My first project of 2020 was a pair of scarves for a couple getting married in New Zealand.  There was a little bit of pressure as I had to finish them and get them in the mail for the wedding next month.  This depended entirely on finishing the 30, 2019 Christmas towels first as I was using the same loom and threading/tie-up.

Happily the towels were finished in plenty of time to post back to NZ for those recipients and to deliver to those in the US.  However the smooth transition from one warp to the next was not quite as predicted.  The plan was to just tie the new warp on to the existing towel warp as it was going to be a perfect pattern for the scarves and a quick check on the Internet assured me that the 8/2 tencel (scarf) was the same as 8/2 cotton (towels).  The knotting and pull through worked fine and I was set up fairly quickly only to discover that the two yarns were not really identical.  This was obvious as the twill line was way less than 45 degrees, indicating the sett was too open (at 24 epi).  This was quickly confirmed by doing a wrap test showing cotton = 34, tencel = 39.  So mental note: don’t believe what I read on the Internet (no kidding) and always do a wrap test as part of the calculations (this was actually the very first in my 10+ years of weaving where I didn’t).

The solution was to re-slay the reed  to 28 epi and here by thinking I could take a short cut and just ‘move the threads over’ rather than pull all threads out and re-slay at the correct epi.  Second mental note:  moving the threads over to the new sett invites crossed threads. I added another day to the process just sorting that out – it should have only taken a couple of hours to re-slay!!

Anyway the weaving at the new sett eventually began.  As mentioned 8/2 tencel with a variegated warp and plain weft.  The color choices are an attempt to look like the NZ paua shell (US = abalone), and did come pretty close to perfect.

To the left under artificial light and to the right with flash – the better color depiction is to the right.  It is an 8 shaft twill with the two 45 degree directions meeting in the middle.

After completion of the two scarves I used a standard hand stitched finish and then used a fringe twister to wrap the warp ends (deliberately left long for this purpose).  That job was actual Anne’s, she is way more efficient at it than I am!  The scarves were then hand washed, drip dried, and gently ironed.

Wrapping and a card were procured and then off to the Post Office they went.  They should be due in NZ anytime now – a few weeks before the wedding.

Next project is a tartan throw as a house-warming gift for our friend Terri in Southern Virginia.

I am now the custodian of the HD Loom from Townsend.  The guild there didn’t have the storage room at the guild studio/shop and there aren’t any other serious weavers in the guild.  There are several fiber artists who include weaving in their talents, but not a major part of their portfolio.  As I am very likely to be the weaving demonstrator for many years to come we made a deal where I invoice the guild for the time I spend preparing the loom and transporting it to and from Townsend.  Those costs will eventually equal a suitable purchase price for the loom. Also there is a possibility of running courses for any guild members interested in basic or advanced weaving topics.

So with the loom becoming more permanently mine I looked a little more seriously at some of the loom features.  As a ‘folding’ loom it is easily transportable, but it does have some minor problems.  Being an older (Type A) loom it didn’t come with wheels to make it easy to maneuver around.  The kit to do this is available from HD, but is $80.  I suspect I can probably make something for a lot less.

The wheels fit onto the bottom of one side of the castle base.  The loom is then tilted to the side to move.  While I can lift the whole loom by myself this may not always be the case!!

The other minor problem has been that connections to the heddles (open hooks connecting to loops in the cables) come off when transporting the loom. This then can cause the cables to drop off pulleys in any of the places where they run.  To someone who isn’t familiar with the loom this can be a show stopper as to operate smoothly they need to be distributed across the correct pulleys and connected, without twisting, to the right heddle.  It’s all to do with maintaining tension on these cables, so as a trial I have added a couple of bungy cords around the bottom of the heddle frames and a cross-bar on the lower castle frame.  If that works out I may put something a little bit more practial in place.

With a day of weaving on Tuesday I managed to finish the Angel Towel order.  With the thick yarn this was a fast weave even with the color changes at the stripes and the moving of the temple.

As the sun was well over the yardarm (Navy saying) I poured a congratulatory glass of wine to mark the finish.  There is enough warp for about 2 more, but that can vary based on how regular my beat has been over the first 5 towels.  It can be plus or minus so I may have plenty for 2, or just 1 plus a short towel.

I cut the towels off the loom and hemmed each end – leaving a strip of 5 towels, then trimmed any longer cotton tails (at joins)  as they get fairly twisted when wet finishing.  Once it was all tidy it went into the wash on regular (with a few other items of laundry).  The wet finishing draws in and tightens the cotton.  From 15 inches on the loom the towels end up at 12 inches wide and the cotton swells up a little filling in gaps in the tabby weave and opening the huck lace portions.  I can then cut up the individual towels and hem each remaining end.  The hemming went smoothly with my old sewing machine – definitely worth the extra effort to use 8/2 cotton in the weft for 1.5 inches, making it a lot thinner cloth and able to be folded twice to make the hems.

The towels will be dropped off in North Carolina next month and the remaining warp on the loom will be used to demonstrate weaving at the Blue Ribbon Festival at the end of the month.  I’ll have to pace myself and not finish the weaving in the first hour as I am demonstrating all day!

After creating the blue yarn for these towels (the feature stripes) it was time to set up the loom.  I had just finished removing some test weaving from the HD loom.  This was the blue stripe/checked demonstration warp that I put on the loom for the Scenic Valley Handweavers guild to use at their booth at the Smoky Mountain Fiber Arts Festival this year.  Not a particularly great demonstration of weaving, but I know a lot of the visitors are not weavers so perhaps nobody noticed.  I briefly considered unweaving and then finishing the cloth to use somewhere, but seemed way more work than really needed.

So with the loom cleaned I felt inspired to see if I could find out a little more of the loom back story.  Knowing only that it was donated to the guild in Townsend, TN, I did some searching on the web to see if there was any sort of lookup for serial numbers (A6 1259).  There wasn’t but one fiber artist mentioned that Harrisville Design would send information they had on file if you emailed them.  The other information I had was stamped on the reed (11-4-93), and while there is no guarantee that the reed was original with the loom the chances are good as it appears to be the type they still supply.  I emailed and had a reply back that unfortunately they don’t have the 80’s and 90’s sales records any more, but the ‘A’ was the original Type A loom built during those decades.  I had already assumed the ‘6’ represented the number of treddles. Along with the date the reed was manufactured all I really know is it was most likely built in the first half of the 90’s and either went directly to the Townsend area or was sold/bought and ended up there for a period.

While that didn’t quite go as smoothly or successfully as hoped – the dressing of the loom was a breeze.

The loom is 31.5 inches deep so lends itself to using yard sticks as support for lease sticks (for the cross), raddle and reed.  The warp was chained and wound on using the yank and crank method of winding a little, pulling on the warp to settle the threads then repeat.  I put 6 or so lease sticks around the back beam as the apron rod met it and then used heavy brown paper to keep the warp threads separated as it wound on.  When I am dressing the loom back to front I set the reed up horizontally and pull the warp thread through the appropriate heddle then directly through the next reed dent. Then it is a simple matter to mount the reed horizontally in the beater frame. I then tied on to the front apron rod and now just need to re-check tension before finalising the square knots and beginning to weave.

The goal is to weave the 5 towels needed, cut them off and finish, leaving two more on the loom to be woven as a demonstration at the Blue Ribbon Festival at the end of September.