The Joys of Learning to Weave…

On a Beka rigid heddle loom.

Warped six colors on warping board, each color in a separate warp.

Chained the warps, six, one for each color.

Put yarn in slots of heddle.

Lost cross on last bundle, spent one hour untangling the yarn and the chain made to prevent tangles.

Amazed at how tangled the yarn became in approximately two seconds. Wondered what branch of science studies tangles.

Went to Google and asked.

Mathematicians—some say Algebra with an overlap in physics. Articles on subject of tangling written with our alphabet but with three inch words made up during the math person’s nightmares. (aimed at giving me nightmares as Trig did)

Tangling articles quickly go on to discuss Knot Theory. Had no idea there was such a thing in Math as Knot Theory.

 Re-wound last color on warping board.

 Put all six warps through slots in heddle, warping back to front. (loom is on stand)

Moved yarn to holes in heddle and proceeded to start tying the half bows that tie the yarn to  the front  beam.

 Directions say to tie first and last inch of yarn with heddle in neutral. Beka has no neutral shed block but I c-clamped a block on each side for neutral block.

 Directions say to raise heddle to up shed block to tie on rest of yarn to front beam.

Heddle keeps falling over. No way that heddle is going to set securely on a half-inch up-shed block with just the first and last  groups of yarn tensioned and a frame that slants down toward me.

Decide to finish dressing loom on table.

Piece of cake. A place for heddle holder (table), table is level so heddle balances on up-shed block.

Decide to try to weave using the Beka Rigid Heddle Loom hooked on table edge as Betty Davenport does in the DVD I am following.

Each time I moved or squirmed, the whole shebang fell into my lap despite the forked ends that hooked on table.

Glad I had seen Jane Patrick DVD on weaving on rigid heddle because she advised tying overhand knots in unsecured threaded yarn—in case heddle drops (must be frequent occurrence), one does not lose ones threading. I had the knots.

Twice the heddle hung its head in shame dangling against the blessed  overhand knots.

Decided best to return Beka to its frame since I seem unable to glue myself to loom and table.

Have to carefully loosen the front and back beams to put Beka back on the stand.

Whole front beam unwinds and heddle swings against overhand knots like a kid at the playground, the rainbow warp providing a beautiful background. Again thankful for knots.

I put threads in correct slots on front beam again, tie them in half bows, check and tighten the warp and then tie the yarn in bow knots. (I was able to do this after c-clamping the heddle holders to the loom) Loom looks pretty with the six color wheel warps and pretty little bows .

Weaving commences. Can’t get balanced plain weave with the cotton and the rickety loom frame that comes toward me  with yarn when I try to beat more firmly, despite the leg weight packs I have on each side of the bottom floor beam of the frame.  (The Harp frame did the same thing  when I tried my sister’s, so don’t blame Beka) .

Selvedges look pretty good; thanks Ms Davenport for your tip. Pretty good looking for only my third try.

Some slubs appear  but I decide I can learn to deal with them later. This is a sampler to learn to use the Beka in the most rudimentary way for a beginning.

Still no balanced plain weave but still, two inches of red, orange and yellow each of weft on same colors of warp. Weaving looks like it has been under a lot of stress, but then, so have I.

Become concerned because some long threads showing in lap even though should be tied in pretty little bow-knots and hidden around the other side of the beam where I rolled them .

Decide to investigate.

Very carefully loosen front cloth beam and sampler  immediately rushes off of the beam like a kid leaving school on the first day of summer vacation.

Heddle again swinging in the park with six inches of color wheel colors as a background.

For the fourth time ( I never tell the entire story—married to a retired lawyer) I return the threads to the slots between the teeth of the Beka cloth beam. They don’t look straight but by now I could care less.

After some deep thought I add a strip of masking tape over the top of the teeth of the cloth beam and roll it back on and weaving recommences.

Phone rings. Daughter asking “What’s going on?” I reply, “I’m working with my loom and contemplating taking out a contract on  your Aunt Lynette who conned me into buying this loom.”

She asks a few clarifying  questions and says,  “So it really isn’t Aunt Lynette’s fault but you are going to blame her?”

“Absolutely,” I reply.”What are sisters for?”

Weaving recommences.
Phone rings. Above-mentioned sister on the line, roars with laughter at my story. Then tells me that I am doing it the hard way. She thinks her shaft looms are easier than working with a rigid heddle loom. Maybe I should consider getting a 4 shaft table loom? I hang up.

I go to kitchen and pour a relaxing libation and get out phone book.

Yellow pages…c-o-n-t-r-a-c-t-s…

It occurs to me that the above description is an example of perseverance. Well, I did say it is  my biggest talent. A glossary should be included for those who don’t weave, but I have had a busy day of learning from sampling in weaving,  so a brief explanation: warps are yarns wrapped in a way to prevent tangling and so one can thread them on the loom.   The weaver’ s cross is a series of crossed threads that enable the weaver to put the threads on in the order desired; Heddles? In a  rigid heddle loom, they are, well, rigid frames with slots and holes in them to hold the threads and to lift and lower certain threads so the weaver doesn’t have to go over and under each thread when weaving.  Want to know more? Go to Google, you’ll be surprised at the new world you will find if you type weaving (or tangles)into the search engine.

The earlier  statements aside, this loom is very powerful when used by someone who knows what she is doing. I am determined to learn to use it and I plan to push it as far as I can. I am in a rural area with no fellow weavers and no teacher.  I have no plans for a table loom…although…Nah.

P.S. The joke about the contract did not intimidate my sister…she just called to say she is coming all the way from Louisiana to help me with my Beka. She has one and likes it fine. I am sure she is convinced it is user error and it probably is. I welcome all the help I can get.

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