Jan 10 2007
Using Trapezes in Warping
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This is the first time I’ve used the roof trapeze for warping my loom. This rather long (12 metre) warp is winding on successfully, but I can’t really know until I thread and tie everything up. For weights I’ve used dumbells in plastic bags which I move on every so often.I’ve also discovered a problem with the way the separators are placed on my sectional warp beam. The centre of the loom is in the middle of one of those 1" sections rather than a section marker being the centre as it is on my countermarche loom. This is a problem when I wind 2 warp chains as I have to split them to fit into the centre section. It’s difficult to explain but so many things like this happen in weaving, and it’s next to impossible to know everything you need when you get a new loom. It’s like the first time of everything – you just do it or buy it or whatever. Then after a while you KNOW what you want or expect and you get fussier.Perhaps because you don’t want to change what you KNOW. Life is going to be very busy over the next few months for me with work and family commitments but I have a few full weaving days now. I hope to explore my weaving software more, including ArahWeave (run on Red Hat OS). I’m also involved in an Exhibition "Thread Bare" in February 08 and have to prepare an Introductory workshop in Coiled Basketry in a few weeks time. On the blog hunting, I’m happy that the Armidale Spinners and Weavers Guild has a great blog style site powered by wordpress. This group seem very active and I’m sure lots more luscious fibre photos will appear there.
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| The roof trapeze (at the back of loom) | |
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My makeshift weights |
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| Weaving set ups are just beautiful |
Great post! I have been intrigued with trapeze set-ups ever since I started to take warp tension and a weighting system seriously.
The plastic bags for the dumb bells is a good idea. Someone had suggested them to me, but I couldn’t figure out how to attach them to my warp bouts.
Kaz, the space in the middle thing would annoy me so much; you are not alone!
The video shows choke strings on the warp (not chains at that point) I have done it that way and it works. I think that with the choke chains and the plastic bags the system should work.
You asked about weft for chenille. Last batch was: cotton 20/2. I wove one with a very fine silk thread (almost like sewing thread) and it did not hold up in the wet finish. It cut right through the chenille. I started out with 24 epi and had a bullet proof scarf! Now I am setting it at 16 epi . I like the drape and texture.
Hope this helps.