Heddles to the Right of Me, Heddles to the Left of Me...

    I'm doing that most dreaded of chores: moving heddles on Bertie.
    I am lazy. Laziness isn't a bad thing: I'm organized because I want to be as efficient as possible with my time and energy. Laziness also means that I want to spend my time and energy on things I like (throwing a shuttle), so things that aren't that are on a list that ranges from "dislike" to "absolutely hate." Things I dislike (but do) include warping and threading heddles--they're chores, but necessary for the reward of throwing a shuttle.
    At the top (or bottom) of the list is moving heddles. It doesn't matter what kind of heddles they are--flat steel; wire; inserted eye; or Texsolv--counting them out, bundling them up, then moving them is, in my opinion, a complete pain in the ass and something to be avoided whenever possible. I avoid moving heddles very often by being organized: I make sure there are enough heddles on each shaft to avoid running out, and I mark the center heddle on each shaft so I can balance the number of unused heddles on each side of each shaft.
     I will also state here and now that I loathe Texsolv heddles. (For those unfamiliar, Texsolv polyester heddles were invented to replace the string heddles used on a lot of Swedish looms.) I like metal heddles, especially inserted-eye heddles: they kind to the warp, easily slide on the heddle bars (especially when the bars are waxed), and it's easy to use a threading hook to flick them into position for threading. Texsolv does none of those things: they can abrade a delicate warp; they don't easily slide on the wood heddle sticks; and they're so floppy the only way they are easily threaded is one at a time with my fingers. Their only saving grace is that they're light as feathers, so the don't interfere with the shedding action on Bertie.
    When I got Bertie, I knew it was going to be difficult to determine an individual warp end having a problem with its assigned heddle, so I made the decision to "color code" the shafts. This is pretty common among weavers with many, many shaft looms, and solutions range from coloring individual heddles with Sharpie markers to painting them with diluted acrylic or fabric paints to dyeing them. Each has its drawbacks: Sharpie markers fade; acrylic and fabric paints flake when they get old; polyester requires special dyes. I knew where to get polyester dyes, so I ordered three colors of dye--purple; green; gold--and proceeded to sort and dye about 75% of Bertie's 4,000 heddles. The heddles dyed beautifully, and I got them resorted, bundled, and onto the shafts so I could do a decent amount of weaving last year.
    Fast-forward to 2019, and I am dealing with a warp that was becoming a "dog." Dog warps happen when something is seriously wrong with the design, the warp, or the loom, and they're awful--you don't want to weave off the warp because it's so much work, but you don't want to take the scissors to it. In this case, the dog is nearly 30 yards of white 8/2 cotton for weaving towels (484 ends), so I can't afford to scrap that much yarn, but I keep getting tiny random floats that ruin the cloth. I finally found the problem--the heddles shrank when I dyed them, leaving the undyed white heddles 7/16"/1.12cm longer than the dyed heddles. They're "sloppy," and get tangled around the adjacent shafts, causing the floats, then untangle when the adjacent shafts are raised. These random floats don't show up on broken twills and warps with matching wefts; on the other hand, they're really noticeable on my "bread and butter" towel warps. These are warps where I weave the same design in eight different colors, so the warp is a single color, but each towel is a different weft color. The designs also feature a lot of plainweave, so any imperfection stands out against that plain background.
    There's only one solution for this problem: treat the undyed heddles to the same conditions that caused the shrinkage in the dyed heddles. In other words, take all the undyed heddles off the loom, throw them in a pot with water (and a little Synthrapol), and simmer/boil them for 30-45 minutes. I tested my theory, then got to work fixing this problem. Since I have to take the heddles off the loom, this is an opportunity to thoroughly clean and oil the loom, update the Lenovo Yoga Laptop/Tablet that I use to run the dobby head, and reorganize the heddles to better take advantage of the shafts. Meanwhile, the warp--with the threading cross on a pair of lease sticks--is resting at the back of the loom until I'm ready to thread heddles again.

The Other Man: Bertie

Bertie, my AVL A-Series loom.

