Warping the Glimakra: Adjusting the Shed

OK. My warp is wound on. I've threaded the heddles and sleyed the reed. I've tied up the treadles, (twice). Now I'm ready to weave! Well, almost. What I need to do next is check the shed and adjust it.

First of all, please excuse my photos of the shed. When I took them, my usual helpers were quite useless ........

So I simply held out the camera, pointed it at the shed, and clicked the shutter while standing at the front of the loom as I depressed the treadles. I managed to get a couple of photos to illustrate what I'm talking about.

To begin the evaluation, I first wove a few inches of plain weave. Then I checked the shed. Here is what it looked like at first:

If you examine the bottom of the shed at the reed on the left, you can see that the warp ends pass through the reed at various heights. Looking down the length of the shed they all appear the same height, but in fact they are are all at different heights for the full 352 ends. No good. The shuttle will catch on some of these and pass under them when it is supposed to go over. That messes up the pattern on the cloth, which would obviously be frustrating. So the threads in the shed need to be adjusted.

I wouldn't have had a clue how to adjust the shed if it hadn't been for Joanne Hall's Tying Up the Countermarch Loom (more on that book in another post.) Here is what I learned about adjusting the shed.

All adjustments on a countermarche loom start at the top. The loom comes equipped with removable locking pins, pictured in the locking position on the left. These lock the jacks in place so that the shafts stay put during adjustments.

Starting at the top, I checked to make sure that the shafts were centered to the loom. On a countemarche loom, the warp should run through the center of the heddle eye. If it doesn't, then the shafts need to be raised or lowered accordingly. The shafts are attacked to the overhead jacks with Texsolv cord and anchor pins. By adjusting the cord on the anchor pins (at the far ends of the jacks), the shafts can be raised or lowered.

I also checked the beater height, to make sure that the shed formed in the middle of the reed. You can see from the above shed photo that it does.

Next I checked to make sure that the lamms were level with one another.

Once I was satisfied that all was well so far, I removed the locking pins and started checking the treadles. To make sure the treadles are tied correctly, I pressed each treadle in turn and examined the shed. I noted which warp ends ran above the rest of the shed and made a list of which shafts these were connected to. I also made a list for the warp ends which ran below the rest of the shed.

It was from these lists that the treadle tie-up is adjusted. I took the treadles one at a time and started with the upper lamms (which lower the shed):

* For shafts with warp threads which were too high and ran above the shed, the treadle ties were shortened.

* For shafts with warp ends which were below the shed, the treadle ties were lengthened.

I repeated this for each treadle in turn. Then I checked the shed again and made further adjustments as needed.

This is what it looked like when I got done:

The top of the shed still needs some adjustment, but the bottom is exactly the way it should be. To adjust the top of the shed, the treadle ties to the lower, lifting lamms are adjusted:

* For shafts with warp threads which were too high and ran above the shed, the treadle ties were lengthened.

* For shafts with warp ends which were below the shed, the treadle ties were shortened.

Note that this is the opposite of what was done with the upper lamms.

What a difference this made with my weaving! I used to have frequent skipped or caught warp threads with my other loom, but there have been very few so far this time. I cannot say that my shed was absolutely perfect for each treadle, but my goal is to improve my shed with each project.

To be honest, this was simply a "monkey see, monkey do" activity. I just followed the directions without understanding why they worked and got the results I needed. At this point I cannot look at the shed and automatically know what needs to be done to fix it and why. That is one of those things that will come with experience. Still, it feels good to be on the right track.

Now on to the weaving .........and at last Blanket Done!

© 11 July 2007 at http://leighsfiberjournal.blogspot.com

Related posts:

New Loom

Why A Countermarche?

Warping the Glimakra:

Adjusting the Loom With Texsolv

Winding On the Warp

Threading

Tying Up the Treadles

The 3 Duhs

Blanket Done!

Warping the Glimakra: The 3 Duhs

By Leigh

Duh #1 - Putting on too wide a warp

This is not a tremendously big deal, but I should know better than to try too many new things at once. The new loom should have been enough. I thought I was doing good to refrain from trying a fancy 8 shaft pattern, but I did allow myself to succumb to weaving something I'd never woven before, a blanket.

