Experimenting

Last week I got all enthusiastic and decided I'd weave myself a tube cord and make it into a necklace with the leaf pendant dealies that Spoh sent me from Brisbane when she was there for Great Northern War. I decided to use four cards threaded with alternating colours of my leftover silk.

Here's a picture of my legs. I tied one end to my belt, and the other end to a little chair. I had to stabilise the chair with my feet.

I decided to turn four pickes forward, and four back, because I couldn't be bothered dealing with untwisting the warp. I ended up with a zigzaggy pattern. Here it's a bit uneven and spread out, but later I got into a rythm and it turned out quite nice and neat. It took a whole lot longer to finish the cord than I expected, and I ended up with quite a stiff cord. I think I'll go back to fingerloop braiding for cords, it's faster and I end up with a nicer feeling cord.

The other thing I finallly got around to doing was warping up my loom. I had my last exam yesterday, so now I'm completely free to start working on my projects. I've been pondering this band since I finished my belt, I want to brocade my leaf and words again, and experiment with twist-patterning. I also wanted to try continuous warping, which I did today. For a refresher on how continuous warping works, watch this video. I modified it a bit because I wanted to warp straight onto my loom rather than deal with transferring it to my loom. I got my loom out, and remembered this:

I've used sticky-backed felt in my clamp to hold the threads, but the glue isn't very good and it's been sliding off gradually. I can swap which way the top bit is facing, which is why it's all wibbly, but the bottom is just munted. I forgot I was going to buy more felt and replace this lot. OH WELL. I got some cups from the kitchen for my thread and set them up on the floor:

I'm using black #12 perle cotton because it's cheap and I want to experiment with a really fine warp. I put my loom on the table with a heavy bottle at each end, with the idea that I would go around the bottle at the clamp end (and around a straw which I would use to keep the threads organised once I removed the bottle), then I at the other end I'd zigzag through the teeth, but go around the bottle each time so I had extra to use for tensioning and tying. I decided to zigzag from on side of the loom to the other because REASONS. Actually, I forget why. At some point during my ponderings I decided starting in the middle and going around wouldn't work. Anyway, instead of the first card I dropped ending up in the middle of the pack, it ended up on the edge. So I got started and decided the lady in the video was LYING when she made the whole process look easy. I took me a while to get into a rythm and figure out how to hold my pack and stuff. Also this:

I was dropping cards and they were just hanging out wherever they felt like, instead of in a neat pack like the video. I guess this is because they weren't tensioned evenly, but it escapes me completely how you would tension as you go. Eventually I came up with a Brilliant Plan to solve this problem.

Ugh, blogger made my strings look weird. Anyway, this is my whole setup. I tied the cards together! I'd drop another four, then tie them in with the others, then drop another four etc. When I got to the end I slipped the sweet chilli sauce bottle out from the clamp end, leaving the strings around the straw, then rotated the straw 90 degrees and clamped the threads down. At the other end I slipped the mango cordial bottle out, and just held the loops in my hand before cutting them. I was left with what I usually have, individual cards threaded through the teeth, so all I had to do was tighten the tension and tie them up. Overall this method was a whole lot quicker, although I'm not sure that it was easier than threading each card individually. Also, when I went to flip cards and stuff to change the threading direction to how I want it, I found that the cards weren't all threaded in the same direction. Mostly they alternated S and Z, but there were also some randoms in there that didn't fit in any pattern. I guess some cards flipped while I was dropping them, but I honestly expected them all to be threaded in the same direction. Next time I'll pay attention to what happens to the deck as I loop it around the ends.

So my first attempt at continuous warp was a success! Now my loom is all warped up and ready for me to start weaving, and it only took about an hour from start to finish.