More about making sure that heddles can’t fall off the end of the shafts

As it seems that the article on "how to secure lease sticks" on my web page is not very clear, here are some more pictures and some more words.

First, it seems that the title of the page is making confusion: why is it about lease sticks? (and – if the method is for lease sticks, then, surely, it isn’t good for the use on shafts, is it?)

So. Starting with the lease sticks.

Why would one want another method than tying them together, so that the pair is "fixed together"?
I can see several reasons: for a very dense and/or sticky warp (warp rep with, say, 36 ends of cotton 16/2 per cm, approx. 140 ends per inch, is one example – another can be a brushed mohair for warp, can get sticky even at open setts) – for the dense or sticky warp it will be so very much easier to move the lease sticks separately.

Another reason can be that moving a folding loom about in its folded state: my folding looms need the warp tension to be slackened for folding, which means the lease sticks can slip around. Then this can happen:

Granted, it is quite possible to get the warp back onto the sticks, but it takes more fiddling (at least for me) – and so I use this method ’cos I find it faster and easier.
This is what it looks om my big loom (the blue stripe was an afterthought, and narrow enough not to need a lease for the sample I’m making):

Back to the folding loom (used mainly for demos): it will never, ever get folded without security strings on the shafts bars.
(One of my students thought that "sissy", folded the loom and carried it away. The lower bars promptly fell out, because she had not tied the treadles yet. It took hours to get them back, with the correct heddles on the correct lower shaft bar, in the correct order. She added security strings...)

So this is how it looks:

I always put the "handle" for opening (the knot with its tails) on the left side, because I thread from right to left – if I need to add (or take off) heddles while/after threading, this will always be done on the left side.
(Fow to make this style of security string, pls refer to the web page, linked above)


But, some of you say, why not just connect the upper shaft bar with the lower shaft bar?

AVL does this, by sticking a long metal rod from top to bottom

So what will happen if you just tie them together with a piece of string? (The black string may be hard to see, but click the pics to biggify - it should be easier to see)

OK, it will not happen every time, but it sure can happen, especially if you are using the whole width of the loom.
The heddles will not fall to the floor, it will be easy to know which shaft they belong to, that is true. However, should this happen to the outer heddles, there will not be any shed at the selvages... and it would require fiddling to get the heddles back.
Again: I find it so much easier to secure the heddles in a way that ensures me that they stay in their place.

Yes, I know: there are no safety strings on this loom for the moment. Next time I’m going to weave wide I will put them on... or, maybe, next time I get annoyed at having to get the fallen-to-the-floor unused heddle back on. Nobody is perfect...)

Edit - adding:
It did not occur to me when writing, but: the top-to-bottom connector string - how to handle that when one wants to add/subtract heddles? This possible connxion can, as can the other "knotted strings", be tied with an easily undone knot (bow?). Otherwise it will also hinder the heddle handling...

How can I live without floating selvedges?

was a question on a forum last week.

Easily, is the fastest answer. I had been weaving for 20+ years before I even heard about such animals... (and I confess: have not tried FS, not even once, since I heard about them. And, since it is confession time: once in a while I have been known to make an extra turn around the outer end - but I had done that for the 20+ years of weaving before I heard about FS, so I don't know if that counts)

So, how?

Here are some answers:
1. see what happens. IF an end doesn't get caught, ignore it.
2. IF an end doesn't get caught, and it annoys me (probably not, but anyway) - try starting the weft from the other side.
3. think about them before weaving (see below)

The thinking gets easier with written-out structure (binding) diagrams.

Like this: let us assume a 2/2 twill, thus 4 shafts. There are four possible permutations for the tie-up(s). Likewise, there are two possible ways (directions) for threading (/// or \\\). For treadlings there are, again, four possibilities: /// and \\\, but also if we treadle from the top down ("American way") or from the bottom up ("Swedish way").

Here goes: first diagram. The colours in the wefts are put there to distinguish between right-to-left and left-to-right (in reality they are the same colour, as this is a single-shuttle weave)

Going clockwise from upper right: treadling from top to bottom, from right to left (means the red wefts go from right to left): both outer ends get caught. Treadling from bottom to top (means the yellow wefts go from right to left): both outer ends get caught.
However: if one shifts the shuttling direction, both outer ends become un-bound.

Next quadrant (bottom right): exactly the same applies - shuttling from right to left both outer ends get caught. If switching shuttling direction, both outer ends get not-caught.

The two left-hand quadrants work the opposite: if shuttling from right to left, both outer ends get un-caught - reversing the shuttling direction lets the outer ends get caught.
(As I always want to start from the right, I crossed out the two left-hand quadrants)

Diagram 2 - the tie-up is shifted one step up.
As I always want to start from the right, I crossed out the two right-hand quadrants because the outer ends will be un-caught.

