First, I want to thank all of my faithful readers for their kind words of encouragement during my recent bout with the flu. It happens to the best of us…
I did what I was told and stayed in bed ( I didn’t think it was possible to actually stay in bed that long) and I waited out the fever. I woke up today, bright eyed, and feeling sooooo much better. But I still did what I was told and didn’t over do, I just sat in my studio, behind my loom, and threaded. The whole day. I stopped for lunch, and stopped for dinner, but I just sat and threaded, and it felt good to finally finish.
All in all having the flu wasn’t a terrible thing. I didn’t have to be anywhere important that I couldn’t cancel, and being forced to lay in bed all day sipping fluids (ok it was determined that mojitos count as fluids), reading the greatest love story of all time, spanning two hundred years, was not the worst ordeal I’ve ever been through. As ordeals go, this wasn’t even close… The only tough part of this last week, was I miss my son. I admit it, he left for boot camp last Monday, I haven’t heard from him, I had sort of hoped for a letter, silly me, and I miss him. All the things one does like keep busy, get out and be with friends, etc., I couldn’t do because, I was sick in bed. And my husband wasn’t even around, he was half way around the world. Actually, for him that wasn’t a bad thing, being around me when I’m sick is no picnic. So I settled myself by sipping mojitos, courteously left by my son in his basement lair refrigerator before he left for boot camp. Add an ounce of rum, and it all seemed right…
So, I finished threading more than 1100 ends… 🙂
I’ve checked and rechecked, and now I’m ready to beam. I should mention that before I started threading this puppy, I split the three warp bundles in half, so instead of drawing from the middle, they fanned out from the sides. That way the center threads aren’t three feet long and the ones on the outer edges of the bundles are like six inches!
I have a sectional beam on this loom, and it works fine when beaming with a chain, the trick is to keep the warp centered between two outside pegs. To do that I have permanent plastic cable ties mounted on the back beam, and I slide them into place once the warp width is established. (You can see one in the last photo)
So I tied on all of the bundles, hitching them to the twill tape nailed to the cross brace well of the sectional beam. I use a larks head to hitch the overhand knot in the end of the warp bundle. (If you aren’t a weaver and you’ve gotten this far in the blog, congratulations. I’ve probably lost you so just enjoy the beautiful colors that are beginning to show as I beam.)
The beaming process is tedious. But it is gorgeous. Can I tell you how much I’m loving this warp? If it weaves half as gorgeous as it is while beaming I’ll be so happy. Even my daughter, as she sat on the bathroom floor combing out a particularly tangled wig from the prop closet at the high school for the spring musical, kept running in and checking the colors and squealing with delight as she looked at the warp from all angles.
The process here is to comb carefully, all the warps in front of the beater, giving each bundle a tug to tension it firmly. Once they are combed, bring the beater forward. Any knots should now be in front of the beater. Everything behind the beater should be a clean shot through the heddles, over a pair of inserted lease sticks (they create drag), over the back beam, and around the warp beam. As I turn the crank on the warp beam, I slowly walk the beater back until it hits the castle wall. As I’m beaming I keep an eye on the pegs of the sectional beam that they don’t catch on a warp thread.
I’m going to love weaving this fabric…