Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Guess what happened again?!

I'm getting frustrated with this yarn. 
Another broken warp thread!  I've decided that this acrylic will probably work for weft use, but not warp. It is thin yarn, and irregular in thickness in places. With its stretchiness, pulling it taut enough on the loom evidently is too much for it. The good news: I'm getting plenty of practice fixing broken warp threads!  

I've learned a few other things along the way during this first project of mine: 

1. I have shafts with two different kinds of heddles.  Two of the shafts are completely wire heddles and two have a half wire and half inserted eye heddles. My grandmother-in-law had the wire heddles on the loom and had purchased a set of inserted eye heddles. I needed more for this project (only 15 or so were on two of the shafts) so I just evenly divided the inserted eye heddles onto the shafts that needed more. 
Here is my clean shed when I raise the shafts that only contain one type of heddle. 
And here you can see the slightly off shed when shafts with different types of heddles are raised. It's not an impossible shed to weave through, but it obviously makes a difference - and it's a tad bit annoying. So when this project is off the loom, I will have to change out the heddles and proabably buy more. At this point I think the inserted eye might be more gentle on the yarn. 

2. I'm learning how better to manage my selveges, and honestly, I think only practice will suffice. I find I'm quicker now and more confident in the tension of the throw. 

3. I'm beginning to see the value in having a method of measuring the amount woven. I've done some weaving forum browsing and think I like the method of sticking a pin into the selvege at predetermined increments.  I'll try this on my next project. 
Elsie, my 8 yr old cocker spaniel, says "It's nap time. Can't you just sit down and knit something?"  Glad to oblige. 

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