9 Jul 2014

Grrrrrr

10

Well, I got to the loom on Monday morning and immediately ran into problems: I was getting long warp floats on the bottom layer. Like this one, only longer.

unwanted warp float

My first thought was that one or two shafts had got tangled together – this is one of the Megado’s besetting sins, as the cords for the shafts easily slip into the wrong grooves when you are shoving them about during threading. So I checked the cords but nope, they were all as they should be. There seemed to be no loose heddles or other detritus snagging anything either.

I did wonder about a threading error (though it would have been a surprisingly consistent one) but that checked out fine as well.

Was I muddling up the treadling? I untreadled and unwove to have another go. And then again. Still getting floats. I couldn’t trace all of the individual ends very easily, but my ‘spot checks’ on a few of them showed that they were all on shaft 8.

By this time I reckoned I must have narrowed it down to the pegplan. A wrong or missing peg must be the culprit. Well, I checked and checked and checked again: the pegs were all absolutely fine.

I gave up in disgust. I had a bunch of other work to do and deadlines approaching, so yesterday I worked at home and ignored the whole thing.

The fact that the error was underneath was driving me nuts, so I decided that I had better invert the pegplan to investigate further. At least if the floats were on the top I would be able to catch them as they were happening without falling off the bench. I got another set of lags, pegged up the opposite lifts and started again.

I wove very cautiously, checking underneath every few picks, for about an hour. It was perfect. Not a float to be seen. What???

I made a cup of tea. I decided to count my blessings and carry on weaving, setting the mystery aside for now.

finally weaving lambswool graffiti

I had to pack up early (for yet another dental appointment) and, as I put my shoes back on, I looked at the first set of lags. And suddenly my mistake was blindingly obvious. A run of six empty holes for shaft 8. I had pegged 10-12-14-16 instead of 8-10-12-14. See it?

pegging error

I am relieved to have found it. I wasn’t really comfortable with the working weave while I didn’t know what had made it NOT work. Now I can enjoy the weaving and the test match.

“Grrrrrr” was posted by Cally on 9 July 2014 at http://callybooker.co.uk

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10 Responses

  1. Laura
    |

    I have done the very same thing. It is line editing, the mind sees what it wants to see. :-/

  2. Sampling
    |

    I am glad you found the problem. The weaving looks beautiful!

  3. Sandra Rude
    |

    Okay, so join the club. I once wove an entire silk scarf, on the back side of which there were regular 14-thread floats. Oops. A missing pixel or two in the tie-up. That scarf became lining for something else. At least, you found and fixed yours promptly! Frustrating, but not as much as wasting 2 yards of fine hand-dyed silk cloth.

  4. Geomar
    |

    Oops! But at least you found it early.

    Hello. 🙂 I seem to be finding spare time in front of a computer again!

  5. Jem
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    Hello-is that J C Rennie yarn?

  6. Jem
    |

    I wondered if it was when you said you’d been waiting for an order…mine finally arrived last week after a seven week wait!