Finding the Sweet Spot

 So what the heck does that title mean?   

Well, I started weaving again. I wove short 10- 15 minute sessions and then waited to see how my back responded to the motion.   Sometimes I had to take a day or two off, and then I'd try again.   It seemed to be going well overall and the inches were slowly adding up on the loom.   

Progress. 

Then I added more repeats and a bit more time.... and waited.   Soon I was weaving a full 20-30 minutes with rest breaks and some days an Advil and a day or two off.   

Feeling better about how things were going!

Then the 8 yard warp of 8/2 Venne cotton and linen wefts was all done and  cut off the loom!   All 2 1/2 pounds of it!

I had another warp all prepared and so got to work beaming it.   I took my time and slowly wound on with frequent rest breaks.  But there is bending to depress the brake peddle and movement back and forth between the back and front to shift my weights. 

Once it was beamed I stopped for the day.  That night my back grumbled and let me know it was unhappy, so I knew the next few days would be 'rest days'.   Then I woke to a very unhappy lower back and now I'm on an enforced healing / rest time period once again. 

It would seem that moderate to severe arthritic changes to my lower spine, with stenosis (encroachment of the nerves exiting the spinal column) is my new Boss and is very clear about telling what I can and can't do.  😢    There are some positives to this situation:

• I didn't herniate a disc like last time
• rest will settle things down in time
• I will weave again
• I have towels to hand sew and play with finishing
• I can thread and sley slowly when the time is right and 'Boss' says I can 
• My Hansen e-spinner is nearby and doesn't hurt me! 

I'd like to add that my husband has been very good at pitching in when I need help and donning an apron and cooking when I can't.   We're coming up to 40 years next fall and I think it might be working out after all ! 💕 😉  

So it's all about finding balance and being content to listen to my body.  I don't plan to quit or sell this loom so I must be patient.  No doubt there will be more set backs and maybe not. 

Finding the sweet spot much like we do on our looms when weaving......

Time Challenges

Time is doing a funny thing in my house.  Its been two weeks since my surgery which feels like it just whipped by. I can see and feel positive changes in that short time, especially considering how awful I felt in the hospital at the time.  

Its also slowed to a crawl as well.  There is no hurrying the healing process and it takes as long as it takes. This means taking things easy, resting, using ice, eating well and the daily exercises.   The days tend to run into one another and all feel the same.

I'm guilty of watching too much TV, napping when I feel like it ( and sometimes even when I don't).  I'm reading lots and doing a bunch of hand work as well when light conditions allow.

I'm getting bored and in a hurry to get this done and over with.


Then we go out to either physiotherapy or to the doctors office and I come home as weak as a kitten and head back to my couch and elevate my swollen knee.

That's when the time thing hits me again. It will take as much as it needs..... no matter what I think or want !  Its the Boss of me.

So here's my new upgrade:

31 staples! My eye can see where they could have placed one more and made it even. 

The top row of images is my old knee before the operation.  These were taken two days post op. 

All staples are out and now its just steri-strips.  They will just fall off when ready (or with a little help :)   Now I must keep working on the exercises and keep bending the knee!   I had an 87 degree bend this past Tuesday at therapy. Yesterday I got a true 90 degree bend at the surgeon's office which made him happy.    They credit my strong quad muscles to all the treadling I did before surgery!   So weaving really does count as exercise....

So that's all for here..... back to my couch. I have a new Handwoven to read.

Betwixt and Between

I thought I'd lure  you in with a nice piece of weaving right at the start! It will most likely be the only one in the post...

The studio is full now and all three looms are in a state of change. Somehow it feels a bit disconcerting and I'll be happier when all three are loaded and works in progress.

My smaller Louet Spring was named Lilibet but that is now changed and I'm calling her Lisbeth instead. Yes, I'm a fan of the Girl with a Dragon Tattoo books. Such a shame the author, Steig Larsson, passed away before he could write more!

I pulled this warp some time ago and it had been hanging waiting for its turn in the queue. It has been preempted by baby blankets and then receiving blankets for grandson Ethan (who has his first cold right now, poor thing!)  The warp is dark teal  8/2 tencel, approx 200 ends and 7.5 inches. It is long enough for three Classic Drall  scarves, each 70 inches long each and fringes.  Beaming it was a quick job and threading went well.

Then the (light) loom was hoisted up onto crates for her tie up. Since I was only tying up eight treadles for eight shafts, it went nice and quick compared to last time which was twelve shafts and twelve treadles!

So weaving is underway on this loom as and when time allows. We've had a lot of activities on the go recently and so I haven't been weaving as much as I would like.  Also this loom was shifted over to the middle space and the Megado (or Margaret) now sits here as it needs access to power.

So how is the Megado coming along?

Well, there were some interesting times getting the brake assembly on and set up right. We knew we had it on right, but couldn't get the lever to sit horizontal. It was a grand fight and two manuals in play and emails to Jane Stafford.

There! Isn't that a thing of beauty??  The difference between the lever sticking up hard under the shafts to being in perfect position is the carefully placed STOMP.  Yup, we had to get far more physical with it that we originally realized!   So next up was getting some spare parts to replace missing nuts and bolts. Also some extra heddles. I thought I would take the older heddles off and wash them and quickly discovered that working in the tight space where 16 shafts sit, is like doing an engine repair via the tail pipe!  I did get shafts 1, 2 and 16 done and have quit for now. Those three shafts worth do look whiter and brighter. I'll tackle the rest one shaft at a time.

We also corrected a rubbing swing arm on the front beam by adding an extra washer. Small fix but makes a huge difference! There was a space at the top but it rubbed at the bottom and since that part moves with every change of shed, it had to be fixed!

