John writes: <<set of belly bands for a ger>>
What on earth is that?!?! OK, just googled it--something that helps keep a yurt up? (and an unusually interesting and funny bunch of links came up with searching "belly band ger" :) Your shawls look very well woven--I hope the recipients appreciate the work! Those selvages are impressive! The 'gift for a friend' piece looks very nice too--want to tell us something about it? <<I chose a cotton warp for strength and an acrylic weft because of the cost. I'm about 10 inches into the first one and I'm already having issues. I used warp sticks for the first time to try to keep the tension even and it is worse than any other weaving I've done.>> I've written something about beaming a good warp below. For the moment, though, some thoughts on using warp sticks (my personal preference for warp separators). First, are they sturdy enough? If they're too flimsy--and this includes some wooden sticks--then they will bend at the edges, causing your selvages to be tighter than the center. In that case, put some extra sticks through the floppy part, and plan to weight a stick when the tension is loose enough that you would have to stack several. The sturdiness particularly applies to the recently-popular venentian blind slats. I do use slats on longer warps, but I support them regularly with sturdy sticks wound in. My favorite warp sticks are about 3/8 of an inch thick. Of course, with that kind of thickness, the warp package on the beam might easily be too thick! So I intersperse with thinner sticks and the venetian blinds. Paper: some people like paper. I don't--I find it flimsy and hard to get on exactly straight. Kati has, though, convinced me that wallpaper can work, at least for warps narrower than the paper you have, and she says the adhesive on prepasted wallpaper has never stuck to her warp. She recommends looking for it at resale shops. Next, did you put the sticks in in STRAIGHT? If they are crooked, it can be almost worse than using no sticks at all. Lastly, did you stack them exactly one on another? If so, they will 'topple' over as you advance your warp (sometimes while you're beaming, too), causing new problems. I don't stack one stick over another more than two times, then I shift all the next round of sticks a bit. I also put in a few more sticks as the diameter of the warp package increases. <<I've already unwoven the whole thing once (at 2 inches) to retie and try to even it out and still, every time I advance the fabric the tension is completely off. >> More details? Is the fell wavy across the whole width, or is one side 'smiling' while the rest is flat, or are both the sides 'smiling' or 'frowning' when the center is under good tension, or something else? Each type of tension problem suggests a slightly different cause, and may have different solutions while on the loom and preventions before your next project. <<Anyone have any suggestions for how to adjust uneven tension after you've already started weaving?>> Well, I've been known to take the entire warp off and rebeam :) Sometimes that's the best thing to do. In the case of a long warp like yours, I would definitely lean toward rebeaming. The longer the warp, the more the tension issues multiply as you weave. I wrote about this fairly recently on Fibernet--I'll find the email and paste it into a separate response. It would help to know how you beamed your warp to start with. Did you sley, thread, tie onto the apron rod, then beam? (Front to Back method) Or did you beam, then thread, sley, tie-on? (Back to Front method) I was taught F2B when I started weaving, but pretty soon found it was quite a challenge to get a good warp on that way. Reading issues of Handwoven (back in the late 80s) I saw the B2F and tried it, and that helped a lot. Some people claim it needs lots of special equipment. The basics are just lease sticks and a raddle--explained below. Now I still use B2F for every warp, but I also use the trapeze method developed by Kati Meek. Using a trapeze, I can beam a 25.5 yard warp in 3 hours entirely by myself. And not have a crushing headache afterwards :) Briefly, at its simplest, she hangs the warp from something (I used a wooden bar hung from the ceiling for a time) and puts weights on the warp to keep it perfectly tensioned throughout beaming. Threads that are under tension can't tangle, nor, if they're tensioned properly, can they wind on the beam at different tensions, causing weaving problems later. Today Kati uses a wooden framework that clamps to the loom as her 'trapeze'. My dh built one for me out of scrap wood and a few bolts, in a couple hours, and I've used it on 7 or 8 different looms at this point because of its flexibility, including doing several public demos of using the trapeze to beam with. I highly recommend anyone who is intrigued to buy her book, _Warp with a Trapeze_. It's truly the best $20 I ever spent on a book for my studio--not only does it give full instructions for the trapeze, but it also explains how to set up live-weight tensioning on your loom (you'll never bother with a friction brake again), and so many good weaving tips that I was amazed at what this little book covers. If you can't find it at your LWS, you can order it directly from Kati (she self-published it). Email me privately <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> and I'll send her contact info. To try the method, though, all you really need to do is use the loom itself as the trapeze. It's not ideal, because you have to move the weights very frequently. But it will still beam that warp better than any other method that doesn't use a hung bar or clamped trapeze. With a new-wound warp (this won't work with one that's been taken off due to problems--see more below), to use the trapeze, here's the basics: Wind your warp in two equal sections (possibly more sections if your warp will be, say, 24" wide