New project, we'll see how it unfolds.

doc henderson · January 24, 2025, 06:05:20 AM

Swamp, I have always been fascinated with the skein unwinder contraptions that expand to hold the yarn better than a grandchild. Have you ever made one of those? not sure if that is something you even use with a loom. My wife knits a bit. we have made bowls with a spiral groove in a side to let a ball of yarn unwind. Doc.

SwampDonkey · January 24, 2025, 08:27:57 AM

It's an umbrella swift, as you open it up it tightens the skein of yarn. It clamps to a table. Most of that yarn is for knitting. You can certainly weave with knitting yarns, but they are more elastic yarns which can be trouble when putting the yarn on the loom. No trouble if used on the shuttle to weave. If done carefully it will work as warp on the back roller. Weaving yarn is mostly on cones or spools, but silk weaving yarn comes as skeins, often not dyed. And some folks dye yarn and leave as 'chains' to sell to weavers. This is mainly because they measure it out on a device called a warping board, or a better mechanism is a warping reel that rotates. A board is stationary and slower. But a weaver will dye it or have it done for them. Often sold as 'kits'. Also there is a reel swift which has a squirrel cage reel up top and one on the bottom. To tighten it, wing nuts are loosened and you put distance between them. It stands on the floor.

I have used both of these types, made them. Umbrella swifts are simple to make, but they need to be light weight for winding off of and onto spools, pirns or quills that go in the shuttle being used to weave with. Too much friction or drag, makes some designs useless for weaving, but fine for knitting. There are a couple examples back a few pages in this thread. A reel swift needs to be on bearings. The one I built from an old text just has a 1/8" brass rod the cages rotate on. I've always planned to put mine on bearings, never got around to it.

I put most of my yarn onto the loom via a spool rack, tension box with counter and a beam with dividers (sections). The process is called sectional warping. Spools are wound off larger cones or spools, or spools purchased, but you need as many spools as you want the thread count to be in the reed. So if you want 30 ends to the inch, you need 30 spools. If you want 24 inches wide, sections are usually by the inch on the roller, you need 24 x the length of warp you'll be weaving off so you can fill each section, plus yarn loss from securing each section with knots, plus loom waste and % more for expected shrinkage when washed. Washing is the finishing process. There are various ways to get yarn in those sections, some do a section as a time off their warping board, some use a gadget called a warping wheel, which only needed one cone unless you have 2 or more colors. The longer the warp, the more efficient it is to use the spool rack and tension box. But if there are a lot of color changes, the wheel has an advantage. The colors may not land in the same spot in each section. If they simply alternate, that's no trouble at all for the spool rack method.

SwampDonkey · January 26, 2025, 02:40:41 PM

From top to bottom.

18 treadles
16 lower lamms
16 upper lamms
16 jacks
48 shaft bars, enough to make 24 shafts.

SwampDonkey · January 26, 2025, 05:07:56 PM

Mounted the treadles and lamms and jacks over head. With a long pin in place in the jacks, I'm tying up the lower lamms to the top holes of the jacks. The pin holds the jacks vertical, the longest end of a jack is past the fulcrum point of a rod they are mounted on.

SwampDonkey · January 28, 2025, 02:30:29 PM

16 shafts with heddles to thread yarn into. They will be distributed differently once the yarn is threaded, just depends on the path the yarn takes or which shaft it gets threaded in for the pattern. Got a project all figured up for a satin block design. That paper with the colors and numbers tells me the order each colored individual yarn lays in each section of the warp roller. I have to wind spools of yarn a measured yardage of each color so I can wind them on with a tension box that has a yardage counter. Each section of yarn gets tied in a couple groups onto that wooden rod below. Then the roller is turned and the section of yarn is wound according to the yardage with aid from the tension box with it's yardage counter. It has a set of combs in the box to spread the yarns, they wind on like a wide ribbon between section dividers, so the yarns don't slip out the edges. Those metal loops are the dividers.

SwampDonkey · March 15, 2025, 03:14:36 PM

I've got the 16 shaft upgrade completed. I was held up for pegs and cordage to tie everything up. I'm working on a satin weave. It's an 8 shaft satin, but 2 blocks, thus 16 shafts. Using color effect makes it look more complicated.