A Good Day for Teaching Weaving

Our son David and his family came for a short visit last night on their way to the UP to go camping.  This morning, while everyone was getting ready to go, I had an opportunity for another teachable moment with granddaughter Morgan.  She got to help me with finishing my last rug on the Weaver's Delight.  When we ran out of fabric for the tubes, I made some more strips and she helped me prepare them into a long strip to load into the tubes.

Here she is on the pink pony, finishing loading a tube.  I think she thought it was a pretty neat tool.

After finishing that project, we heard a commotion outside and walked out to the road to see a car burning a few doors down.  Just a little bit of excitement to start the day!  I have no idea whose car it was or the cause of the fire.  We watched (from a distance) as the fire spread more and more and eventually blew out three of the tires.

 I have had my sister-in-law Mary's Leicester Dryad countermarche loom for several years.  It was the first loom for me to ever use.  She was over recently and I asked her if she was ready to learn to weave.  Since I'm home all the time now, it is easier to fit into our schedules.  After everyone left for camping, we got to business winding a warp for a rayon chenille scarf.

Mary is a great student and grasped the warping concept right away.  I was able to go about my business doing other weaving things while she wound her two bouts of warp.

After we had lunch, we brought the warp to the loom and got it wound on the the back.  Having an assistant certainly makes the warping and winding go faster.  I showed her the back to front method.  We used the lease stick holding device and a 1/2" spacing raddle to spread the warp.

That was about all I was able to do in one day.  I was happy everything went so smoothly.  On Mary's next visit, we will tackle threading and sleying the reed and running a small sample of both plain weave and twill.  I am going to try 20 ends per inch, but think it may be a little too much at least for the plain weave. After doing a little sampling, we may end up resleying the reed to spread it out a little.  I'm looking forward to having someone come weave with me.  My project is on the loom next to hers on the left side of the photo.

If you think this loom looks a little odd, you are right.  It is only good for short warps because the front and back beams are also the cloth beams.  It is not a good loom for long warps because of the thickness that builds up on the beams.  It also doesn't have a brake release, so I will be showing her how live weight tensioning will solve that problem and make the loom very easy to use.

Now I am tired and it is nap time!  All in all, a great day!