And we're on to sleying. The sleying part is going much faster than threading and Cindie's loan of a 6 dent reed has been instrumental in that. It is much easier to pull 5 threads per dent than some other combination to reach 30 epi. While 924 ends is a lot for me, there are plenty of weavers that routinely do much more than that. Many of the wonderful projects in the Swedish weaving books I have has well over a 1000 fine threads. I'm going to try my hand at some pillow cases in 20/2 organic cotton I have at some point in the near future. Maybe a huck lace border.
We'll see!
I'm sleying like my Dad does.
He puts the reed down on two sticks run through the loom to rest on back and breast beam. It's easier in many ways than putting the reed in the beater. My only issue with his way, is I have to put the breast beam on since I need a level plan to rest the sticks front to back. This means I can't get into the loom as much as when I'm threading. In fact, with the height of this loom it's much easier to just stand to sley. I'm hoping to have it all ready for weaving by days end.
On other weaving news after MUCH trial and error I have found an easy way to write prayers on my fabric strips and pieces. A flat wood clipboard with a piece of fine sand paper works beautifully. The sand paper is not so textured as to bother my writing and
it holds the fabric from slipping and bunching under the pen's tip. It's made it all so nice to do this without hand cramp from holding the fabric spread and taunt. Faster too, which means I might even make my own weekend deadline of prayer flag completion!
For farm news, the storm that came in like a lion, left pretty much like a lamb. We garnered only about 5 inches and at that some was sleet. I'm not a wishy washy person about winter. It needs to either piss or get off the pot. I want cold, I want snow, I want frozen ground. I don't want nuisance snow that behaves like spring melt! Having said that though, I am taking full advantage of the warmer temps and getting Cooper out for a ride this morning. :-) He's itching for a ride and so am I. Fine weather or not the woods will be crawling with hunters for the long weekend. Why, I don't know, there hasn't been a deer track spied since mid October. I got a treat in the tracks department though. A fox has been through here, a couple of times. The track is very much like the cat tracks but a little different. A more oblong foot, a tad bigger and certainly single track. Since I have a number of cat tracks I can compare easily in the fresh snow. Among the other tracks noted was a rabbit moving from tree to tree where the ground stayed clear and a couple of little mouse tracks by some rocks in the back of the back yard. They are so so tiny. Once the snow starts to melt you lose them very quickly with snow falling from trees and making strange dents in the ground snow. I didn't breath a word of my discovery to Juno or Buzz!
7 comments:
Yay for warping progress!!! May I follow in your footsteps!
Interesting way of sleying. I'll have to try it sometime. I'm using a 6 dent reed right now and I love just being able to poke the fat yarn I'm using through it without a hook or anything. Too fun.
Fox tracks!! I love foxes. We see them almost as often as we see deer...and I love it! A few years ago when I was rehabbing my injured foot, I'd go on weird walks where I'd get a certain distance into the woods and turn around. It's amazing how often when I turned around, there would be a fox not too far behind us. I think they were fox pups from a litter that year who were still curious and not very fearful. So cute. (They would run off when they saw us approach, but sometimes they looked tempted to come play with Bailey instead.)
Have a fun ride!
Sue
Your storm sounds much like the one we had. We have a few foxes but I only see them early in the morning when I'm leaving for work. A deer had one of my new trees for lunch the other day!
interesting way to sley the reed. I can sley but I'm going to try this method next time to see if it's even faster! I've noticed over the past year that it's getting harder to see when I already have a thread in a dent - eyes must be getting old, having the reed in that position would probably make it really easy to see.
That's the way I sley too! I agree that it's much easier than leaving the reed in the beater. And faster. And so is sleying the same number of threads per dent.
I don't think you'd like the winters here. Too mild for snow and ice to last long but too damp and chilly to do anything outside.
The fox tracks are always welcome, and just wait all until you see pics of the tracks I found today!
I like sleying the reed this way, took a bit of getting use to but everything new does.
Leigh, No it doesn't sound like your winters would suit. Every year I try to talk Gene into a more Northeast ward move, like Maine by the Canadian border or the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont or, Northwest Wyoming, north of Buffalo New York...you get the picture.;-)gobs of snow, just gobs of it!
All your weaving news is info in another, unknown language to me. :-)
I'm enjoying the nice weather, too. Took Russell out for a road ride Saturday and yesterday. Yay!
I'm so excited watching the progress of your blanket. I love the colors. You were certainly a trouper threading those heddles - the reed will be a breeze!
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