Not my loom.
Wednesday, June 28th, 2006Ok, so the ultimate irony is that on the day that I got my loom I actually drove an hour (each way) to use the other loom at Place des Arts.
Yep. Weaving class is officially over but I missed a couple classes because of my dad’s exhibition and going to Vegas… so I’m a little behind and haven’t finished the Great Big Green Blanket (GBGB). Last night, I spent about two hours in the Fibre Room working on the blanket…
After about two hours, I found myself relatively comfortable with using the massive ski shuttle that I had originally found a little unwieldy. It really was the best solution though. I had tried using a boat shuttle and it just wouldn’t hold very much weft — and winding bobbins is significantly less fun than throwing the shuttle.
I also changed the tie up under the loom so that I could “walk” the loom. Basically all this is is tying the shafts to the treadles in a sequence that allows your feet to alternate (like you are walking). For example, my pattern is 12, 23, 34, 41. If the treadles are tied up in that order, I press treadle 12 with my left foot then treadle 23 with my right foot. Then I need to scoot over or cross over with my left foot so that I can treadle 34. That’s stupid. So, I changed the treadles so that they are ordered like this: 12, 34, 23, 41. That way, I go 12 with the left, 23 with the right, 34 with the left and 41 with the right and I never really need to change my position. You could also order it like this: 12, 34, 41, 23 so that you walk the two outside treadles and then the two inside treadles. Whatever you fancy. It seems to speed things up considerably or at least make treadling less awkward…
All I needed was maybe one more hour to finish weaving off the entire blanket, doing a little hemstitching and then cutting the blanket off the loom. Just one more hour! I’m delighted at how fast it is going. This is instant gratification, people. Instant.
