The Saddest Happiest Thing!

Confused by the title? Well, I'm feeling a little dazed myself given the recent events around here.  There will be a Part 3 for "Emmatrude's Spa Treatment" but it won't be setting the cords or even putting a warp on her.

Let me back up a bit... all the way to 2009 no less!

Do you possibly recall when Lynnette and I went to Saltspring Island to visit Jane Stafford's Studio and we came away with new Louet Spring looms each? If you are relatively new to my blog that link will help you to catch up!  I briefly had a moment of insanity brought on by sticker shock and wrote an ad to sell my big Woolhouse Tools loom on the internet. Then reason set in and I decided to withdraw the ad and keep both.  I could aways sell it later if the money thing got in the way.

So roll the clock ahead to June 2012.  Do you recall the day I recently spent with Lynnette and Ngaire and they put all the 20+ cords back onto the loom? The day after I was still riding high from the previous day and came in from dead heading flowers in the garden to find an email from a dear friend. Long story short, I have a new Louet Megado 110 16 shaft computer assist loom coming! We are driving to pick it up in nine days time.  Now I was positively floating on air!!


It will look something like this (with mine being the one on the left, as the one on the right is a mechanical dobby)

It couldn't come at a better time when you consider my health and joint issues! The truth is, some issues won't get better but steadily worse. Some can be remedied with surgery but that will be down the road a ways.

Its taken some days to have all this sink in and ponder things like... where will it go?  Is there room enough?  Lots of other important considerations too as we have been thinking of selling our home and moving to a smaller property, and smaller home potentially. Ideally a single level home with a walk out basement with a family room. I can't  think about only just now and where we currently live but also the future which is difficult to do. Got a crystal ball handy?

I have the 12 shaft 36" Louet Spring with its small footprint and low castle. It makes sense to keep that one as it can fit easily into a smaller house. Granted it doesn't have a nifty tie up assist but we do lift it up and tie up's are done sitting on a stool. It's also light and can be moved easily too. No dismantling down to sticks! The treadling action is different. The treadles attach at the front and so its more of a heel and toe movement with my feet only sliding in one direction or another. I can weave here even when my back is cranky.

The Woolhouse Tools loom is physically large. Tall too. It's also has depth from front to back which gives you those great sheds. Its also my baby and it came to me brand new July 11th, 1998. We have fourteen years together and she doesn't look a day over  four.   :)  We have been through upgrades together and bonded through many, many hours of weaving. The 20+ is great and helped me tremendously after my hip replacement surgery in 2001. I also have back issues as some of you have read here.  The sad thing is, when my back is acting up from any one or more of my four bad discs, I can't weave on her at all and so she sits idle. Sometime for weeks, even months!  You see, the action of stepping down onto the treadle to push it to the floor, works/ pulls on muscles in my legs, thighs and lower back and it aggravates the problem.  I have to wait for things to settle down before I could use her and only for so much time at a sitting or it would set things off again.

So given the new loom coming, and our future plans to move to a house with unknown space limitations, the Big Girl is the logical one to go. Not that this makes me very happy! In fact, downright sad. Okay, a tear or three will be shed.

So Bruce and I stood there in the studio and discussed the hard facts of space, our future plans and such and I went upstairs to my laptop for some much needed distraction.

Here is where it really gets weird.


There, in my email inbox, is an email from a weaver in Ontario asking me if I still have the Woolhouse Gertrude loom for sale...(from that 2009 ad!)  **nothing on the internet EVER goes away!**   I sat stunned and read it two or three times. I thought over the discussion we just had but a few minutes ago and replied .... yes.


Esther, the inquiring weaver,  was just as stunned as I was when she heard how old the ad was and the currents events in our house that had just decided that it was time to sell it.  I felt that with summer and all the guilds on a break, I could put a tea towel warp on her and weave away and place the ads for the September newsletters. I would get a 'farewell' warp! No, not at all.... in fact my weaving on Emmatrude is over and I will be dismantling her and getting her ready to travel.  Once she arrives there, she will be given a new name as Emmatrude is a personal family name consolidation and its being retired. Besides, the loom should be having a fresh start!

The new, soon to be owner is Esther and she is new to weaving but is already weaving well and is truly hooked! She is understandably super happy and excited about all this so I'll be posting about the loom's departure, and she will report at her web page about the loom's arrival and set up. Esther is busy pondering new names like there's a baby on the way!

 (Her page Fishykissknits has also been added to the blog roll lists) Esther used to own and operate a knitting yarn store years ago and until the weaving bug hit, she was primarily a knitter.

In the mean time, when I feel down about all this I will remind myself about the new loom coming and the new adventure!  I already have my cheque to PCW Fiberworks in the mail to upgrade my software and get the loom drivers I will need to operate the loom.  Not sure yet, but I might need to find an old laptop to set up and run the program.


Lynnette said I have horseshoes 'somewhere' and laughed!  I also asked her if she'd like to help take the cords off the loom.... and she said that she's busy!   :)


So, I have plans to make for our coming trip to get the Megado.... and moving companies / freight companies to contact for shipping the loom after our long weekend!


Happy Canada Day! 

May I Introduce You to....Jane

She's petite and dainty...


A few days before Christmas, and just ahead of a snow storm and bitter cold weather, my new Louet Jane loom arrived. The new 8 shaft / 16 inch wide table loom was preordered back in a warm and sunny August while on a trip to Salt Spring Island with friends Lynnette and Michael. We came home from shopping and found the Louet box sitting on the front step and we hustled her into the house. I never did take any pictures of the box, the incredible packing job or the loom's assembly. It never crossed my mind as I was totally focused on getting her parts together and juggling Christmas preparations all at the same time ( and also during that time we had no water for 3 to 4 days and so other things did take priority!)

