The longer I have put off writing this post the harder it has been to get started. I seem to have left it for too long. It is not that I haven’t been weaving, but a writing paralysis (or possibly a mix of procrastination and lack of discipline) have overtaken me. I have kept up to date with everyone else and enjoyed tales of summer, family visits and some wonderful weaving.
I will start with my heddle saga. As you are aware I have a 1950s Bergman 8 shaft loom. It has hundreds of string heddles which I guess are original. They are hand made and vary in size. I was attached to them as I felt they were true to the age of the loom, and because I have been very much a learner weaver and was just thrilled that I could produce lengths of cloth. I put up with the non-standardised, annoying bumpy sheds which I was living with. I re hung all my shafts, carefully measuring to get everything even, and balanced the lamms and treadles. I was able to use cord without splashing out on Tex-solv Eventually after seeking advice and putting decisions off I contacted Don Porritt up in Yorkshire who supplies all weaving needs and takes enormous care in making sure you get what you need. He sent me a sample heddle as he had not met a nine and a half heddle on a countermarch before and thought I had got the size wrong. I t was far too long and I bought 600 of the shorter ones. Now that I have got a selection fitted it makes the loom look so much more efficient. I have woven 3 scarves, nothing complicated but an opportunity to get the feel of Tex-solv. Wow…what a difference. Now I am putting on another bath mat as the first one skipped so many ends due to the uneven heddles and I want to get it correct this time.
The first thing I tried after spending ages threading the heddles onto the shafts was a wool warp. Not the most sensible plan but I loved the colours and conveniently forgot about problems with knitting wool. I managed 3 scarves one tabby, and two twill. The tabby worked OK but I really wanted the warp stripes to show and the twill covered then up. However the heddles were so wonderful…….never take good heddles for granted. I even enjoy looking at them, all hanging neatly, all tense, all perfect. They deserve better than a soggy wool warp. Of course it streatched, not at first but gradually so that by the last scarf it was almost unweavable.
This wool was bought for machine knitting and though some of the colours the blues and the purple would have been passable , the greens were extremely elastic and it was difficult to find an even tension across the warp.
I also miscalculated the epi and the twill diagonal is too shallow. never mind this was more about new heddles and the scarves will keep me warm in the winter!!!!!
I have continued scouring the countryside for plants which will give up their colour I have tried stinging nettles and scraped a lot of lichen off a fallen oak but it only produced a brown derived from the bark and the thin layer of soil which the lichen was attached to.
I am quite attached to my growing pile of handspun so I have proudly placed the skeins dyed with stinging nettle on the top!!
Apparantly if I had soaked them in the dye pot over night I would have got a greener shade, so I am inclined to have another go.
I had a hip replacement last year and though the pain has gone I am still not walking as well as I would like. I am having difficulty keeping my pelvis leval. It drops on the affected side. I have been going to a physio which has improved things but I felt something was amiss. I saw the Consultant three days ago and he said he was sorry but the nerve supply to two inner muscles protecting the hip joint, gluteus medius and gluteus minimus have obviously been damaged during surgery and he feels that they probably wont improve and that I will need to continue walking with my stick. This happens to about 1% of hip patients. Before surgery he explained possible problems and side effects and I signed a bit of paper agreeing that I was happy with the risk.. I was sure that it wouldn’t happen to me!!!! In a way I’m glad he has recognised the problem as 6 months ago he was telling me to keep on with the exercises. When I get tired I limp and this gives me back ache……but I will carry on with physio and strengthen the muscles that are OK.
Rather than hang around I will get this posted and then hopefully get pulled along in the slipstream of everyone else.
So glad to see you back at the loom! I too understand how fixing the heddles made all the difference; I struggled with a huge Norwegian countermarche for years and it never felt right to me. It was always such a struggle to get anything done and spending time at the loom made me ache. A much smaller loom was the answer for a very small me…. still love my countermarche and have the same number of shafts, but in a much smaller size.
I’m so sorry to hear of the hip problems. Would it help to prop up the side that’s affected by sitting on a piece of slanted foam (while weaving)? I wonder if you could get some relief via acupuncture…
Oh, your replacement of heddles is inspiring me. I haven’t woven any fine threads on my Bergman yet, so perhaps when I get to that point, I’ll have to follow in your footsteps! The new ones really do look lovely on your loom.
I know what you mean about putting off blog posting! I have at least a dozen different drafts languishing in various stages of incompletion, but as something new always comes along, there never seems to be any time to resurrect them.
Love the skeins of yarn — dyes from nature look so — natural — together!
I’m interested and delighted to see how much difference the new heddles have made – and to hear how helpful Don Porritt was. I like your scarf colours, if everything we wove was by luck perfect first time, how would we learn?
I have had superb strong colours from nettles, not at all like your skeins, one of the best dye plants I have used. The colours you have here look more like some of the paler results I’ve got from dock. Maybe the best colours are from spring and early summer plants?
I’m sorry that you are stuck with the results of damage during the hip operation. We have such high expectations of modern surgery, and yet it is a very skilled art, especially replacing major joints.
I’m so happy you are getting to experience fresh heddles. I can see how the wool warp might have been a pain, but the colors are great. “Soggy” is good word for how some yarn behaves.
On my monitor the stinging nettle is sort of a coffee with milk color. Was that surprising? The nettle teas I’ve had were green, green, green.
It’s really, really too bad about the hip. What news to get. I guess the 1 percent has to come from somewhere. As a fellow uneven-pelvis person (leg length in my case), I know about the back aches you can get from being off kilter. I use epsom salt baths and arnica and occasionally a super gentle chiropractor when things flare up.
Also, is it encouraging to say that I’ve known a lot of doctors who turned out to be wrong?
It’s always a treat when you post an entry, but weaving is better than blogging! Have fun with the bath mat.
I know what you mean about a long silence making it hard to break silence. I’m in the same situation. But i will write another post soon!
You are making me rethink my decision not to get the Texsolv heddles. I don’t have the differing length problem you have, but I dislike the noisy metal ones I have. I feel like they are not nice enough to my warp.
It’s great to have you back blogging!
I had a hip replacement in 2001 and physiotherapy and massage treatments really helped me. I also did excercises in a warm swimming pool.
There is a web site: http://www.totallyhip.org and it all about information for patients pre and post surgery. There may be information there that ca be useful for you.
Cheerio, Susan