Im sorry it has taken me so long to post but I have been having some issues with my leg. I recently had to have a wound vac and then I became allergic to the band aide so we couldn’t use that. Than last week they did a skin graft on me. I hope this works. I will get another graft in 2 weeks.Ok enough of that!
So any way, I put a couple of warps on to practice on the AVL. I needed to adjust the tension and the auto advance cloth arm. I don’t know how many of you have AVL’s but my arms are raw from the sandpaper beam. I finally got smart and covered it, but looking on the bright side, I won’t have to exfoliate my forearm and elbows for awhile hahahahaha! Also, It is quite a workout lifting all those shafts. I found my rhythm though and I zoned out listening to the music me and my loom was making. Also again, I have given my AVL a name, as I name everything. I decided on Louie. I was searching for a girl name but Louie just seems right. So from this day forward I will address my AVL as LOUIE.
Here is the first project. It is a lace heart scarf. I got the draft from www.Handweaving.net . I wanted to use all of Louie’s 16 shaft so I thought this would be a good little start.
I made it with Walmart #10 cotton. I knew I was going to have tension issues as well as adjusting that arm so I didn’t want to use my 10/2 tencel.
Here is a close up
Not perfect, but at least I got most the bugs out.
Here is the next project. I used 10/2 tencel and 10/2 perle cotton
You can see I was still not comfortable with the tension. It got better as I went. I ended up with a nice scarf. Next, wet finish and then I will post pictures.
Today, I counted out 6000, yards of tencel to dye for my next projects on Louie. I dyed some of it in the indigo crystal batch I had from a couple of weeks ago and the rest I dyed fire red. Im going to do a crackle and network draft from the indigo and white. With the Fire Red, a cute draft of square outlines all bunched together.
I still have not found just the right draft for the Ikat I dyed a couple of weeks ago, but I will persevere.
Well that is it for now, I want to thank all of you who come to visit. I enjoy seeing where you come from. I would love to hear from you if you would like to say hi or give me some comments on some of these projects I do. The counter I use tells me what state, city, and country you come from and if you have visited before. It is so fun to see that little ol me has a visitor from the Netherlands or Israel or some other wonderful country. I have lots of visitors from Canada, I was so lucky to have visited this beautiful country. Just today I had visitors from Norway, Canada, Netherlands, Redondo Beach CA, and San Diego CA just to mention a few. Wow, weavers are everywhere! I look forward to hearing from you!
I'm one of those people who do the drive by reading and never comment. Shame on me, I know. Just thought I'd say hi, and I enjoy reading your blog :)
ReplyDeleteHi to Louie too. I think I'm going to purchase a 16 shaft soon, though I'm planning on getting a Weavebird. The most I've used so far is 8 shafts and the thought of threading 16 is a little scary. Did you find it a big adjustment to move to 16 or did you already use 16 before?
Restless Knitter, Thank you so much for leaving a comment. I was looking at the Weavebird as well. If I had the money I would have ran as fast as I could and bought one, but alas Louie presented himself and I am very happy. Adjusting to 16 shafts... well,I can tell you from a 8 shaft Loomcraft to a 16 Shaft AVL full frame production loom... the footprint increased Significantly. At first I thought OMG what have I gotton myself into. My Daughter said "Mom!, really!, you need a 60" wide loom to weave a 10" scarf". Hehehehehehe, I said "why yes I do". Once I got started warpping it really was not overwhelming at all. You just need to make sure you have a technique you use to help keep track of your threading. I break my into 4 threads at a time. Then, once I finish threading 16 threads or so, I make a quick check and tie the bundle together. This works for me, I find that I rarely have threading errors. I feel if I take the time to thread and check, it really pays off in the long run. I have only been weaving for 1 year as of July 17th, so Im sure I will learn many new tricks as time goes by.
ReplyDeleteI went to your blog to read some of your post and I can see we have a lot in common. How funny you were to tell the AVL Lady about your wishes for a weavebird. I just cracked up. I so would have done something like that hehehehehe. Thanks for stopping by. Victoria