Advancing the temple

 

I feel very exposed when weaving a twill. Even the slightest inconsistency in the beat seems to show up as a warp coloured streak and even though I know that when the cloth is off the loom and relaxed and then after it has been finished most of the blemishes will be gone it still bothers me.

I have come up with a few things to help me. The first has been to stop listening to the radio when I weave. I listen to Classic FM and I suspect that the change of tempo of the music impacts on how I weave. The music and the talk from the presenters lead me away from the weaving.

Following on from stoping the distraction of the music I am trying to focus just on the weaving,to watch the weft being beaten in, to feel the tension in my shuttle and just to be with what I am doing. This is all a bit metaphysical but it seems to be working. On a more down to earth note, I am advancing my temple in a consistent fashion.We all know it should be moved after about one inch of weaving, but hey, when you are in the zone and there is a nice bit of Bach on the radio, three inches with no temple movement can creep up on you just like that.

My weaving software (WeavePoint) plays a sound whenever the weft colour changes. On the draft I have changed the colour every 18 picks (the PPI of my current project) so when the computer goes bing I know it is time to advance the temple. On my loom I can move the beater so I only have to advance the warp about every three inches; so I use three colours so that I know exactly where I am.

The combination of this and the vibes thing seems to be helping but time will tell.

In addition to all this I managed to get some weaving done today.

 

Tarp Clamp Temple

A couple of posts ago I mentioned that I was using "crocodile clips" and weights to serve as a temple. I think that strictly speaking the device that I am using is a "tarp clamp".

I have used then for one scarf and they are fine but I found that I was getting a bit of distortion of the cloth when the clamps were advanced (every inch) to keep up with the fell. This happens because of the increasing angle between the clamps and the pivot points that  leads the cords to the weights. The mechanics of the whole thing are shown here and the picture below shows angle of the cord and the cloth distortion.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

I have a solution which I think will resolve most of the problems. I have taken a couple of blocks of wood and attached screw eyes and four "legs" made from old Venetian blind slats (ideal for packing the warp when beaming).

The blocks sit on the side rails and are held in position by their legs. The cord from the clamp goes through the screw eye and the down to the weight.

The blocks can be moved back and forth on the side rail which means that pivot point, the screw eye, can be kept almost level with the fell.

It is all a little bit Heath Robinson at this stage but I'll weave off the current scarf and see how I go - I am sure that other refinements will occur to me!

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
 I have just noticed that comments on this blog are not working correctly. An initial comment can be made but the subsequent thread doesn't seem to be working. If you have posted a comment and not received a response from me please accept my apologies; I will resolve the problem as soon as I can./

Tarp Clamps can be bought in Australia from Bunnings and they are also stocked by several camping shops.

Differential Shrinkage Scarf

I put on the warp for this scarf a couple of weeks ago but I have been hit by the lurgy (flu/cold) so until today I had done nothing. Today I wove for three hours and the scarf is about half done.

The design is taken directly from Evening Sunset Scarf by Stefanie Meisel in Handwoven Sept/Oct 2004. I have changed one of the yarns (18/2 Merino replaced with 20/2) which should make little difference. This scarf will differ from the last one I did in that there are ruffles on the outer edge of the scarf.

The photo below doesn't do justice to the colours. The merino is a vibrant turquoise green and the non-shrinking tencel is two shades of copper. I will pay more attention to my lighting when I next take a picture.

This is the first time that I have used a "crocodile clip" temple and it is working very nicely. I have used a couple of sawn down  wood working clamps to to hold the cord between the clips and the weights. The trick is to make sure that the arrangement clears the beater and doesn't get in the way when throwing the shuttle 

Red dots on the beater bar

I have had a lovely day listening to music and weaving with the occasional foray into the garden between showers. If I focus tomorrow I may well get the weaving of this shawl finished.

I have put a couple of red dots on the beater bar. These are to guide my thumbs to the correct position so that I hold the beater in the middle. I noticed a tendency for slight slope in the last pick at the fell; one side was nearer to the previous pick than the other side. I put this down to either the fact that I wasn't aligning the temple parallel to the fell or that it was because of my habit of grasping the beater off centre - hence the red dots.

I am taking care with the temple and centering my hand on the beater and the problem has gone away. Successful problem resolution is always very satisfying.

Temples - Weaving

When I was asked if I saw any interesting temples on my trip to India I said "yes". I think that virtually every weaver I saw in India was using one. Some were very basic but they all did the job.

When I was getting ready to weave on my CB loom I found that I didn't have a temple for the width of my warp. This is what I came up with and it does very well!