Learning curve

For a year I've had an unused Amazon fire. I saw blogger will take pictures from my phone, and I can access my blog on this device, so I put it in my suit case.

After breakfast this morning I came out on the deck to watch the birds, the lagoon, that trees, Spanish moss. I took lots of pictures. And Amazon only sees the pictures from Ohio. No idea where it lost South Carolina!

So, back to birsa, breeze and sunshine. I'm close to a nap.

Summer plans

A quick tour of our little garden. It's looking good. The pictures are mostly of the northern end, which gets more sunshine and is blooming. The southern end has lots of buds, but no blossoms yet, except Aunt Laura's iris, which are done.

The little bed of hot pinks defy color identification. Magenta? Fuscia?  The scarlet to the right is this year's hollyhock. Past that is the nicely rusting lawn bench, and Stella de Oro is growing nicely through.

One of my favorite things in the garden is the rate the wooly thyme is covering the ground. Here behind the bench it's even begun to grow over my flat stone engraved 'Blarney Stone'.

I bought a Canterbury Bell, to help fill in the north end of the garden. The two butterfly bushes behind are close to opening their yellow buds. Away down, the south end is packed with more plants than I remember names for. The sedum blossoms are set, and two different bushes with blue flowers are getting ready to bloom.

Back up at the house, pig now has a pot of gerbera daisies. All's well with his world.

I think we have summer filled in pretty well. Sunday we're going for a week to the Charleston, South Carolina area, to visit my BFF, Carol. 

In July we'll spend almost two weeks in Wisconsin, and take in some sights. Most importantly, I've arranged a tour of Taliesen. All my reading was that it's stiff walking and all the tours are in the neighborhood of four hours. I'd be left in the dust in ten minutes. I considered sending Laura and Ann, and waiting in the tea room, and then thought, Call Them! Great inspiration; For three week's advance notice, they will make a handicap accessible tour of any regular tour, for no extra cost. Beyond wonderful.

Laura and I will take the Wisconsin Dells boat tour of the river around the bluffs. We will go to Dr. Evermor's Park, built of junk, and Cedarburg, for sure. And some other destinations. That is July, and plenty of time to plan.

I have been weaving, and coming to grips with the fact I must do something about my bone on bone left shoulder. Of course, first I needed a plan, a strategy. I have it! I will see the young whippersnapper surgeon the orthopedic fellow who set my shoulder recommended.  Actually, I was never in doubt about who, only if.

I cannot weave much longer, and don't know about the length of rehab, and all those sorts of things that bother me so. But now I have it!. All the orange thread is woven; I've begun the garnet, and have some more colors staged out. I'll see the surgeon when we come back from Wisconsin in July, and get down to business.

By then I will have three or four sets of colors done, and can spend my "recuperation" getting them hemmed. Always need a plan!

How long is a thread!

There are Lamborghini's and Austin Martin's and Ferrari's of looms, too. The farthest into the subject I can venture with confidence is Glimakra, the imperial Swede of looms. Given the reputation of Sweden for perfection, a Glimakra is the union of a Volvo and a Lamborghini, overseen by Saab.

Some interesting looms came our way when my sister and I were weavers. You remember the cherry Kyra and Saffron Two Cats. Once we were approached to purchase the dies and patterns of the Newcomb Loom Company. We passed the offer along to a friend in manufacturing who specialized in reviving old companies. 

As it always seemed to happen, someone a couple of counties away approached us to buy a twenty year old, new, in the box, Glimakra. Eight harness, ten or twelve treadle, never used, Glimakra. A fellow bought it for his wife, and assembled it. She divorced him; he put it back in the box and it resided in the back room until he wanted to sell the house. This was about 1990.

Our studio was thirty by forty and at the time, and had maybe half a dozen looms. We bought the Glimakra for what he paid, seven hundred dollars. All the tie up cords were rotted; all the string heddles had disintegrated. I called the only Glimakra dealer I could find, Maurice Brassard in Quebec, and ordered Texsolve replacements. Of course I told him about the Glimakra loom we had scored.

Maurice asked the name of the person we bought it from, and groaned. “That is the first loom I sold in this country!” And not even for old time’s sake would he give me a discount on the very expensive replacement pieces I needed.

I looked long to find a single picture of a Glimakra like we had.  It is the only picture I found with the bench attached.  Our loom was about ten by ten, the size of a small room, and a countermarche loom. It has a double set of lams to lift each harness. I only mastered the tie-up by reciting “bottoms up” for each lam.

A Glimakra is like the grand piano of a studio. A mighty imposing sight, in the space of say two or three smaller, more useful looms. My best analogy is it requires twenty three gears to advance six inches. Jan and I wove one item apiece on it, put it back in the boxes and sold it.

We each had a favorite brand and style of loom. Hers was Schacht Loom, manufactured in the west; mine, LeClerc, from Quebec. When I bought new looms these last couple of times, it was LeClerc each time. Over the years the LeClerc founders have retired and Maurice Brassard owns LeClerc.

This last time I returned to weaving I found myself replacing everything, down to the thread I’d weave with. When I left off, three years ago, I was depressed at the state of the weaving thread industry in this country. There no longer are mills in America, and no cottons spun for sweaters. I researched the internet looking for cottons with good hand, for towels. Good hand simply means how the thread, or the fabric feels to the hand.