    There is another man in my life. He came into my life a little over a year ago, but our relationship is still in that tentative, "getting to know you" phase.
    Before anyone has a major freak-out, Bertie is a loom. A really big floor loom.
    About eighteen months ago, I realized I needed to replace Mongo, my much-loved 16-shaft Macomber loom. Mongo is a terrific loom, and I cranked out a lot of fabric on "him" (I anthropomorphize my big looms). However, Mongo is also completely mechanical. My Achilles tendons are mostly shot, and a lot of the joints in my ankles and feet look like pin cushions from osteoarthritis (I grow bone spurs), so treadling was really becoming a problem. I also wanted a dobby loom that could handle more complex drafts. I called AVL Looms in Chico (California), made an appointment, and went up there to "test drive" looms. I knew what I wanted: a 40-inch weaving width; computerized dobby head; assisted shaft-lifting; and 40 shafts. That describes an AVL-V-series loom to a "T," and that was what I was expecting to order.
    I spent nearly two hours talking to Bob Kruger, and trying out everything available that met my basic requirements. I couldn't try a V-Series, as the only one on the floor had just been picked up, but I tried the prototype K-Series and an A-Series that was on the floor. The K-Series was neat, but I didn't like the geometry and the Spousal Unit was concerned about it being new technology. However, the A-Series was a good fit, an established, proven design, and flexible enough to be modified to exactly what I wanted: 40-inch weaving width, 40 shafts, e-lift, two warp beams (one 1-yard; the other 1/2-yard; automated cloth advance. While I was at it, I also ordered a new tension box and the mounting track for it. I put down the deposit, then went home and sold Mongo.
    The new loom was ready in mid-August, and we went back up to Chico with the truck and picked up the loom. One of the nice things about AVL looms is that they are "flat-packed": the back of the truck was filled with fifteen boxes (the dobby head, in its box, went into the truck cab), and after we got it home, it was pretty easy to unload the boxes into the garage, then bring the loom up to the studio in small pieces. The very first box had the instructions for assembly: a 3-ring binder of about 200 pages of photos and directions. It took a while, but just like IKEA furniture, the loom went together with simple hand tools.
    A brand-new loom is not cheap, especially a big loom with a lot of bells and whistles. However, the "nearly perfect" loom is rather like a custom kitchen to a cook: you can live without it, but life is a lot easier with it. Bertie and I are still learning to work together to produce beautiful cloth, but we're making progress.
 

Taking Time Off

    I am officially taking 2019 "off." This isn't "I'm taking time off and doing other things," but "I'm taking time off from chasing the Almighty Buck."
    As a very small retail business, about 80% of my sales happen between Veterans Day (November 11) and Christmas. It's a lot of work: I need to make sure I have enough inventory, then it's three days of Open Studios, six subsequent Saturdays at Moschetti Coffee Company's Saturday Artisan's Market, and at least one Sunday art festival. Altogether, it's about 80 hours of packing, loading the car, unloading the car, setting up, tearing down, and (most importantly) selling, crammed into Fridays, Saturdays, and the occasional Sunday, with the remainder of each week spent producing more inventory, and getting ready for the holidays.
    In normal years, I start producing inventory early in the year so I have a good amount on hand by early November. Unfortunately, 2019 has not been "normal": I was away from the studio for much of the first half of 2019, and when I finally got back, the past two years finally caught up with me. I  simply couldn't find it within me to pick up a shuttle, or dye a skein. Meanwhile, the deadlines for different holiday events crept closer and closer. I worried over them, but I wasn't motivated to do anything.
    The turning point finally came in early October, when I formally gave myself permission to take the year off. I let everyone connected with different events know that I wouldn't be participating in 2019, and planned to do other things. We traveled a bit; I designed some new costumes; I put up a lot of preserves; and waited for my "mojo" to come back.
    It is coming back, albeit slowly. I dyed a bunch of skeins at the end of October; I planted flax and will be planting madder this week. I finished troubleshooting a couple problems on the current warp so it's ready to weave off. For the first time since 2015, I went to other people's studios and galleries this weekend for Open Studios. I had a good time, bought some original artwork (a piece of stained glass for the studio from a local artist), and scored a couple more tools from a fellow fiber artist. And I acknowledged that, even when I'm not actively producing cloth, I'm still focused on the artistic process. That warp will get woven off, and the next warp will go onto the loom and get woven off, and so on, but it will be for 2020.

NEWS FLASH!: The flax is up. 😀