Arrrgggghhhh!

Remember that mystery warp that came my way on the Cherryville Counterbalance Loom when I borrowed it? You know the one that I was just sure would be no problem to weave off with a smart easy twill pattern? What was I thinking? Arrrggghhhhhh! The warp is a huge mess… the warp must have come partially off at some point, and it was just looped back over the beam and hanging in knotty piles at the back of the loom! We had to do some major loom changes before we got to the warping process. The loom was using two dowels hanging from a third bigger dowel to hold the shafts in place. The dowels were different weights which didn't help the balancing problem, so off they came!Although I still haven’t got this loom balanced correctly yet, I needed to keep moving forward so we changed the jury rigged dowels that were on the loom to the heddle horses that the manufacturer sent with the loom. Pretty aren't they? There are even nifty shaft holders to keep everything in place and the shafts even while you are threading, so we put them on too.

I'm using instructions on tying up a Counterbalance loom from Laila Lundell’s Big Book of Weaving. I’m getting there, but oh so slowly! I highly recommend this book for new and even intermediate weavers; and of course those like me who are trying out a new loom system. The book has wonderful diagrams of how the heddle horses should work and it’s very easy to understand how it should work; it’s just a bunch of fiddling that needs doing to get it to work! I unraveled the warp back to where I could see some order, about 3 yards back, and knew I needed lease sticks. One by laborious one with my daughters' help we’ve pulled each thread through the lease sticks, over and under ad nauseum, then pulled through to the front where it now languishes in neat bundles.I’ve double checked the number of threads, yet again,and naturally just to make this a much longer process I have decided I don’t want to do the Landis Valley Linen pattern! I want to weave the whole warp off in one piece and then cut to the appropriate place mat size. Now back to the computer I go to figure out a pattern that doesn’t need borders. Stalled again.....Arrrgggghhh! Right now I have one of each major type of floor loom in the studio - very neat, but a bit crowded!

Weaving Words
The word clue comes from cliwen, Anglo-Saxon for a ball of yarn. There are many legends about adventurers finding their way out of dangerous mazes by using a ball of string…thus any aid to solving a puzzle became known as a clue!

Four Shaft Twill with Borders for a Mystery Warp

Reducing my stash is always on my mind and the part of my stash that is making me crazy is the wool. I am the proud owner of a fair amount of 2 ply medium wool and I want it GONE! These are just a few of my many bins of Condons’ Weaving Wool.

To make the stash reduction happen I decided to weave a rug or saddle blanket in Flame Point Twill with dimensions of about 32 inches by 32 inches; seems a simple enough plan and it will use up lots and lots of my wool!

I fear however, that my Louet Spring Loom is just not sturdy enough for the job. The Louet Spring is a wonderful loom for almost all weaving, but the moveable front beam is not ideal for rug weaving and my Leclerc Minerva is just too narrow. What to do? Ask a friend!

My friend Eileen has just moved back into the area and has a Counterbalanced Cherryville loom unassembled in her garage; she was kind enough to lend it to me.
Here it is as a pile of loom! Why do they never come with instructions or photos?

After about an hour with my husband, daughter and me this morning, looking much better now!
The loom comes with heddle horses or these bars from which to hang the shafts - I've chosen to use the bars. Frankly the horses scare me!

The warp beam came already warped with an unknown length of 4/8 cotton, but it looks like a lot – A Mystery Warp! I can’t just toss it, that would be criminal after someone went to so much work! So I had to figure out what I could do with the warp. First I counted the warp ends – 315 ends.
Now to figure out what to make with it? My first step was to look up the suggested sett for 4/8 cotton and found that the sett guidelines are 16 epi for tabby, 18 epi for twill and 20 epi for lace weave. I then measured the width at which the warp was beamed, and it came out to 27 inches. So dividing the ends by the width, that means that it was beamed at 12 epi – what the heck could I make? Well, when life hands you warp - make placemats! If I changed the sett to 20 epi that would give me 15-3/4 inch wide very firmly woven placemats – sounds good to me, especially because I have some 4/8 cotton I can use for the weft.

Now the hunt to find a pattern on 4 shafts! I sat down with A Handweavers Pattern Book by Marguerite Porter Davison and my PCW Silver program and came up with Landis Valley Linen. I will do borders on all four sides and I think it looks great. I was able to use 305 of the 315 warp ends, so I’m pretty pleased with myself!

Now for something completely different!
We went for a drive to Salmon Arm yesterday and came home with these lovely boys. They are handmade in South Africa with glass beads and baling wire.

I’m a huge fan of frogs and lizards and these two will fit right in with the other three on the wall….
Now we are five! Stop me, stop me now!

Weaving Words
The word corduroy has two possible derivatives, from the French Corde du roi meaning kings cloth or from Middle English Corderoy meaning kings heart.