Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Moving Warp From Loom to Loom

Seems that everything I touch lately becomes an ugly problem! Lily Louet, my Spring Loom, just doesn’t have the ability to take a very hard beat. A hard beat is paramount to weaving good overshot and Lily just can’t take it, so what to do with the remaining Overshot warp? I decided to move the 2 yard warp from the Louet to my good old faithful Leclerc Minerva which is a much sturdier loom and to weave another piece.I still had the warp through my reed and well secured, so before I did anything else I put Minervas’ least sticks in the warp and tied them well to the Spring loom. Then I pulled the remaining warp off the back beam to the front of the loom so I could get to where it was attached to the Spring loom back beam. I pulled the Leclerc loom back to back with the Spring loom and inserted Minerva’s back rod next to the one on Lily Louet capturing the warp, luckily, I wind on back to front so there was a lovely loop to catch. I then pulled Lily’s rod out. Then crossing my fingers and toes, Ngaire and I started to wind the warp which was still through the Springs’ heddles and reed onto the Minerva’s back beam. Surprisingly, it went very smoothly. I stopped just before the warp got to the lease sticks. After untying the lease sticks we flipped them from the Spring Loom over to the Leclerc and tied them to the castle and I was ready to start threading again. I decided to take a break from Overshot at this point and here it sits! Since my lovely Lily Louet was bare now I decided to try something completely different! I have pulled 935 ends of 1 ply fine linen for a 20” runner…..yup that’s 48 epi! I used 4 different 16/1 linen yarns which I blended on the warping board. I have had these kicking around my stash for yonks and they were looking a bit sad, so I thought that now was the time. Oh crap…..they bridge like crazy!!!! I’ve now got 2/3 of the warp through the heddles and hopefully I’ll finish today and have some weaving to show for the next blog.

8 comments:

ladyoftheloom said...

Wow that is an accomplishment. I am glad you had a helper!

Susan said...

Now that was a major operation and nicely handled by the two of you!

I must admit to only using a plied linen for warp ( it was 40/2 so looked like a single!)
I'll be watching with much interest.

Susan

Ineke said...

You are really clever in saving your warp that way.

For weaving overshot I attache a metal bar to my beater, I have a Louet Hollandia which in essence (?) is not much different than your Spring. So maybe that is an option for the next time?

Maggie said...

Bridge? What does that mean? I just wound my first linen warp and it stuck together something horrible, especially at the lease sticks. Is that what you mean?

Moving the warp was very brave! I've never heard of anyone doing that!

Lynnette said...

Hi Maggie,

You've got it bridging is just another term for sticking together....technically it's when fibres from one thread bridge the space between threads and stick, and oh boy, did these ones do it! I'll put it through the reed today and hopefully that will ease some of the problem.

Susan said...

Hi Lynnette,
I've also heard the term 'halo-ing' used for yarn that joins hands like that!

Annoying no matter what you call it!

:) Susan

bspinner said...

I wove my overshot color camp on my Baby Wolf and had a heck of a time with it. My problem like you was that the loom was just to light weight. I thought to transfer the warp to a larger loom. I'm so happy it went to well for you!!

I've never heard of term bridging either but know exactly what you mean.

Sheila said...

Hello - I've looked at a lot of your tutorials in the past hour - thanks to Susan's suggestion and am now really keen to start weaving and spinning again. Talk about dust bunnies - it's been years and years. I'm also hoping to find out where Ineke's blog is. I have been searching for my elementary school friend Ineke and wonder if she might be the one who commented on this post.