Saturday, April 13, 2024

Step One: Loom Assembled!

assembled and ready to be tied up

For the most part, assembly went pretty well. The instruction manual was clear and well diagrammed until it came to installing the lamms. The manual went right into how to tie them up, not how to attach them to the loom. I finally found a decent photo online and figured it out from there. Fortunately, I wasn't working from new out of the box, so it went fairly quickly. The harnesses, countermarche, beater, treadles, and bench were already assembled and just needed to be put in place.

That was the easy part! Next, I need to level the harnesses and tie up the lamms and treadles.


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Thursday, April 11, 2024

Progress On Setting Up My Glimakra

Thank you to everyone who participated in my survey. I asked this question in a couple of places, and all the answers were interesting and with helpful pros and cons for a variety of floors. My goal, of course, is to finally set up my big floor loom. This project, unfortunately, has required a lot of steps to get to that point.

Since the room I want to use has been a storage room for about a decade, the first step was to go through boxes, sort contents, and decide what to keep and what to let go of. Much of it went into my studio/sewing room, and much of it was purged. Building materials went to Dan's workshop storage area, but we don't have a basement or garage, and our attic is limited as to what it can store (mostly Christmas decorations). So I still have to figure out how to store seasonal things like space heaters, box fans, beekeeping equipment, soap making supplies, archery items, surplus tincture bottles, etc. But the good news is that I finally cleared enough space to set up my loom!

The bad news is that the original hardwood floor is in pretty bad shape. The logical thing to do, of course, would be to put down a new floor. Actually, the logical thing to do would be to finish the room before setting up the loom. Even though it's on the to-do list, it doesn't seem likely it will be the priority in the near future. I'm going to make the best of it anyway!

For the floor, I decided to lay down a large area rug. In fact, I ended up buying a new area rug for the dining room and using the old one in this room. It's not in bad shape, just had the misfortune of first being barfed on by cats, which was cleaned up with a spray-on all-purpose cleaner which bleached it! (The responsible party will remain nameless, other than to say it wasn't me!) So I moved the rug into the room, scrubbed it by hand, and I think it will be fine. 

After the rug was dry, I laid out all the pieces of the loom.

wonky photo taken atop a step ladder

Next, I need to go through the assembly manual and inventory them. Hopefully, nothing is missing! Then I can start putting it all together. 

When I first got the loom, the previous owner passed on an assembly video. I no longer have a VCR player and couldn't find that video on YouTube, so I'll have to make do with written instructions. Hopefully, they're clearly written! 

Wish me luck!


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Tuesday, April 09, 2024

SURVEY: Floors under Floor Looms?

I'm interested in your preference! What kind of floor do you like to set your loom up on? 
  1. Carpet
  2. Area rug
  3. Bare floor (wood? tile? laminate? concrete?)
  4. Something else?
  5. No preference?
I'd love to know your preference and reason.


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Sunday, April 07, 2024

Weaving On Opposites

One of the things that interested me about variation H of Mary Meigs Atwater's "Cottage Windows" pattern, was that it is woven "on opposites." Being one of the many concepts I forgot during my long hiatus from weaving, I did a little research when I learned it was one of the crackle manners of weaving. I jotted down a definition for my crackle manners of weaving blog post, but found myself thinking more about it as I wove a my Cottage Windows table runner, and researching more. What I realized, is that there are some variations on how "on opposites" is interpreted. 

In some sources, opposites refers to pattern blocks. As, for example, Harriet Tidball's diagram of Cottage Windows. It's treadled . . .

Treadling pattern is in the right-hand column. 

One pattern block is treadled with shafts 2-3 for so many weft shots, and then treadled 1-2 for so many weft shots. The second block is treadled with the opposite shafts 4-1 and 3-4. With this treadling, tabby must be used, or as you can see by studying the treadling sequence, the common shaft in 2-3 and 1-2 (shaft 2) would always be lifted and create a long warp float over the top of the fabric. Ditto for shaft 4 in the 4-1 and 3-4 sequence. Tabby is needed to tie these down to the fabric.

The second definition defines opposites as alternate sheds, using contrasting colors for the wefts. One weft shot of shafts 1-2 is alternated with 3-4. Tabby weft is optional, but said to make a more stable fabric.

My Cottage Windows table runner is an example of the first definition, opposite pattern blocks. One of these days I'm going to have to rustle up a pattern using the other definition, opposite sheds. It will be fun to experiment.


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Thursday, April 04, 2024

Cottage Windows (Variation H) Crackle Table Runner



Weaving Notes & Observations

  • I wasn't able to weave through all 15 rows of the window motif because my blocks were longer than I originally planned. I wove 11 before I ran out of warp, still rotating my pattern and tabby weft colors so that each block varies subtly. (Diagram of my plan in this post).
  • I wet finished in warm water and Dawn original. The water turned purple! 1st cool water rinse was pale pink, second was clear. I'm assuming either the purple or burgundy yarn bleeds.
  • Overall, color variation between blocks are subtle.
  • Even though these aren't colors I ordinarily choose, I really like the way this turned out.