trapeze | Tien Chiu's Blog

Fran asked for more complete photos of my second warp on a trapeze setup, so here they are:

The warp passes through the raddle clamped to the back beam of the loom (better photos on that a little further down), up and over the top of the trapeze, and is weighted by a pair of barbell weights. The barbell weights are tied to a piece of string and attached to the warp with a lark’s-head knot wrapped around the bout of warp. Here I am using 2 bouts for a 12″ warp, each with its own weight.

Better photo of the raddle, from the back and the side:

The photo here is blurry (sorry – had trouble getting the camera to focus correctly), but you can see the important bits. The raddle is clamped to the back beam, using a block of wood as a spacer to make sure it isn’t sitting directly on the warp beneath it (which is beamed on in the usual way). This means that the top warp comes in at a bit of an angle, but it doesn’t seem to have done any harm.

Here is a photo from the back:

Here the spacers are a bit clearer. I used sections of 2×4 lumber, but I needed the extra space to clear the rounded protrusions at the ends of my back beam (see 1st photo of raddle). I’d use as small a spacer as I could get away with and not have one warp interfering with the other; I suspect it would produce better results.

Here is the top of the trapeze:

I used two sawhorse brackets ($7.58 a pair at my local hardware store), and screwed four legs into the brackets. Then, as directed by the instructions, I stuck a piece of 2×4 as a crosspiece, and screwed it down as well. This results in a very stable trapeze. I had no problems with it tipping over, but if you find you do, try drilling a hole through each of the back legs about 1.5-2 feet off the floor. Attach a long bolt through the hole, secure it with a nut so it doesn’t slip around, and then hang a barbell weight (or some other weight) on the part of the bolt protruding from the hole. That ought to stabilize things.

And now, just in case you were wondering what I’ve been up to (besides taking photos of my trapeze!), voila! A freshly finished scarf in diversified plain weave, hemstitched, fringed, and ready for dyeing.

I soaked it in soda ash and scrunch-dyed it this morning, in purples, blues, and an occasional drip of bright fuchsia. Tomorrow morning I’ll unfold it, rinse it out, and see how I like it!

By working diligently (okay, obsessively) after Mike got up, and a little bit at lunchtime, I got the warp set up and this sample woven:

Woven sample, cherry blossoms in diversified plain weave

Aside from a few skips where shaft #24 was acting up, it looks GREAT! and I think I will most likely use it for my bathrobe. I still need to weave a couple more samples, both to test how it looks after dyeing and to see how well rayon and cotton chenille stand up to multiple machine washes (on delicate) and tumble drying. This sample has a rayon chenille weft (two strands of 3000 ypp rayon chenille), I want to do another sample with 1450 ypp cotton chenille weft, and see how they differ once wet-finished and washed/dried a couple times.

I want to use rayon chenille for the weft if possible, because I think the luster of the rayon chenille will really “pop” the cherry blossoms once dyed in bright gold/red/oranges. But I want to try cotton chenille as well.

And I am pleased to say that the trapeze method for the second warp works perfectly:

The black (cotton chenille) warp passes through the heddles and through a raddle clamped onto the back beam of the loom (with wooden spacers under the raddle to keep it from interfering with the 1st warp). From the raddle, it goes up and over my free-standing trapeze, which is made with two sawhorse brackets and 5 pieces of 2×4 – quick, easy, and cheap. I used two chains for a 12″ warp and weighted each chain with a 2.5-lb weight that I had sitting around.

And it works great! I can hardly wait to get the cotton chenille sample woven, so I can cut off and dye the samples.

Better photos of trapeze

Woven sample and trapeze warp