Duh #2 -Initially winding onto the cloth beam backwards

In this photo, it is wound on correctly. At first however, I had the apron cords going around the other way.

To the mechanically minded this probably would not have been a big deal, but to me it was a major panic. I had everything threaded and tied up and ready to weave. I thought I'd have to re-do it all! Fortunately, my DH looked calmly at the situation and started winding the beam until it unrolled the apron cords. He kept on winding and much to my amazement, it wound itself the correct way. If he hadn't been around it probably would have been a bigger duh because I would have untied the whole thing to correct it. Not something I would have enjoyed especially because of Duh #1.

I think what threw me off was the knee beam. My other loom doesn't have one and I'd never had to deal with one before. I'm assuming it's there to keep the cloth out of the way so that one can get one's knees under the loom.

Duh #3 - Tying up the "wrong" sets of lamms

"Wrong" here is a little relative. It has nothing to do with overall results, but everything to do with which side of the cloth I was going to look at while I was weaving. And this has to do with how the pattern draft is written and which way the shed is formed on the loom: rising or sinking.

My introduction to this entire concept took place shortly after I started to weave in 2000. I decided to weave a table runner using a pattern from Marguerite Davison's A Handweaver's Pattern Book. I was puzzled after I began weaving. While it looked pretty on the loom, it didn't look like the picture of the pattern I'd chosen. To my surprise, after I finished and cut it off the loom, there was the pattern I wanted, on the bottom! I soon learned that this was because all the drafts in this book are notated for sinking shed looms. My jack loom had a rising shed. That meant that if I wanted to look at the pattern while I was weaving, I needed to tie up the treadles according to the blank spaces in the draft, not the X's.

Usually tie-ups for rising shed looms such as jack looms, use O's to show the treadle tie-up. Sinking sheds such as counterbalance looms, use X's. The two drafts on the left will produce exactly the same woven pattern. While most modern weaving books show the rising shed tie-up, the older A Handweaver's Pattern Books (originally published in 1944 before jack looms came into popular use) uses X's.

But what about a countermarche loom, where part of the shed rises and the other part sinks? For my first treadle tie-up, I followed the instructions on the set-up video, which showed tying up the upper lamms first, and then tying up the bottom ones in the opposite pattern. However the video showed a simple plain weave, whereas I wanted a simple straight twill. What I didn't realize is that the short, upper lamms pull the shafts dow to sink the shed, while the long, lower lamms lift the shed because they are attached to the overhead jacks, which pull the shafts up. (Photos of this stuff on this post.)

Countermarche looms are usually considered rising shed looms for the sake of tying up the treadles. They do differ from jack looms in that every shaft has to be tied, but they can use the same rising shed drafts.

So what exactly did I do "wrong'? I switched which set of lamms I tied to. I tied the upper (sinking) lamms to the O's in the draft which were supposed to be rising. My pattern was upside down. I probably could have let this go and simply pressed on with my weaving. I was having problems with my shed however (more on that next time), so I decided to re-tie the entire treadle tie-up. I've often said that I learn more from my mistakes than from getting it right the first time. Believe me when I say that I won't do that again.

So there you have it. Looking on the bright side I have to say that I'm learning a lot.

Next ....... Adjusting the Shed

© 9 July 2007 at http://leighsfiberjournal.blogspot.com

Related posts:
New Loom
Why A Countermarche?
Warping the Glimakra:
.....Adjusting the Loom With Texsolv
.....Winding On the Warp
.....Threading
.....Tying Up the Treadles
.....Adjusting the Shed

Shetland Update - Aurora

Time for a quick Shetland spinning update! This next fleece sample was pretty interesting. It was from a lamb named Aurora. Cathy told me it was a second shearing and she believed that the color had been mislabeled. It almost looked as though it could be fawn, but it turned out that it was just pretty dirty. ( And from reading Kathy L's blog, I do know that Shetland lambs love to play!)

The unwashed fleece (left) had quite a few bands of color to it, from reddish to yellow to dark brown. It's length averaged about 3 to 4 inches, with about 12 crimps per inch. It contained some second cuts and some vegetable matter (VM).

