The Long Haul

Here at the Appalachian Arts Craft Center, in the Weaving Dept, we have 4 looms that have sectional warp beams. We can warp these looms in the normal way if we want to put on a "short" project (10yds or less), but the real beauty of sectional warping is that you can put a really long warp on the loom at a fraction of the time it would take to wind the same warp on a warping board or mill (if you had one big enough) and then beam the warp, we generally put on 60-80 yards on these sectional beams. We have Ellens Pattern on two looms (Crammed and spaced in the reed) and those are for table runners and placemats, one warp on the Leclerc Mira all white and one warp on the Norwood loom all in black.

The next sectional loom we have is the Studio rug loom that Patty is weaving on. This one has the Hollywood rug pattern. We found this pattern when LouAnn got a new loom that had yards of it already on the warp beam.

The last sectional beam was all in white 8/2 for hand towel on the baby Macomber. Linda has been weaving on this loom for ages, churning one towel after another.

In fact, Linda finished the this warp a couple of months ago, then Shannon put on a short warp and finished weaving that one a few weeks ago. The loom then sat empty, waiting for a new warp, sometimes you need something a little different. Patty has a towel project that she has enjoyed based on one of the Strickler threadings. It was decided that we would to a short warp (only 40 yards) and see if we thought it might be a good fit. Patty sent me the schematic in a text, and let me tell you I had to get out my graph paper.

We are using 8/4 cotton instead of the 8/2 that you might normally use. The sett is 12 ends per inch (EPI) and we are using 1 inch sections, but I needed my graph paper to work how many different sections there were and what order they would be in. With the help of my graph paper and Patty's detailed heads up, I was able to determine that there will be 4 different warping sections. I have numbered the sections according to which of the 4 it will be. Plus the first and the last section will require that we add a floating selvedge.

Now, it is time to collect the spools or cones of yarn, and load the tension box. (I confess that I forgot to take a picture of our actual set up and had to find one of a project I did at home!)

There was a minute, while I was choosing which tension box to use, that I thought we did not have a yardage counter to use. I had visions of counting rotations, and this loom doesn't have a crank! Luckily Marie knew where the yardage counter was hidden away. Whew! We are using natural and navy for this warp and we have noticed the "natural" that we got in from our last order is very different than the natural that we had left over on the shelf. I checked what we have on the spool rack we are using and they all look the same to me, fingers crossed! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Threading #1 is 3 black/9 natural, Threading #2 is 12 natural, Threading #3 is 3 natural/6 black/3 natural, Threading #4 is 9 natural/3 black. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I chose to do threading #2 first since it is all one color and there are a lot of #2 sections. All of this setting up does take a good deal of time and we also took the time to clean the loom up from the previous project, so much lint! Which means that we didn't really start beaming the sections until just before lunch, so with only an hour after lunch to work we managed to get 3 sections wound. Next week we will probably be able to do most if not all of the sections and be ready to thread the following week.

Show and Tell Oh my goodness, there is a lot to show! Laura had the most beautiful pieced jacket that she has been working on for ages! and Mark had a scarf that he had finished that was light and airy looking, just lovely!

Next up is Marie, she had a couple of baby blankets that she finished this week. The first used some of the yarn that she had gotten from Sharon.

Samantha brought in some runners that she had woven with different huck patterns.

Patty brought in the mother load of projects that she had finished this week. 2 blankets, and then 2 scarves where she had discovered the difference changing the sett would make.

Patty also finished a Patty hat that LouAnn had woven, and finally she had finished 2 scarves on a hand painted warp.

Dana brought in 3 different towel projects that she had completed this week.

Pat brought in several items that she has made to donate for our building fundraiser. Purses, a bowl cozy and several scarves, some in linen.