Diagram 3 - the tie-up shifted yet one step up.
As I always want to start from the right... the two left-hand quadrants are crossed out.

Diagram 4 - the last permutation in the tie-up.
As I always (etc)... the two right-hand quadrants are crossed out.

Of course, all of the crossed-out quadrants can be fixed by either:
- starting the shuttling from left to right
- OR (still shuttling my fave direction) by adding or subtracting one end each side.


OK, I hear you: BUT what about a more complicated binding (structure)?

This is a random structure that I found on handweaving.net:

As I always prefer to start from the right, AND (being Swedish) read the treadling from the bottom up: here the turquoise picks go from right to left.
With this threading, tie-up and treadlings there will be some un-caught outer ends. If I haven't made a mistake (or two...) the longest selvedge float will be seven picks.

Is seven picks too much?

Well - for a, say, rug (or other coarse weave): yes, definitely.
But for something woven at some 30-40-50 ends/picks per inch? Being metric, I don't much care for "inching", but a free end at the selvedge being 1/2 to 3/4 of a centimetre is nothing much to me.
(It, of course, also depends on the end use of the cloth: if it is to be cut and sewn, the selvedges do not matter at all (coarse cloth or not).)

So, adding to the three "answers" above:
1. see what happens. IF an end doesn't get caught, ignore it.
2. IF an end doesn't get caught, and it annoys me (probably not, but anyway) - try starting the weft from the other side.
3. think about them before weaving (see above)
4. what is the fabric meant to be used for? IF for cutting and sewing, then selvedges usually are of no importance
5. what are the actual lengths of the "free" selvedge threads? Is it likely to catch?
6. (if I am hand-throwing: maybe catch the selvedge "manually" now and again - at the "points" of the top treadling)

This, my friends, is how I live without floating selvedges!

(Re point treadlings, see this post , which mainly is about making a "clean cut" when changing treadling direction.)

How to do a ”proper hem” (Swedish style)

(or, at least: this is how I learned it, when I was at weaving school)

Let’s start with an ordinary 2/2 twill: comparing the two faces, we see that the twill line goes in opposite directions.

Thus, if we just take the whole piece as is, and turn under, the reverse side with the hem at the bottom would look like this:

If, instead, we weave the hem part “opposite”, what we see on loom would be this:

And, with the hem turned, the reverse side has the twill line going the same way all over:

Going on to a 2-block twill – if the right side looks like this

the reverse looks like this

and therefore the hem part should be woven like this

Note the clean cut(s) between the hem part and the body. It is of no structural importance, but it looks much neater.

And, in parts of the world where the weaving police is active, it is a must!

In those parts, it is also of vital importance that the pattern on the 2-block hem is "correct" - and also that there are exactly the same number of picks on the two hems (of one hemmed piece - or, if one is presenting a stack of towels, for instance, the same # on all the hems).

How do I know? Because I was rejected from a (Hemslöjden) exhibition because there were not the same # of picks. The hems
measured the same, and the pattern matched, but that was less important...
(And no, the primary cause was not my uneven beating - I had used a relatively fat and uneven tow yarn... had I woven one more repeat it would perhaps have evened out. Or not)

Do I always plan/sew hems this way? No, and I even sew my hems with a machine. (Unless they are meant for a Hemslöjden exhibitions, of course.)



The same reasoning can be applied to other bindings (structures) as well.

Here is part of a profile draft for "cat tracks", with the hem at the top:

AHA - so that's why...!

Once I wanted to weave with paper yarn, and to that end used one of the old wooden reeds.

After a while, I noticed that the dents were not evenly spaced:

Yesterday I came across the doubleweave portion of Zielinski's "Master weaver" where one can get several suggestions as to how to handle the fold when weaving double width.

(Methinks the first idea is the best: "experiment")

Transcription of the marked section (click, and most might be readable):
"Another method is to have special reeds made with dents growing wider towards the fold. Such reeds of rather old vintage can be found in antique shops. The difficulty here is that regardless of the width of the woven fabric the fold must be always at the edge of the reed, which may result in weaving off the center of the loom, unless the reed can be shifted in the batten at will."

I found that an adorable suggestion, which also might have explained my "variable" wooden reed...
Except it doesn't, of course. The open part wasn't even near one end, and wasn't even near to be systematic, whatever that may mean. And no, there weren't dents missing/fallen out, 'cos they usually show...

Another V

For reasons to be revealed later in this post, I needed another smallish V shawl. (Given the size it perhaps should be called scarf?)

This one should be wool, and threaded to a point.
As usual, I wanted to use more colours than one, and I wanted to warp with four ends.

Being lazy, I looked at the yarns in the loom room (the rest are downstairs...) and found two nuances of turquoise. To add someting more, I also picked some green (the same nuance, this time).