I gave it an extra washing soak in Dawn dish liquid and three rinses. The various pseudo fawn bands washed out to a lovely creamy white, but the yellow bands remained! You can still see them in the washed sample on the right (though in real life they are darker than in the scan.)

The yellow stains I had encountered before always washed out. These are called "yolk" and are actually lanolin. Since this stain didn't wash out, I wondered if it could be what is known as "canary" stain. So I turned to the stain chart on page 174 of In Sheep's Clothing. This could definitely be canary stain.

A little Internet research turned up lots of information, but I found this article to be the most helpful. I learned that this stain is actually caused by organisms which attack and discolor the fleece. How serious this is in evaluating the fleece for handspinning depends upon whom one talks too. Some seem to think it harmless since the organism is killed with soap and hot water anyway, while others would discard the entire fleece from such animals. Evidently it can be severe enough to weaken the fiber considerably, but in Aurora's sample, this wasn't the case. Since the stain didn't effect the integrity of the staples, I went ahead and processed my sample.

To blend in the stain, I drum carded the entire sample thoroughly. The batts were a wonderfully creamy color, almost like fresh butter, a very pale yellow-tinted white. My only problem was neps, which was a little frustrating. Of course, after I finished drumcarding the entire batch, I went back and looked at my fleece assessment. There I saw that I had highlighted a comment I had written - "! Tips weak, cut off before carding !"

Note to self - always remember to read notes to self.

The spinning however, was wonderfully smooth. The fiber was silky soft and lovely to handle. From my experience with Nikki's fleece, I was able to better compensate for the crimp and elasticity of the fiber. For Aurora's fleece, I ended up with a 2-ply of 16 wraps per inch, which was my target size. That was a relief. Interestingly, it's "shrinkage" differed from the first two samples (Nikki and Korny), as you may recall from this photo. Aurora's is the skein in the middle.

And so my Shetland yarn collection continues to grow. I try to spin, or at least process some fiber sometime during each day. It is a welcome break from the loom wrestling I've been doing lately. But, more on that next time.

© 2007 Leigh's Fiber Journal

Warping the Glimakra: Tying Up the Treadles

So far I've been sailing right along, singing the praises of my Glimakra countermarche, comparing it to my Schacht jack loom, seemingly with the conclusion that there is really no comparison. I've actually found myself enjoying warping and threading, something I never used to do!

Now, however, we get to the treadle tie-up. Here is where a jack loom is far superior when it comes to simplicity and ease of treadle tie-up. And here is where the whole thing becomes zero fun with a CM (countermarche) loom.

Tying up a jack loom is brilliantly easy......

This is a Schacht Mighty Wolf loom, but I'm sure other makes and models are similar. The lamms have sets of tie cords, one for each shaft. The weaver simply selects the shaft cords needed for a particular pattern and slips them into slits on the treadles. Little plastic knobs hold them in place. What could be faster!

But here's what I faced when I sat down under (crawled under actually) the Glimakra....

Short lamms, long lamms, short cords, long cords, rising shed, sinking shed, lots of holes, anchor pegs ....HUH? What in the world have I gotten myself into. Of course, this is what was already on the loom when I got it. So I needed to take it all out and set it up for the straight twill pattern I wanted.

The set-up video made a plain weave tie-up look fairly easy. Each shaft has to be tied to one set of lamms or the other. One set makes the shafts go up, the other, down. Treadle cords are first attached to the lamms in the pattern required, and then tied to the treadles.

I was to tie up the upper lamms first and then do the opposite on the lower ones. Sounds simple enough. However, 8 shafts times 10 treadles equals 80 holes for each set of lamms, so I was worried about getting confused. I finally thought to fill in the holes I didn't want to use with spare anchor pegs .....

...... and then put the ties in the empty ones. I did the reverse pattern on the bottom lamms.

Then it was time to tie up the treadles. Hoo boy. The trick here is to tie the back shafts tighter than the front ones. This has something to do with getting a good shed in the back.

On top of that, I was very awkward with the anchor pegs and Texsolv cord. Plus, I had to put the pegs into the bottom of the treadle, by touch!!!

