Progress With the 10-Shaft Counterbalance Loom

I posted back in July about my latest loom restoration, and have been weaving on this old Swedish 10-shaft counterbalance loom.

Since I didn't know anything about a counterbalance loom with more than four shafts, I decided that was where I would start.

The only tie-up cords on the loom were the ropes on the front and back beams.  I had to make and figures out the rest.

I didn't have many spare string heddles, but found enough to make a test warp with about 170 ends.

Laila Lundell's book, The Big Book of Weaving, was very helpful with all the set-up.  I didn't have any Texsolv for the tie-ups, so I just used cording I purchased from the hardware store.  I figured it was cheaper if I made a mistake cutting lengths and could always be replaced once I had the loom working properly.

This shows the stage of leveling the shafts before tying up the lamms and treadles.

My first few inches of a four-shaft goose-eye pattern.  Everything seemed to be working properly.

This was my first experience using shaft levelers, the two notched bars hanging from one of the cross pieces.  I didn't have any, so Bob made me a couple sets, one for six shafts and one for ten.  The upper shafts fit into the notches and the whole set-up starts with them being hung from the beam above and leveled.

Notice the loom is still set-up in the garage.  I decided to wait to put Julie (named after her previous owner) in the studio until I finished the first warp, since there was more room to move around the loom.  It is hard enough at my age to crawl around under a loom, but even worse if it is in cramped quarters.

Success with four shafts!

I was able to get a long and a short table runner out of the sample warp.

Lining Up Varigated Yarn Colors in a Warp

I spend entirely too much time on pointless things just to answer a question I have had in my mind.

I little while ago, I was given an ugly cone of varigated yarn. Agree?

My question I wanted to figure out was how to wind a warp a specific length and get the colors to line up.

The varigation is short, with each color only about 6" long, so the colors would look muddy if I wound the warp straight off the cone.

I determined the length I wanted for a scarf and after winding to the bottom and reversing, realized that wouldn't work because the colors were in the reverse order with the second pass back to the starting peg.

To get them in order, I needed to make a continuous warp around the board. My start is at the top right peg.

When I got back to the start peg, I determined how much excess yarn I had before the colors lined up again.

I added two pegs on the right side to wrap the excess around until the colors lined up.

I made two wraps around both pegs and one or two wraps around a single peg for each pass around the warping board.

As I made each pass, I made my cross.  After deciding how many warp ends I wanted in each inch, I used a counting cross for each half inch, just to keep track of the number of warp ends wound, and to fit in my 1/2" spaced raddle.

When I am done winding the warp, I will tie off my cross, add some choke ties at the beginning, and right before the two end pegs and then a couple along the length to keep everything stable before cutting it below the start peg.

With everything stable, I can unwind the excess at the two pegs and trim all the warp threads evenly.

I still think it is ugly.  I'll see if my opinion changes after I get a loom open and start weaving the scarf.