So I warped with four ends – two of each nuance, added two stripes of green.
This means each warp loop holds 8 ends (4 “coming” and 4 “going”), which means the pre-sleying (using the reed I was going to weave with) was done with one loop in every other dent:
(remember that all pictures can be clicked for a bigger version)

The two nuances do not show in the pictures taken with flash. The next photo is not in focus, but the colours are more true.

I threaded the colours so that each layer had it’s own nuance. For the outer stripes, I reversed the colours. (As you can see from the picture above, this means that the ends withing each group of four can be "twisted" – but as four ends represent 1/4 of a cm, it is impossible even to see that "twist".) I then wove with the "opposite" nuance, making the body of the scarf "solid coloured", that colour consisting of both nuances.

The trick to weave double layers is that all the sheds have to be clear – here are two of them:

When you come to the joining/shaping, you have to cut the whole loop. In this instance, the cut loop gave me 8 loose ends. To cope with that, I first take all ends over the shafts and hold them with my left hand (I do the join from the right).
After opening the shed, I can tension the loose ends to make the shed clear.

The trick to get a good join is to make sure there is no draw-in.

As the web gets narrower, it is all too easy to beat too hard. Also, the tension easily gets tighter. So: make sure the tension does not get too tight (let it off some), and be very careful with the beat. The narrower it gets, the hardet it is to get the weft tension correct. But: it is always better to have loops at the join than to have draw-in.
The last few ends are almost impossible to weave with any kind of "correct" anything, but that can be fixed after it is cut off.

After having adjusted most of the irregularities, it looked like this:

Some plain-weave joins within reach of the camera:

A double-weave join can be seen here, the third picture down.

After wet finishing and pressing, parading on the steps on Spinnhuset:

Now this one, together with the tencel one, is on the way to Handweavers in London (UK), to promote/illustrate the V-book (also on the way to London).

The book (in English) can also be bought from Laura Fry (click on "store", then "Weave a V"). I have them too, both in Swedish and in English.

A maiden voyage: tencel, part 1

The three cones of tencel 8/2 had been sitting on a shelf for maybe 2 years.
Now I wanted to make a smallish V-shawl, and I thought maybe it was time to try this yarn. There has been lots of talk on the 'net, and maybe 2 years is a suitable ageing time - .

No way I was going to warp with just one end, but, at the same time - to make three spools of just a couple of meters each - so I just made one extra spool of each. And it linted... I noted also that the yarn had a low twist.

So I wound a warp of about 180 cm. The recommended sett was 20 ends per inch, which converts nicely to 8 ends per cm. Pre-sleyed, ready to "beam":

Beam, in quotes, because on my extra long loom a warp shorter than 2 1/2 metre will not reach the beam. There are ways to fix that, of course:

Threading a warp that is not stable takes some extra care, but is not really a problem. Threaded, sleyed and tied on - a few picks of each colour in the top layer, to determine which to use as weft:

Weaving the "arms" was quick and easy - but the warp felt somewhat dense. OTOH, tencel/rayon is slippery, so it probably would be OK. And, after all, the whole piece was to be seen as a sample, anyway. Interestingly, it linted less when weaving.

There is velvet

and then there is velvet...

Some time ago I wrote "when sewing velvet, there is no such thing as too many pins, or too much basting".
Little did I know.
In fact, I was Very Lucky with that velvet...

Now, this velvet... gets marked by pins, by basting, by tracing the pattern pieces...
Hand sewing is underrated anyway, right?
(Front piece just pinned to the dummy, which has a... Prominent Colour)

And a free tip: for ages and ages I have used these nuts to weigh down the paper pattern pieces (or whatever needs to be weighed down). Some time ago, I found one can buy special weights to use for this - and they are quite a bit pricier than are nuts from the hardware store...

Wider warp

After some thinking, I decided to weave a slightly wider tiger for the "best" lambskin.

Hanging in over sticky beam and beater to thread is not my favourite occupation, but it was only 40 (working) ends - one extra inch at each side. This is what it looks like at the back of the loom now:

This tiger will have a light yellow (tabby) weft - and the first one will get on the back of another, slightly smaller, lambskin.

Never travel naked!

In this case, never travel without sewing necessities.

I’ve been to a conferece with mainly female lecturers.
From the very beginning, talk was heard of how hopelessly "male" the design of today’s wireless microphones is – the little (well, not-always-so-little) transmitter needs to be put in a pocket, or fastened to something, to be hand-held (thus occupying one hand of the speaker) or to be placed on a table (thus reducing the speaker’s reach).

So this morning I presented the moderator with two transmitter bags – one fairly upscale (silk and golden cord):

... and the budget version (with silk pouch inside, to be visible):

My, er, "un-vention" (I mean, surely we have heard of small pouches, all of us?!?) got a lot of attention.

So now I have plans... watch this space!