or wider, or is very long relative to the warping board or mill you're using--I've done up to 4 sections). Make sure you have two crosses in each section (this hasn't anything to do with the trapeze, it's just good sense--fast and easy to do, and provides a backup in case you lose one--yes, I've lost one, one time, and that was enough to convince me that two crosses are essential!). Make choke ties at 1- or 2-yard intervals before you take your warp off the mill or board. What's a choke tie? It's a heavy string, regular shoelace, or something similar, tied very very tightly around the whole warp--as tightly as you can. I used to use a bow-knot; I now use Kati's method: Drape the string over the warp; pass the ends under and bring them back to the top; tie a surgeon's knot, which is like the beginning of a bow knot (twist one end over and under the other end) but then add one more twist. Pull very tightly--all your strength tightly--and you're done. This keeps all those ends in order--you can pull on individual threads of the warp and they won't shift, keeping the perfect alignment you created on the warping board or mill. You can cut one end of your warp if desired, or leave the loops intact on both ends. I cut one end because it's easier with my mill, but Kati frowns on that :) As you take it off the warping device, DON'T chain it. Instead, feed it into a grocery bag or something similar, which will protect your warp and keep it clean until it's beamed. Attach the end of your warp that has uncut loops to your back apron rod. On my loom, that just means sliding the rod through the loops, inserting the cords that hold it to the beam at intervals. Some people prefer some sort of lashing method, which works too. Put lease sticks through your back cross by the loops. I like dowels for lease sticks, they don't flop around like dying fish the way flat lease sticks do. I like to hang the lease sticks from cords attached to the castle of my loom, positioned to be about half-way between the castle and the back beam. I have strings attached to the back of the castle for the purpose; I pass the string through the holes at the end of the dowels, and then wrap the end of the string around several times, then tuck the end between the ends of the dowels--fast and easy, no knots to mess with. Then put one-inch bouts (groups) of warp into a raddle, which I attach to the castle of my loom. To make a raddle: Drive finishing nails into a piece of 1x1 lumber or something similar, at one-inch intervals. Not too tough a job :) You can build a 'cap' out of another piece of 1 x 1, which is handy to keep the warp between the nails, or you can 'cap' them off by using heavy rubber bands stretched around several nails at a time. You can clamp, or simply use heavy string, to attach the raddle to your loom. Without a trapeze, you now drape the warp over the breast beam and onto the floor, still in its bags. With a trapeze, you would pass the bags over the bar, and then set them on the floor. Now you need to weight each half of the warp. Remember: This keeps every thread under tension while beaming so you don't have to have another person helping, and none of the yarn (if your warp was well-wound to start with) will tangle. Tie a slip knot in the whole bundle of warp ends coming out of one bag. Put a hook of some sort--Kati recomends bike hooks that go over a rafter--through the loop of the slip knot, and then hang a weight over that. I have athletic weights (Kati warns you must weigh the weights--she's found they can vary by several ounces from what the weights say they are), or you can use milk jugs with exactly the same amount of water in each, or any other two items that can be adjusted to nearly exactly the same weight. Now, start winding on your warp--but wait--there's some ends tangling as they go into the raddle (unlikely) or through the lease sticks (more likely). What you do now is what Kati calls 'spanking' your warp. Get a heavy stick that's long enough to reach across the full width of your warp. Smack the warp with it everywhere it's exposed. Between lease sticks and back beam, between lease sticks and raddle, between raddle and the bar or breast beam. And give it some muscle! Take out the frustration of every bad warp you've ever had to mess with! This vibrates the threads so that potential tangles are shaken out before they become a problem. You need to do this fairly frequently, several times between choke ties. Also, make sure the choke ties are removed when they approach the trapeze or breast beam if you don't have a trapeze. Of course, insert your warp sticks as you beam. If you're short sticks enough to do a longish warp, you can go 1 or 2 turns without sticks, without a problem, at least with cotton warps. More than that is asking for trouble (though I've done 3 turns without sticks once or twice with really long warps). If using something flimsy like bendy wood or venetian blinds, definitely support the flimsy rounds with heavier wood. And of course, make sure your sticks are long enough that the warp threads positively won't fall off their ends. When you get to the end of the warp, if you're using a real trapeze, you then tie cords to the end, and these become 'warp extenders' to which you can attach the weights (slip knots just like before) in order to continue beaming until your warp end is in a convenient place to stop for threading. If using the breast beam as a trapeze, by the time your warp ends can't be weighted any more, you can beam the last bit without tension. Then thread (remove breast beam and beater if at all possible, and sit on a chair over your treadles), sley, and tie-on, very comfortably and quickly. This is long, and I know it sounds very involved. It's MUCH easier than it sounds, and MUCH MUCH easier than rebeaming because of tension problems. Now to go find the other post about rebeaming a bad warp... Holly
