1.23.18. Wound the warp. Beamed on with Kelley’s help. Almost finished threading. I really love the 8/2 organic cotton from MNP handwoven. So soft. Haven’t decided on pattern weft. I bought two pounds of 6/2 cotton, but I may change my mind and use some of the rug wool I got last year if I find a color/weight that I like.

I’ve also wound the warp for a narrow rug for the living room to weave on the Standard, and I’m going to wind for some Cat’s Paw dish towels for the Ideal. I hope if I beam several times in a short time span I will improve. I’ll need some more warp sticks, I think.

1.25.18. I am weaving away on my orange peel runners. Gorgeous draft. I’ve done the border and two repeats of the pattern, enough to help me square up the weave and find a threading error, which I’ll figure out how to fix in the morning. The selvedges are really looking nice, but I have a little more draw-in than I’d like. Will work on that when I start again. So nice to be working with plain ol’ cotton.

1.27.18. I had finished weaving for the day last night when I found a treadling error. Sigh. After some inner debate, I decided to call this first 10-12 inches a sample. This morning I used Peggy Osterkamp’s two-stick method and cut my “sample” off the loom. I wet finished and found out this good information: 1. There was not much difference between the plainweave hem and border and the overshot, but I prefer the runner without the pw border —a wider overshot border will be more dramatic. 2. The squares, which I wove to square by checking the diagonals with a quilter’s measure, stayed true and square! I had wondered if I should weave them a bit tall because of take-up. Answer to that is no. 3. The fabric has a great feel and it looks like the runners have a good chance of lying flat without rippling edges. 4. No sign of the sienna yarn bleeding.

I did forget to measure to compare before and after wet-finishing. Oh well. I’m a sampling convert. Anyone who wants to may say I told you so. I’m posting a picture of the sample, treadling error and all.

1.29.18. Oh my goodness. So many setbacks. This morning, before coffee even, I decided to advance the warp so that I could start weaving once the caffeine kicked in. Applied too much tension as Peggy Osterkamp’s two sticks came round the cloth beam. To my sorrow all the strings that I tied on with just popped. I was no longer tied on. I am happy that I did not despair. I tied back on, though, with a lot more string, and I was able to do some weaving. I really think it was a good lesson--I eased up on the tension. I still have a decent, albeit sloping, shed. I don’t have to beat nearly as hard. The warp is heading around the cloth beam, and I think it will make it this time.

I continue to struggle with broken floating selvedge on the right side, every few inches. Finally doubled the FS and it seems to be going better. Here’s what I think is happening: it’s the loom’s fault. Hah. Actually, I’m pinning it on the lamms. There are two different sizes of lamms on this antique loom with holes in two different places. Neither set of lamms seems to fit the loom, so I assume they were scraped up from somewhere. The holes do not line up properly, so two of the lamms pull down the shafts off-center. And the Texsolv attaching the treadles to those lamms can’t go exactly perpendicular. The shafts attached to those lamms keep sinking more on the right-side of the work. I keep adjusting, which is tricky business. The shaft bars keep sliding and everything goes out of alignment. The upshot is that when the shafts sink too low on that right side, it’s hard for the shuttle to slide under the floating selvedge without the yarn on the quill brushing and abrading the FS. I think it’s causing the breakage--I don’t think I have excessive draw-in, and I am using a temple and advancing it often. The yarn is soft, though, and may not be really strong. My next step, if the doubling and the taking care don’t work, is to use some fishing line with that FS.

So, the answer to a lot of my woes is to make some new lamms that match the loom. I guess I could do it now, mid-project, but that’s not actually my style. I’m going to just pay attention to what is happening, and see if I can make it all work. If not, I’ll stop and get Kelley to do the woodwork. It will be simple for him, I think, but will require me to climb under the loom and figure out length of lamms and positions of holes. Seems intimidating.

The loom weaves surprisingly well. It even wove all right when the metal bar that holds the treadles in the back jarred loose and let the treadles on the right hang down. It took me a while to figure out what was happening.

2.5.18. Things have smoothed out and I have stopped ranting at the loom. I think the craziness started when the bar holding the treadles slipped and some of the treadles dropped. I think it’s back in adjustment now, and I’m keeping an eye on all the quirky bits. Yesterday was snowy and icy, and I stayed home from work. Finished weaving the sienna runner and started the blue one. The first one is about 72 inches long. I expect significant shrinkage. I don’t know how long the second one will be, because I might have forgotten how long a warp I put on. I’m seeing the end of it unexpectedly soon. Runner or table mat? Who knows? I’m really happy with this project, in spite of all the time I’ve spent fiddling with it.

2.15.18. All done. Miscalculated the amount of shrinkage/take-up, so one of the runners is pretty long. Ran out of warp before I could make the same mistake on the second runner. Must figure out why my edges are so ripple. Has to do with uneven tension, I’m sure. Problem for another day. Learned a lot. Improved a lot. Need to learn more. Need to improve more. Never-ending.