No Guts No Glory…

When I was a freshman in college, I befriended a nun who worked on campus. We all called her Sister Fran.  She had an old station wagon.  She use to drive students around to wherever they needed to go off campus, and we’d pile into the back of the wagon and head off into the town.  When Sister Fran would come to a rather busy intersection, especially one without a light, she would barrel on through  shouting , “Fran, no guts no glory!”  I learned a lot about life through that mantra, and learned a lot about driving in NJ.

So here is the situation.  (Apologies in advance for those who follow my blog and aren’t weavers, this is sort of technical…)

I’ve been brooding over this dilemma for awhile.  I have twin 25″ Tools of the Trade looms, one has four shafts and the other has eight.  The four shaft loom is pretty lightweight, and when I bought it, (at the time for my mother in law) I had the wisdom to order a regular back beam, and a sectional one, having options for this loom.  The beams on this loom both have wood brake drums, and in fact, I have sheared off the brake drum in my attempt to weave 15 yards of placemats on this loom, we were able to repair it, but the loom wasn’t really built for that. I’ve always maintained that any warp could be put onto a loom that has a sectional beam, even chained warps. Just place guides on either side of the warp to keep it between a set of pegs and all should be fine.  The sectional beam is stronger, because of the cross brace construction, but as I constantly explore new weave structures and new combination of fibers and weights, there are times that I really need a standard warp beam, not a sectional one.  But on this loom, at least I had options.

My 25″ 8 shaft loom, I wasn’t as smart.  This loom has dual mounted warp beams, I wanted a miniature of my large TOTT 45″, 8 shaft with two sectional warps beams AND a standard warp beam that could be interchanged.  Since at the time, I hadn’t really ever put the standard warp beam on, I didn’t see a need to buy one for the smaller loom.  Sad because Tools of the Trade looms are no longer made and replacement beams are not available.

The warp beams on my 25″ 8 shaft have metal brake drums.  This loom all around is pretty strong for a little guy.  But I really really wish I could have a standard warp beam for it, though the standard beam is only about 6 ” in circumference and packing on 12-15 yards kind of builds up.  It is one of the reasons I sheared off the brake drum on the 4 shaft loom.

So I’ve been brooding.  Last week when I went to teach in Delaware, my lovely hostess Sandy and I chatted in her adorable studio, an outbuilding on her gorgeous property (WANT) and she mentioned that she had converted her sectional beam to a standard one by pulling out the pegs.  It wasn’t a Tools of the Trade, I’ve forgotten what brand it was, but a lightbulb went off in my head and I sort of couldn’t wait to get home from Delaware to see if it was possible to pull the pegs from my sectional beam.  I have four beams between two looms and three of them are sectional and I felt like I could afford to risk mutilating one.

I grabbed a pair of pliers and a piece of a gripper pad and started wiggling. 🙂

YES!

Pretty soon I’d wiggled out a whole row.

Pretty soon I had the beam clear of pegs, (and yes, my wrist was killing me but it was totally worth it) and now the circumference of this “standard” warp beam was 12″ and I should be in a good position to fill it, including the paper packing.

The real test of this beam will be my scarves.  They are the ones I do with the supplemental ribbons, all hand dyed, and truth be told, I’ve always felt the tensioning could be better because some of the yarns are so thin, they cut right into the sectional bundles on the sectional beam and make me crazy.  Packing 15 yards on a small frame loom, gives a lot of depth for those sectional bouts, and no matter what I tried, I wasn’t completely satisfied.  But I’m not in a position to wind a scarf warp at the moment.  I don’t have the right colors of yarn dyed, and it is the holiday season and I really need to get a towel warp on any loom available. 🙂

So I grabbed all the Cotlin I had, that would be yarn that is cotton and linen, from WEBS, and I leafed through some downloads I have on towels.  I spied one that would work in Interweave Press’ Winning Towels, eight shafts, single shuttle, (really important to me, I hate changing shuttles) and I could use all the lovely colors I have of Cotlin, AND I probably had enough yarn including weft to weave about 10 towels.  Perfect test for this beam.  I would have had issues with this warp in fact, on a sectional beam, because the black cotton/linen was considerably finer than the other colors, it was a mill end.  I know it will weave fine, and be fine when washed, but beaming 12 yards with no packing because of the sectional pegs, would mean that those little half inch stripes of black would pack thinner than the rest and I was once again going to have tension issues.

I wound three bundles of warp.

I sleyed through the reed (two per dent in a 12 dent reed), and then threaded the heddles.

I tied the bundles onto the original cords from the sectional beam, I can always add an apron or a rod or both later, but I thought it would work without.  I set up my tensioning device from Harrisville, and that 12 yard warp practically warped itself.  The only thing that held me up was constantly adding sheets of packing paper.

This is threaded and woven in a 3/1, 1/3 twill, with a light grey weft. I made some adjustments to the original towel, in scale and color relationships.  As the loom settles in, the blocks are weaving perfectly square.  So far everything seems to be working well and I may have just solved my dilemma.  Which is always a wonderful thing.  I love when my months of brooding pay off…

Stay tuned…