weights moved up.  When the lease sticks reached the back beam, or the weights started to get near the ceiling, Laura would stop, rehook the weights at the bottom, cut the choke ties, and repeat the brushing process, moving the lease sticks up again.  Then she’d wind on another length.

At the end, of course, she came to the reed.  This answered the question that had been nagging at me: if you rough-sley a reed, how do you remove it without disturbing the cross, which is at the other side of the reed?

Turns out to be quite simple (doh!).  You pull the warp through until the lease sticks right up against the reed.  Then you turn the lease stick closest to the reed to make a small “shed”.  You insert a new lease stick through the “shed” on the other side of the reed, and remove the old lease stick.  Then you do the same thing with the other lease stick.

In photos:

And that was it!  The warp was fully beamed on, in about 15-20 minutes.  Way, way, faster (and more even) than walking back and forth between back and front to “jerk” the warp!

I’m totally sold on the warping valet/trapeze.  Fortunately, I had made one for myself back when I had the Leclerc Diana….now I just have to FIND all the parts for it!!

Later in the afternoon we worked on weaving ergonomics, and will work on it more today.  Laura took a video clip of me weaving at the beginning (it should be noted that I was still struggling badly with the Fanny), and will take more videos today.  I’m hoping to be able to resize and post them tonight or tomorrow – talking about weaving ergonomics is darned near impossible.  A video is worth a million words!

Finally, in the evening we started working on repairing the many, many flaws in the dress fabric.  It’s a daunting task; we may not finish it before I leave.  But I have my hopes…

Off to a new day’s adventure!