As someone pointed out, I didn’t put in any photos of the counterbalance tie-up in the last post. Which is a little tough to figure out on your first round. I figured mine out by staring at some not terribly clear photos for what seemed like hours.

So here it is. My counterbalance loom tie-up. It looks similar to a pulley system, actually.

The harnesses are attached in pairs to small rollers then the small rollers are attached in a pair to a big roller.

Here’s a front on shot. You can see that wraps are all a single full wrap around the requisite dowel.

The important part is to get everything so it’s even with eachother (took some work to do alone) and so that the eyes of the heddles are fairly near the center of where you’ll put your reed. If the eyes are too high or low, you won’t be able to open your shed all they way. Here’s a shot, hard to get one that shows the placement effectively.

And in case you want a closer view of the wrap part, here’s the pulley wrap. You can see it’s literally just a single full wrap, nothing fancy at all. Again all done in texsolv so it doesn’t stretch.

Hope that helps!

And your gratuitous doggy cuteness… SQUIRREL!

Ok, off to pack orders!

That’s all for now!
~The Gnome

Someone asked for photos of my Hammet counterbalance loom tie up.

I think this is what they were asking for here.

You can see I’m using a pretty straightforward tie-up here. Tying from the end of the first treadle…

…to the first lever…

…these levers shift the direction of the force so that when you treadle, the harness is pulled straight down and not to the side. So then I tie from the first lever up to the first harness above.

I used the awesome Texsolv system which makes it easy to measure things so they all balance out, and adjust things once it’s up. Also, Texsolv doesn’t stretch, which means once it’s done it stays done.

So, that’s the tie-up of my loom. Feel free to ask more questions if you need.

Gratuitous puppy. Gobo sleeping on his fuzzy bear.

That’s all for now!

~The Gnome

So, an actual blog post!

Remember waaay back in early January when I took two scarves off the loom and started weaving again on the warp that was left?

Well, I wove and wove and wove (with lots of LONG breaks, focus, I lack it sometimes) and…

I was very proud of my forethought when I dressed the loom at the very beginning of putting it all back together. My back apron easily reaches to the harnesses, limiting loom waste quite well! Only had about… 8 inches of waste.

And once it was cut off the loom…

Yay! Now it’s time to cut them apart, unweave the extra weaving, and take out the sticks. Then I twisted the fringe on one scarf, and hemmed the other, getting them ready for “wet finishing.” Wet finishing means a lot of things, depending on what your desires and goals are.

I prepped these two scarves a little different. Both got soaked in hot soapy water.

Both also got shocked back and forth into cold water a few times for a weak fulling effect. The colorshifting herringbone scarf also got a far more… thorough fulling.

Actually made me sweaty. Whacked, thrashed, banged, scrubbed… fulling fabric is much harder than fulling yarn, which I suppose makes sense, given that fulling yarn is much harder than felting fiber!

Finally satisfied, I hung them up to dry…

And once dry, they’re almost ready!

Now I just needed to trim off the ends hanging out from where I changed strands (I use a totally paranoid method for changing strands more suited to something being used for like sail cloth or something).

And then they’re all done!

Both are the zephyr wool/silk warp in black. 230 ends.

The more gently fulled scarf was the primary goal of this draft. It’s the most technically complicated of any of the four. Two colors, spindle spun and spindle plied myself from batts blended by the incomparable Abby Franquemont.

I made a more complex pattern on the ends…

One of the hardest parts was figuring out how to do a color change without needing to weave in a billion ends. I took a page from knitting, at the suggestion of my fabulous sock making friend from the UK, and stranded it up the side when not in use, allowing me to use two colors at once without actually switching.

If I had it to do again I’d probably make the colorchange slower and longer, but I’m pretty happy with it!

The second scarf’s weft is BFL, and was mostly an experiment in how the color changes that came with the (beautifully dyed) fiber worked with the weaving. Spun on my Ashford Traditional, unplied, but set with a light weight to make it easier for weaving (also resulting in a less active final fabric than the previous singles weaving).

The color changes came out beautifully with the direct translation to weaving.

Similar to knitting, since I wanted to focus on the colors, I went with the simplest pattern this weaving draft can produce, a simple herringbone. I like the way it came out.

Again, I’m pretty happy with it! Originally I planned to use the fabric for sewing spindle bags and a Kindle cover, but I think that would ruin the beauty of the color changing. So it will stay a scarf. I do need to pick which scarves I’m going to actually keep, though. I’m at four, and I really don’t need four.

So, that’s one of my latest finished projects! Yaaay.

This is another thing I’ve finally started. And no, it’s not a sock.

So, a real blog update. More to come I hope!

Finally, gratuitous puppy in the rain!

That’s all for now

~The Gnome

Weaving:

So, I started on the next scarf, and came up with an awesome and terrible plan for when I’m done with this warp. Awesome and terrible as the sea, and amazing enough it might be worth pushing off other plans… assuming I can pull it off. It will be plainweave, which is new to me, and the yarn I think I have enough of for it is sockyarn, which is stretchy. Hrm, not sure about that.