I had ordered a stand to make her more user friendlier at home and at workshops and glad I did. I use an office chair on rollers and the ability to adjust the height of the chair is perfect. Jane only came with 200 heddles which struck me as a bit low for an 8 shaft loom even if it is only 16 inches wide. I ordered more heddles and waited for them to come. Once they were on and Christmas was past, assembly was completed and I started thinking about her inaugural warp. The recent woven Christmas cards had me fired up to do something for next Christmas, so I searched my stash for something suitable. I found a cone of fine bamboo 12 in a glossy ruby red that bought from Laura Fry's booth at Fibre Fest in 2006. I wound a short warp of 2.5 yards, sett 36 epi, to weave up a fine 8 shaft huck lace diamonds. It was planned to be just 5.5 inches wide and 200 ends. This is where the first error happened. I needed to count only 100 ends on the top of the warping board peg, but I kept winding till I got to the full 200. I had just doubled my warp width. Okay, now it's card inserts plus a couple of finger tip towels. No biggy.


In this picture the warp is wound on using the built in raddle on the top of the loom. The cords are tied to the tops of the beater arms, the the levers in the front depressed down to be out of the way. It went well and was a simple procedure. The warping instructions (and video) are well done

Then you flip the beater over the top to the back and the front is now all open and ready for threading. I moved the cords supporting the lease sticks down a bit lower, and threaded with the shafts raised up to lift them better into view.

This is the front view. With the beater and reed over the back, the loom did seem a bit unbalanced due to the weight. I could have removed the reed, but I simply placed a foot on the top of the stand's cross beam and it seemed to be more comfortable for threading anyway. (I've left the ends of the shaft cords a bit long until I'm sure of their height and position. Then I'll cut and seal the ends as you normally do with Texsolv cords.) Here's the back view:

This is where the second and third problem happened. I took a long distance phone call and lost my place in the threading draft. Thought I had marked it but apparently not. So I ended up rethreading back to the original plain weave border at the start. Threaded again and ran out of heddles before warp. Still short! ??? Then I discovered I had doubled the plain weave ends from the planned 12 to 24 at the very start. Pull all through again and on the third attempt, I had success. But would it pass the error test when I threw the shuttle with some scrap yarn?

Now, you flip the beater assembly back over and prepare to sley the reed. In this case Santa brought me a 12 dent reed (the loom came with a 10 dent reed) and I tied it off with soft cord to immobilize the beater and sleyed three ends per dent.

I wove some scrap yarn and then made a small start with the fine bamboo. The lever action is nice and the cords run over rollers and pulleys. There is a small shelf on the top front of the loom for scissors and tape measure, but still pulled up a TV tray table.

No errors to fix! I love the sheen the bamboo has....

As to the other looms: the Louet Spring or 'Lilibet' is patiently waiting for me to resume the double weave sampler. It will need concentration and to be woven all at once for a consistent beat.

On the Woolhouse countermarche or 'Emmatrude', I have just completed the fourth and last scarf of the 2/10 tencel warp and now weaving some samples to share with friends. The last scarf I used silk yak blend from Treenway and it was by far finer then the tencel weft or even the silk cashmere. The colour is a beige grey and lack any fuzzies that the cashmere had. The smoothness and sheen of the silk yak blend is *very nice* and I plan to use it again (and order more!) It's hard to see the colour here but it has a more masculine appearance for the darker weft. The overall pattern is smaller as well... tighter.

Last, but not least you will notice that I like to name or personalize my looms. The table loom is a Louet Jane but in my home she'll be known as 'Cricket'. Check out her *legs*

That's the old counterbalance in behind and she's up for sale. I need the room and she's simply too big for what she does and how many shafts she has. It's like I brought home the new puppy before the old dog was ready to retire. I'm sure we'll all get along!

Something to be Truly Thankful For!

The Canadian Thanksgiving weekend is almost here and look what arrived on my door step this morning!



There was just the two boxes: this large one with nifty lifting handles and another smaller box which is just behind. Together they are not overly heavy and we brought them inside. Our little dog Connor was checking things out too. He loves to help unwrap things.

When we opened the top and bottom of the large box, the whole main frame gently slid out. The reed is snugged in tight where the blue tape is. There was also a box tucked under the lamms:

It held a lot of the smaller parts and bags of nut, bolts, screws and even all the tools to put the loom together. Literally all we will need is a small mallet at some point for gentle 'tapping'.

The second box (complete with wood end pieces for strength!) held some of the heavier long pieces as the breast beam and the cloth and warp beams, lease sticks, warping sticks.

I have *never* seen anything so well wrapped and packaged. My husband commented several time about how well it is organised. The tools provided are not cheap throw aways either.

Now, this section of the castle below is what I saw first as I pulled on the loom as my husband pushed. I must say that I panicked! I thought it was some horrible mistake! A quick call to Jane Stafford and our finally finding the assembly guide, I came to realize that these parts are temporary for shipping and the proper parts are placed later. (phew!) I think Jane is still chuckling over that call!

So I have unwrapped everything and placed all the treadle screws and snipped all the tops and bottoms of my heddles. Tomorrow I start the assembly process in earnest!

On being thankful....

My husband Bruce had a bad moment the day before yesterday and he was taken to the hospital. We had a few worrying 12 hours hours while he was thoroughly checked out but after a stress test yesterday, it's *not* his heart. It might be something simple like his inner ear and balance.... or possibly something a bit more. We'll find out more in the coming days.

He has never waivered in his support of my weaving over the years and I call him my 'Patron of the Arts'. This weekend when we all take stock of what we have to be thankful for....he will come to my mind first.

Thanks Sweetie.... :)