Some of the missing parts we are waiting for are for hanging the brain onto the side of the loom so in the mean time I got busy with this:

I bought a small Acer notebook computer on clearance. The picture doesn't show its cute size of only ten inches! Its operating on the new Windows 7 operating system and so has wifi on board. I can play with my Fiberworks program and send copies to the printer.  I upgraded my Fiberworks to the newer Silver Plus 4.2 (with loom drivers) so this part is all ready and good to go!  I suspect that I may need to download some files from Louet but have been waiting for people to get back to work from attending Convergence 2012 in California.   I guess I should start considering a draft for the first project.  I'm not sure what it will be but it will be using all 16 shafts!

Meanwhile over here.....

This has been my 'other' seat in the studio. The final portions of the Woolhouse Tools loom ( Emmatrude) tune up were resumed. To refresh, all cords were removed and then replaced with some help from friends.  Now all the cords must be set with a marker thread to indicate where to place the peg when pulling cords for a tie up.
How do you determine the 'sweet spot'? Glad you asked!

You raise up all  sixteen treadles to their correct height. I have a special board made by hubby for this purpose.

Then you add weights to the tops to stop them from any movement either up or down. I reckoned about 15 years worth of Handwoven should do the trick!

Then, sitting at the back of the loom at the peg board, you tug firmly on each and every cord and slip the peg into the best possible slit on the texsolv cord. Ideally there should be no slack at all.  So you do this for all 384 cords. I let it sit pulled taut like this for a couple of days and then double checked. Sure enough, there were some that had loosened a bit and I snugged those up again.  Texsolv is not supposed to stretch.... but it does. Not much mind you, but enough when even one slot equals one centimeter!

Then, you take some non slippery yarn, in this case 16/2 cotton, in a contrasting colour and you slip a darning needle into each pegged slot. Again, all 384 of them!   Yes, it seems like an awful amount of work but for the quick tie up's to come, its well worth it!!

Even as I do all this work, I know that I will have to repeat it in about six months time. Why? Its that slight stretch in the cord that will happen with use. Eventually the sweet spot shifts ever so slightly and you get a change at the shed. So you pull and remark the cords again and then you are good for some years! Last time the remark lasted four years.   Looms are hard working tools so maintenance happens!

Maybe Third Time's a Charm?

There's something about a new warp on the loom.......such promise in the orderly theads!

I have been working recently with finer threads, so my new project on Emmatrude means an interesting adjustment on my part. It's an eleven yard warp of 4/8 cotton, sett 18 epi for placemats. We have some new everyday china in a soft cream and I thought new placemats would be nice. This grist of cotton is not something I have used very much of, other than the occasional warp at a workshop. While there are a great array of colours available, it's not what I reach for when planning projects. I lean towards finer threads but placemats need to be buffers between a warm plate and your dining room table (or lap!). The warp used about three and a half 1/2 pound cones so there's a fair amount of 'heft' to the warp when the yarn size is this chubby.

What I had in mind was a twill pattern that produced a star burst. On paper it looked grand! I threaded, sleyed and tied up.... and sat down eagerly to weave.

Oops, some threading errors.

Fixed those.

All set to go again.

Now I found the sleying error, which of course was at the centre of the warp.

Okay, fixed that and finally threw the shuttle.

I wove about 6 to 8 inches and stopped.

I *hated* the pattern.

So.... I replaced the lease sticks and pulled everything back through to hang just behind the heddles and went on a search for a replacement draft.

I was looking for something that would produce a reversible pattern, be pleasing to the eye and be a bit bolder. I searched my samples, went through Handweaving.net, searched the Complex Weaver cd's I have here, many of my books and also played with my design program: Fiberworks-PCW. I settled on a draft called Rosenkransen. An 8 shaft bold twill. I double checked numbers and confirmed now many repeats given the ends I had on the loom, then *slowly* threaded and sleyed, this time using the autodenter. The warp is black and these eyes are dim! No errors and I'm weaving again. I had company at the house and they saw the work in progress. Now this pattern has some little runs to and fro as part of the overall pattern. This non-weaver said as she pointed to a little run " is this a mistake here? " Then suddenly I realized that the pattern looked disjointed with these 'hiccups'.

Okay, rehang the lease sticks ( which had to be a single stick as there was no plain weave in this draft) I just lifted a lease stick under and made sure that all threads stayed in order and then used the second stick to push all threads straight down out of the heddles. To say I was discouraged was an understatement! I had done everything right the first time: planned the project, printed the draft up and checked it visually. The threading errors were all mine despite the fact I'm not a fast threader. I'd rather work sequentially through a draft and create logical groups of threads, double check and move on. Clearly this hadn't worked for me either!

So it was about this time that my two shawls were modeled at the fashion show and that cheered me up. But clearly this warp was a 'keep me humble' project. I even tried asking Lynnette for help! Maybe she had used this yarn before and had some success she would share? Nope, we both like finer threads...

So the reason this wasn't working as well for me was due (I think) to the possibility that patterns that look great worked up in finer yarns don't always look as good in heavier weight yarns. A good thing to note and file away for the future. If I ever use 4/8 cotton again that is.... ah, but I have to as I have a stash of it.

sigh.....

I pulled out Strickler's "A Weavers' Book of Eight Shaft Patterns" and got seriously browsing. Then I saw it. Bird's Eye Twill. It's a classic, it's bold, it's reversible. Why mess with anything else? So I didn't.... and perhaps third time is the charm? I'm on mat number 2 out of 14 planned as I write this, so wish me luck!

Now... for that other naked loom.....

Blogger turned my picture sideways again. The weft is cream orlec and it seems to be weaving up balanced!

See you again soon......