Threading with the AVL Cross Maker

I set out to thread a warp today on my 24S Glimakra but ran into problems. I had the threading cross on lease sticks suspended as usual  right behind the heddles. Note the cunning use of the snitch knot to get the lease sticks at the right height!

Normally reaching through the gap between the heddles (24 shafts worth of them) to pick up the next thread from the cross is fine but because I have slightly wrenched my shoulder playing tennis I found this tricky today.

My solution to the problem has been to move the threading cross to in front of the heddles. I have used the cross maker from my AVL warping wheel to act as a little set of lease sticks and the photograph shows the rather industrial way that I am holding it in place. The selected threads are easily slid of the ends of the sticks. I thread in blocks of four, selecting and grouping the correct heddles and then taking the threads off the cross. I still have to reach through to bring the threads into the correct position for threading but it this is much easier on the shoulder (and the eyes) than trying to get hold of threads that are 2 feet away.

I have a rubber band (not shown) that I put into place on the cross maker to hold the threads firmly in place. I put this on every time I get up from my sitting position which is the danger time for knocking things out of kilter. I take it off again when I am settled back down again and ready to resume threading.

The next photo shows the total set up. The ubiquitous milk crate ( I have seen a students bedsit completely furnished with these) is just the right height for a seat. The loom controller foot pedal is sitting on the knee beam and always remember to take your watch off before starting to thread.

I have a special threading draft that lifts each shaft in a block of four in turn. This is when I select the heddle. After I have threaded them I use the draft to lift all four shafts together so I can check that all is correct.

Threading the heddles on Big Block Blue Blanket

I have been away for a week in new Zealand (part business part pleasure)  so progress is slow. I think that I have to accept that this blanket is going to be for next winter. With that in mind I can take it nice and steady and have a couple of other projects going at the same time. Our weaving lessons start next week so I shall do what ever we will be learning on a table loom and keep on plugging away at his blanket at the same time.

Having finished beaming the warp I then had to insert the lease sticks. I am not sure if I am doing this in the most efficient manner but I picked up all the warp crosses (one for every section on the beam) with a netting shuttle and threaded a cord through them before trying to put in the lease sticks. I did it this way because I found that 5' lease sticks were a bit to unwieldy to insert directly into the crosses. The photo below shows the lease stick in place and the warp divided into 4 bundles (only three visible) ready for threading.

In preparation for this I took off the breast beam and the cloth beam. This presented more opportunities to do a bit of cleaning and polishing!


Threading is proving fairly easy as the blocks are large (120 ends each) so it is practical to tie up shafts 1 to 4 when I am threading shafts 5 to 8. The important thing is to sit at the right height so that I am not struggling to clearly see through from the first shaft to the lease sticks. Bi-focal glasses are proving to be a bit of a problem as when I glance up to the lease sticks I am looking through the long distance part of the lens. I might need to get special threading spectacles!

Counting heddles

Earlier I said that I had checked the heddles for this project. The statement was true but useless as the basis of any planning because what I had missed somewhere along the way is that there was a completely uneven distribution of heddles between the shafts.
So what I had to do was get all the rubbish of the castle, then remove the top of the castle, slide out the shafts and then remove and add heddles to get an even distribution.   I used cable ties to slide the heddles on and off the heddle support bars and there were no mishaps. Look at the build up of dust and fluff on the frame.

What took the time was that this exercise provided an opportunity to do several other maintenance tasks;

• Get the vacuum cleaner nozzle in amongst the jacks and lamms
• Clean and polish everything exposed by the removal of the shafts
• Lubricate the metal links between the lamms and the jacks
• Colour code and number the heddle support bars (for ease of threading)
• Clean the shafts
• Find a proper home for all the stuff that was on top of the castle

Beamed at last

The warp for the Big Block Blue Blanket is safely on at last. It took slightly longer than expected but it is done. The next task is to distribute the heddles evenly. As I am using the full width of the loom I can't have the spare heddles bunched up at the sides of the shafts, they must be spread out amongst the active heddles. I have been caught out by this one in the past on a table loom.

Texsolv Heddles are easy to put on!

I was not looking forward to putting extra texsolv heddles on my Ashford loom as the last time I put some on a loom it was on 24 shafts and it took a very long time.

As one tends do do nowadays when pondering on a problem, I did a google and came to this site, http://www.earthguild.com/products/weaving/texhed/rtexhed.htm, and it all become clear. You do not take off the ties on the bundles of heddles until after you have put them on the harness, so they all go on at once in three simple steps! I have been cutting the ties and putting them on one by one! Oh wa ta na Siam!

Flying shuttle on Nilart and not enough heddles on Ashford

Whilst cleaning my Nilart I decided to fit the flying shuttle beater. The fitting was no problem, but oh my gosh, do those shuttles go! The second picture shows the barricades of pillows that I had to put in place to catch the damn thing before it wreaked total havoc. Once I realised that the problem was that the cord was too loose and was deflecting the shuttle order was restored.

I was very tempted to put on a warp straight away so I could start using it but I was very good and stuck to my plans to work on the stitched double weave sampler.

 Before I do anything else I have to put on some more heddles; not my favourite task. I do feel that the manufacturers could have supplied just a few more to start off with. The draft that I am using has one layer threaded on shafts 7 and 8 whilst the other layer is spread between shafts 1 to 6, hence the discrepancy in heddle numbers. The same problem would have arisen if I had decided to do some Huck.