For the past three years in Journey to Bethlehem at Journey of Faith, I have been trying, without success (for various reasons), to have a working warp-weighted loom in operation. Every year, I leave the steps I accomplished the previous year as intact as possible and roll up the project and dismantle the loom. (Yes, I know it's bad for the project, just deal with it, okay?) I have to be home when my kids get out of school, so I can only work on it in the mornings.
So, yesterday, Monday, I went up to church to check on the wool box and put the loom up. The wool box was fine--no moths! Yayyyy! I put together the loom. Thanks to Ron, it is all properly bolted down so it won't list from side to side.
I lashed the warp to the beam and untangled it. The loom is very wide, so I got someone else to hold the spacer cord on the one side, while I tied the other side to the uprights so it would be stretched out evenly and match the front warp. Thank you man with the cut on the head!
That was yesterday.
Today, I got the weights attached. Well, some of them, anyway. I need to make about 10 more. I figured out I need about 5 to 6 ounces for every 10 strings to make the warp hang straight. That's with this particular warp. The weights I made a few years ago are about one ounce per clay donut and a couple of them have broken. I am hanging about 5 donuts together from the warps.
I started to attach the back threads to the heddle rod, but realized that the weights needed to be fixed first, since one weight on 10 strings wasn't working.
Tomorrow, I plan to attach the new weights and, finish attaching the heddles and it will be ready to weave on Thursday.
I have to take my kids to Joann's to get more clay--how fortunate that my 6th grader has decided to do canopic jars for a social studies project!
More tomorrow.
Audrey
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