Eventually I settled on cotton marketed for weaving towels. How wrong could I go? I didn’t care for the way it felt weaving, but I persevered, knowing the thread had not passed through the final process, fulling. As we said in the olden days, “It all comes out in the wash!”, which is fulling.  Like everything, there really is no magic. 

In the case of those first four towels I wove, magic was necessary. They had no “hand”. In fact, they felt like sandpaper; little saw blades. I was so upset. I reached out to every old weaver I knew. What to do?!?

One friend in Virginia said she knew Brassard, in Canada, was spinning, but knew nothing of the thread. I called the distributor from whom I’d bought the little saw blades on a cone and explained that although they advertised it as suitable for towels, it was closer to haircloth. She suggested I might want their 8/2B cotton. In fact, the colored cones I’d purchased were B, and it was quite soft. I felt a cone, and yes, very soft. Good hand.

It took some prying to learn that their 8/2B is spun by----wait for it----Brassard in Canada. As soon as I have a run of towels off the loom and fulled, I think I’ll send Maurice a towel and a note. We did a lot of business over the years. I think he’ll be amused, but I doubt he’ll give me a discount!

This is a contemporary Glimakra countermarch. The bench is no longer attached. I cannot see that anything else is changed, except this is smaller than ours, which was sixty inch weaving width, and about eighty inches wide overall.

For Jenn and Dee and anyone else who can sit through a tutorial

Some time ago Jennifer hoped I would post pictures,

and I took pictures, and saved them to post in a continuum.

Eventually I thought, what a bore, and would have skipped the project,

except then Dee asked too. That's a quorum!

Here I am, winding forty bobbins, which will drop forty threads into a two inch bout,

yielding twenty threads per inch. 

This thread is 8/2, which yields excellent "hand" for fabric at 20 epi, and that's the most technical explanation I can give in twenty words or less.

Eleven two inch bouts ready to have thread wound on.

 Forty threads from the spool rack, put through front and back reeds of the tension box, to keep them in order.

The threads go under and over as many pegs as necessary to provide adequate tension. No tension and the threads go on in a sloppy, useless mess.

The silver thread guides keep the threads between the bout dividers.

Two bouts finished, starting on the third of eleven.

At the end of each bout, I tape down the threads, then cut them. I tie an overhand knot in the lose ends, then secure the knot through the next cord. I'm sure the knot has a name; the overhand knot goes through each loop and it's pulled down snug to secure the threads from the spool rack.

All eleven bouts are wound and taped down. The thread guides are back in their little bag.

Next, I lift the taped ends of each bout up and fasten the tape to the yard stick taped to the back beam.

Here is the same thing from the other side. 

When all eleven bouts are up and taped to the yard stick, I count the threads in each bout.

There should be forty. No time like now to go looking for a missing thread.

Now I need to unroll some slack so I can begin threading the heddles. I roll the thread up on the yardstick, then unroll it. My sister used to lift it high over her head and walk backwards. Not that brave.

Now I'm in front of the loom and the threads coming off the warp beam have enough slack to work with. I didn't take a picture, but that assembly on the right end of the warp beam is the brake. The brake is off, to allow the beam to move freely.

This sequence of heddles uses a pattern of sixteen heddles, four on each harness. I count off all sixteen as a group before I begin threading. It helps avoid errors. Unthreading and rethreading hundreds of heddles is no treat. Ask me how I know.

All heddles are threaded, and each group of sixteen tied off in a slip knot. The first bout is threaded through the reed.

Through the reed, and secured again with a slip knot.

Tied up to the cloth beam, and a few inches of "idle weave" to straighten up the bouts.

Four repeats of the towel pattern done. The first eight rows are plain weave, the next eight are twill. Blue jeans are woven in twill. 

Here is the magic. That V is called the shed, and I throw the shuttle back and forth between the changing shedds.

And I change the shedds by stepping on combinations of treadles tied to the harnesses.

The end.

Progress all around

I generally am in school auditoriums for band concerts, but last night Laura and I attended middle school graduation of my last granddaughter, Caroline Lenore. 

This first picture is of the graduates assembling, one by one. It's real purpose is to show the vile metal chairs we have in this room. In past events in this room I've asked the ever so attentive parent/supervisors to bring comfortable chairs for me, and for Ruth. Last night I forgot, until I sat down. Too late!

This is a Montessori school in Cleveland. Both France and Caroline were here at Ruffing, eight or nine years. Pre-whatever through eighth grade, which has another name in Montessori. France has been two years at Hawken, a high school. Caroline is accepted there for next year. There she is, second from left.

Spotted!. Too bad, sweetheart, you only "move up" once. I have an eye on you! I didn't leave early; I spent two and one half hours on awful chairs, and without supper! And, I got a big hug in the hall way; ample reward.

Yesterday I loaded the my thirty-odd filled spools on the spool rack and left the room. The missing peg has a funny ending. Laura sawed our new dowel to the proper length while I began removing the bolts from the stand's feet. When we were all done, I counted the pegs one more time. In spite of having counted thirty nine of them, over and over on Wednesday, yesterday there were forty one. An extra hole.

I was so sore and tired from those metal chairs last night, I slept through any noise my UPS fellow may have made this morning. Of course, the cat was not about to alert me to the delivery of the cone of thread that was promised for delivery no later than tonight. I am set to go, as soon as I come back from a long overdue haircut.