But it really needs to be a shawl to show off the effect properly. And I don’t think I have enough white zephyr left for that. Which leaves my sock yarn base. We’ll see.

Anyway, current stuff. A ways back I finished spinning my first Abby Franquemont batt in a luxurious and shimmery grey-blue. I finally got it plied (with itself) and set, so I wound up some bobbins and started weaving on my next project. This scarf uses elements from the two preceeding it, combined into more complicated (and elegant?) motifs. Also it will involve a bit of colorwork as I want to blend from this blue to an (unplied) forest green midway.

Here’s the first end motif, with the yarn. Still the same black zephyr warp.

I’m very happy with it. I’m into the body of the scarf now which is a fairly basic (but elegant) goose eye, similar to the first scarf I wove, but with a starred eye instead of a dotted one. More photos soon.

XMas:

Xmas was, as usual, with family. Plus the lovely Jess, my brother’s girlfriend. It was a great time, as always.

I gave Jess a genuine bottom whorl spindle from Peru, with braids of my hand dyed Rambouillet, Romney, and Wensleydale. I taught her to spin on a bottom whorl last year. She took to it like a fish to water.

I got Matt a handwoven alpaca/wool belt from Chinchero Peru… which I still need to ask someone how to properly tie so it holds things better. We sang!

Matt, Jess, and I went for a lovely hike. They’re cute together, don’t you think?

Nice views. Notice I am standing lower than him, he’s not really that much taller (2 inchesish).

We could look out over town! Good walk, good company.

New Fiber Equipment:

Most of my xmas gifts were backpacking/camping gear, which is excellent. It keeps me from freezing.

My biggest gift was from my little brother, Matt. An Ashford DRUM CARDER, ZOMG! ZOMG! With a lovely blending drum on it!

So, of course I immediately set it up and blended myself a batt! Looking through my stuff I grabbed some grey shetland and some white wensleydale. Opening it up and feeding it in slowly in layers, I made an approximately 50/50 wensleydale/shetland blend. It’s very soft and lofty and awesome. I need to get out a spindle and spin it because it’s awesome! I can’t wait to play more.

My first ever batt. The second one was even more even.

More soon, socks, New Years, and more!

That’s all for now!

~The Gnome

Weaving! I lurves it.

Ok, so you’ll remember it took me some… adventure to get started weaving on my very first all-by-myself project on a loom I had to get set up by myself etc.

And possibly you’ll also remember that I did finally get things working and wove one scarf and started on a second…

Well… I did it! Finally. I have, I think, two scarves worth of warp still on the loom, but since this was my first, I really wanted to take the two done scarves off and finish them to make sure they were going to work. The next scarf will be using some of my most precious handspun, so this was an essential, if terrifying step.

So, I finished the first two scarves, ~60″ each on the loom (measuring them on the loom is so very much fun!)… now what? I have two (I think, maybe more?) scarves worth left on the loom and my warp was nice and even in tension, so I don’t want to just cut it off…

Step 1: Weave a break. About an inch plus of plainweave in a light millspun, packed very tight.

Step 2: Stick in a big solid stick, wider than the warp, and weave a second break. Another inch of tight plainweave.

Step 3: Hope to whatever deities you believe in that this plan is going to work and cut between the scarf and the break… Terrifying.

Step 4: Stand back, breathe, calm, it hasn’t exploded in flames yet…

Step 5: Wrap the first break under the bar and tie it all back onto the front apron rod using a wrap-tie so it’s easy to keep balanced.

Step 6: Lay the two scarves out. Stare at them in amazement for a while before cutting them apart.

Step 7: Twist the fringe on the first scarf. Hem the second scarf, make note to make double long plainweave for neater hem next time.

Step 8: Wet finish… um… what? Back up. Google a bunch. Read. What is this finishing thing? Oh, ok. Well that seems simple enough… stick both scarves in the tub in really hot water with some shampoo (couldn’t find my Dawn). Let soak.

Step 9: Swish around similar to setting a handspun yarn. Shock with a sink of very cold well water. Swish first scarf minimally, swish second scarf more to full more. Panic as a bit of black comes out and makes the white look silver.

Step 10: Dry. Breathe again when you realize the bleeding in the second scarf was a feature of crappy light.

Step 11: Iron.

Step 12: Look upon what you have wrought. Be amazed.

My first two scarves. Both designed by me, same threading, slightly different treadling.

7.25″x56″ (plus 4″ fringe)
Zephyr Wool/Silk Warp and Weft
Twisted Fringe

7.25″x55.75″
Zephyr Wool/Silk Warp
Polwarth/Silk Handspun Doubleshot-Singles Weft
Hemmed

Scarves. I has them. Weaving… I have fallen fast and hard. Next two scarves will be playing with color. First, another one in handspun, precious handspun, theoretically involving a color shift mid-scarf from blue to green, and a fairly complicated treadling. Then, a scarf with super simple treadling and a more dynamic coloring… assuming I don’t change my mind by then. Which… who knows?

I love weaving. It is dangerous. And wonderful. Beautiful and terrible as the sea.

That’s all for now!

~The Gnome