I confess, I really fretted over this. As capable as I think I am in following written or video directions, there is nothing like personal experience when it comes to doing a thing right.

Finally, with a lot of encouragement from Dorothy, I decided that starting somewhere was better than starting nowhere. So I tied up the treadles as best I could and then called it a night. One can take frustration for only so long.

Next ...... The Three Duhs

© 4 July 2007 at http://leighsfiberjournal.blogspot.com

Related posts:
Comparing Looms: Jack & Countermarche
Why A Countermarche?
Warping the Glimakra:
.....Adjusting the Loom With Texsolv
.....Winding It On
.....Threading
.....The 3 Duhs
.....Adjusting the Shed
.....Blanket Done!

Warping the Glimakra: Threading

By Leigh

The next step after winding the warp on, was the threading.

For some reason, I found threading the heddles on the Glimakra so much easier and faster than threading them on my Schacht Mighty Wolf.

As you can see below,

the shafts on the Mighty Wolf are wooden frames which move up and down in steel tracks, which also hold them in place. The flat steel heddles reside on two metal bars within the shaft frame. For some reason, I always had difficulty keeping track of which heddle was on which shaft. I tried all sorts of tricks to keep this straight in my mind, but in the end, careful checking and rechecking was always the best answer. Because of this, I was more than a little worried that the task would be more difficult with 8 shafts.

However, with the Glimakra, I found keeping track of the shafts much, much easier. Perhaps it was because they simply hang freely from overhead and can be moved easily. I could use one hand to keep track of which shaft I was on, and the other to separate out heddles for threading. Granted, the heddles do not slide around as easily as on the Mighty Wolf, but that was only a minor adjustment on my part.

The other thing I found easier, was that because the heddles are flexible, the yarn could be easily poked through the heddle eye without a threading hook. This saved me lots of time because with a threading hook, I was forever dropping the darn thing and having to hunt to see if it had fallen into the jacks or was hiding under the treadles.

Of course, I did choose an easy threading pattern; a simple straight twill. I simply threaded the shafts in order, 1 through 8, repeat.

Peg (who BTW, recently started an excellent new weaving blog, click on her name to check it out) was curious about threading from the lease sticks in the raddle cross. For one who is usually quite camera happy, I didn't take any pix of this!!

You may recall from my last post, that this is a one cross b2f method, using only a raddle cross. After the warp is wound onto the warp beam, the cross remains held by the lease sticks, from which the heddles are threaded. My set up looked like this. All I had to do was to take the shafts off of the countermarche and I was ready to thread.

I first tried leaving the raddle in and simply picked out the raddle groups to thread in order. I found it easier however, to remove the raddle. All the threads are in order on the lease sticks, so by moving them close to the shafts, I could easily pick out the next warp end to be threaded. As I mentioned above, all this went quite quickly and was actually fun!

After the heddles were threaded, I put breast and knee beams back in place, and selected a reed.

My loom came with 5, 60 inch reeds and also this very clever home crafted reed holder. For sleying, I set the reed up as it was demonstrated in the Glimakra set-up video........

Sleying the reed was also quick and easy. Warp ends were simply pulled down through the dents with the hook. When I was done, the hanging beater was put back on and the reed inserted.

The last step was tying onto the front apron rod. Usually I like to lash on, but this warp is so wide that I decided to tie it on the way I first learned (also demonstrated on the set-up video.) One tip I learned from the video was not to just tighten the knots, but to actually pull on the warp.

The idea behind this is that simply tightening the knots only serves to stretch the warp, not actually tension it. At any rate, I found this method much easier than I remembered. This washable acrylic knitting yarn is quite stretchy, so I had to pull it up several times. Tension was tested at the cross. Once it felt even, the square knots were completed.

The test of how well I actually did is yet to come. Next .............. the dreaded treadle tie-up!

© 2 July 2007 at http://leighsfiberjournal.blogspot.com

Related posts:
Comparing Looms: Jack & Countermarche
Why A Countermarche?
Warping the Glimakra:
.....Adjusting the Loom With Texsolv
.....Winding On the Warp
.....Tying Up the Treadles
.....The 3 Duhs
.....Adjusting the Shed
.....Blanket Done!