Wow! Time flies when one is having fun…
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| My White Christmas – Pelicans |
I’ve had a great time here visiting with friends, Jim & Bev, who were once neighbors around the corner in Arco Felice, Napoli, Italia. Tons of wonderful memories with these folks. We gotten into some lively conversations on all kinds of subjects and all end with a handshake of sorts. Wish all were like this… Its been awesome to spend some time with them. Christmas was spent at their house, with a couple of additions – their daughter Mandy and one of Jim’s brothers – to make quite an enjoyable day. Food was excellent as well. I gifted a bottle of Amaretto and surprise surprise, I was gifted a new skillet.
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| Christmas 2013 |
Besides a lovely tree, part of Bev’s Santa collection, don’t know if you can see well enough the shadow box on floor in front of Santa’s as well as a billboard (for lack of a better word) behind the tree. They have been collecting for years – pins from Disney World. Beautiful collections, but I’m rather enamored with their pictures hung on the wall, not seen here. They (Disney) have taken a theme, such as Lion’s King, and incorporated the pins (enamel like pins) into a paintings. Bright, colorful and fun fun to look at and dream. Its truly a fun house to explore. They are also, Star Trekkies – via Star Trek conventions, she has acquired signatures galore – Wow! Fun way to spend the holidays. Thanks Jim & Bev – fabulous host and hostess and good friends.
Two days ago, I got moved within the park to the front row – front row in which to watch all the ship traffic without anyone in front of you and be blasted by the winds. I’m only in this spot until the 1st and I will be moved once again. Who knows where, but it will be for one week only and then I have to leave the park, as my 28 days will be done. I could come back after 5 days and start this all over again, but I think I’m moving on.
So I’m busy working on my loom. I wanted to share a few pictures on how I “dress” the loom. There are a variety of ways it can be done, but due to storage restraints and/or room to work, I have chosen my AVL Warping Wheel vs other methods. Its broken down each time I’m finished with it, as its too big to leave together when not being used. Its truly a tight fit, but I am delighted it works.
So what is the reason for this Warping wheel? Its one of two methods used in sectional warping – look at last photo below, those are “sections” between pegs, on my loom each section is just shy of 2 inches. Warp is the length wise threads in any given fabric. Weft is from selvage to selvage and is when I will “weave”. More on that later. For right now, one must put the warp on the loom.
One needs to calculate yardage of each yarn/thread should be for any given project, shrinkage, take-up and how many threads/yarn per inch. That’s putting that in a very simplistic format. The warping wheel, which is not shown in full in these pictures, allows me to measure, play with color arrangements, and place yarn straight onto the back beam. Its does more, but am trying to keep this simple.
So on this first image. I have completed the measuring and am just about ready to add to the back beam, the c-clamps, and velcro tape helps the yarn to behave itself as I put this on under tension.
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| Warping wheel / loom |
This second photo shows I have attached the yarn to one section of the ties on the back beam. I have made the ties the length of my loom waste – which allows me to weave the majority of the warp without waste. Waste is sometimes used as fringe, scrapbooking and to make flies for fly fisherman, so its not really wasted, but that is what it is called. This warp, black cotton, will be yardage is for friend Carol, who plans to make a vest out of this yardage. Loom waste is the part of the loom that’s never woven, such as behind the heddles. We weave the cloth before and what’s left back there is not woven – hence loom waste. The ties brings the warp right up to the heddles,
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| Attaching to ties |
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| One section tied on and secure |
This one section is now done and I have 12 more sections to do, then I will thread the heddles. I will show more photos as I push thru this.
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Woven Trails 
Hi Melinda,
Sounds like you had a nice Christmas. Good friends are a treasure. I would go crazy working on a loom in such a small space. I am knitting a lace shawl and can sit outside in the sunshine with it. I am now at Quartzsite, the only LD so far in the area where I was told the group will be. I saw one other LD a little further to the west, a blue 23.5 FD with a VW bug toad. I like it here a lot and may stay here for a couple of months. My cat died last week and I buried him in the desert near Yuma. He was over 20-1/2 years old and had been with me over 19 years.
I wish you a great New Year!
Cheers,
Ilse
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Good friends are indeed a real treasure.. But no, you would not go crazy weaving on the loom – I've got plenty of room to do that, its the getting the warp on that's a doozy in small places. Roger will most likely be the next person you see – think he said he would be there on the 4th, but you ought to go say hi to the other LD – it might be Annie & her husband..Great people! I enjoyed camping at Q too. Did you find the dump station and the water yet? Am so sad to hear the loss of your cat, one of the most difficult things is saying goodbye to our animals. Hugs to you.
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