Loom Victory Lap and other activity

One seasonal thing I do is this:

The kitchen faces west, so the afternoon summer sun pours in, through the passthrough as you see, and glares in my eyes.

On the right you see the hallway with the same issue, the sun glaring on the flooring is blinding, so I have the door curtain in place. 

For the passthrough I put up this linen panel I dyed and painted and stamped years ago 

But I thought the hem could do with some help, and I'm making a braid with the lucet. This one was too thin and I started over with a sturdier yarn 

I'll stitch it across the hem, for a better finish and a nicer hang.  This makes the afternoon light softer and much easier to deal with.

I got into this while I was waiting for the loom repair to dry and cure. Which it did, and it's working.

You see it warped up, and I started learning a new to me weave pattern, a diamond twill. But I found I didn't have a chunky enough yarn for the pattern. It doesn't work unless it's chunky. 

So I started over and figured out the number of warp ends per inch, did a bit of back of an envelope work on the numbers and adapted another pattern, krokbragd or words to that effect, and put my narrowband experience to work. 

This is a kind of repeat floral pattern.

I'd set up the loom at 27 warp ends for the diamond thing, only needed 17 for the krokthing, so I assigned five each side as borders and I'm working the main design on the middle 17 warp ends. 

This flower like design is one I'd had in mind when I was originally thinking about narrowband weaving but didn't find anywhere. Now I realize I was in a different tradition. This is Norwegian, I think but not in the pattern band book, different weaving form.

So I may warp up the other, narrow band loom, at the same time and figure out this design to fit, to make a band. The design works like the Sweet William idea I've been fiddling about with. It's all good! 

I'm learning such a lot in the course of these attempts.  Also using up yarn that needs using.

About the ill fated Cowl That Broke the Loom, I decided to cut both my losses and my fringes, knotted them, washed and dried it and it came out pretty well.

It's short, and works like a shawl, in fact I'm wearing it now.  I might add a button and loop, we'll see. But it's staying here, not useful for the knitting ministry. 

So that's the Learning Workshop for the day.

I did stop to roast chicken dice and potatoes for lunch, then assembled a Three Bean Extravaganza for quite a few meals.

All the usual beans, with potatoes, celery, chives, red onions, in red wine vinegar with the usual salt and sugar and pepper. 

This will go well with roast chicken dice. Or most things.

A pretty accomplished day. I did spend part of the afternoon sleeping. 

Happy day everyone, do all the things and see what happens.

AARP, band joy, honesty and another loom looms

Another hot day, but rain is coming, good, despite my early morning water carrying, the plants are dry.

Early morning, the honesty flowers are developing seedpods. 

I'm going to have a great harvest this year after nothing for several years for my collection. And note the shadows on the fence, sun reflecting off the window and back, creating silhouettes.

Today's band adventure was a happy one, finally achieved a band with much better pattern definition, consistency and even selvedges, always a beginner's downfall.

 

This is the result of all the deadends I explored accidentally yesterday.  I'm really pleased with this because I knew how to fix it and make this work.  The sticking out ends get trimmed off when it's off the loom.

And there was another healthy thing online 

I did it and stayed awake and active for the whole hour, a big advance on last time when, you may remember, I fell asleep during the quiet meditation-with-birdsong break.

As usual the teaching was excellent, the technical support left a bit to be desired. This time the sound level was good, the lighting adequate. 

But whoever was pushing the buttons left me in the waiting room for nearly ten minutes. I was there well ahead of time, but missed the entire intro and she was well underway before they opened it for me. And maybe others too. 

What I got was very good, and sorted out my tired shoulders and back from the weaving, so me I am not on on the complaining, as one of HP's aides used to say.

And well, I did order that little loom with the easier heddle, largely because I found out something vital -- the way it's constructed, wing nuts connecting the parts, you're not limited to the length of the loom.

You can unscrew the end member, and clamp it as far as you want from the rest of the loom, to accommodate any length of warp.

Like this

See the further end,  with wing nuts? That can come off

 

and be clamped as far as you want the warp to be. Then you roll up the end plus warp threads back to the rest of the loom and fasten it on again. 

Then as you want to advance the warp you loosen it, turn the woven end to pull more warp into use, tighten again.

There's a method where you don't even take the bar off, just loosen it so you can rotate it and feed threads on in groups, then pull them to the other end of the loom, tighten and weave.

Cool. I'll try both. This is a game changer, and why didn't I think of it..

This loom is for different kinds of threads and projects from the bandweaver.  No end to my plans at this rate.

Happy day, and happy discoveries, everyone.