Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Meddling with Heddles...

15 mistakes in all; one counting error (I mark every 10 heddles for easy counting; the marked heddle was in the wrong place in this instance); the rest were twisted heddles or wrapped heddles, eight instances on Shaft 9, one of the hardest to see and reach.

I remember how tired I was when I put the heddles back on; next time, I'll wait a few days for this task, or, I'll never wash my heddles again. But they do look nice and clean and shiny now.

All is fixed, fingers crossed, and I can finally start warping my SSVE warp.

5 comments:

  1. not to be dense....but can't you take the entire shaft out and wash/rinse the heddles.
    I use a different type of loom, so just thinking aloud here.

    Mind you it took me 6 months to change my blogger name.

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  2. If you mean would the shafts come off the loom, yes, they do, Lynne, but I soaked the heddles in a household cleaning solution overnight, and got rid of ... nearly 6 years of grime, fiber bits and dye dust.

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  3. Megs, you are a brave woman. I have to say that having one loom with texsolv heddles and 2 with metal heddles, I love my metal heddles better for ease of doing everything (I'm sure it's because they are what I had experience with first).

    The texsolv are harder for me to differentiate from one another when I'm reaching through the shafts, and I can see how easily they could become jumbled when taking them off for a good cleaning. And with that many shafts -- you go girl!! *smile*

    It probably feels wonderful to have them all shiney and clean, though. I just deep cleaned my floor loom last week, and it's so nice to see it gleam.

    Can't wait to see your SSVE.

    Weave like an Egyptian ;)
    Jane

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  4. While you work on that scarf warp, keep thinking about the wall piece you discussed a few days ago. Two comments posted then suggested adding texture with differential shrinkage. I have worked with several different structures and many designs for differential shrinkage with a variety of yarns. I did use it for one piece of yardage which won an award at the yardage exhibit for Convergence 2004. That show requires at least 3 yards in length and I wanted it to hang nicely in the exhibit. Samples helped. It is quite tricky to get the drape and all the edges to look the way you want when working with shrinkage in a design. But I always want a nice design in a wall piece.
    My suggestion is network drafted twill, which I have used for several commissions for wall art and for bed covers.

    For texsolve heddles, I painted mine to make it easier to tell the shaft order. I use white for the first shaft, then three more colors. Then I start over in the sequence. I have written about this on the 3 weaving lists I belong to and in my book. I use diluted acrylic paints and I paint the whole bundle of 100 before putting it onto the loom. I like texsolve because it is light and because they are easy to gather together.
    Bonnie Inouye

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  5. Jane, suffice it to say, the loom came with texolve, but because they can closer to each other, I guess it's good for finer yearns/closer setts, and for making the shafts lighter to lift. I do like my 4-shaft with big heavy metal heddles - I can even use boucle and such in the warp, but I can see how heavy that can be on a many-shafter.

    Bonnie, marking every 10 heddles on the 4-shaft is something I did before your course, but with texsolve, the marks are red/blue/yellow/green for each set of four shafts.

    I hadn't thought to work the two projects together - I was going for a joy weave on the small scarves, but I might try texture things.

    I must check your web site again to see if you have wall art and bed cover photos there.

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