Keeping Track – it’s as simple as your A, B, C’s, but let’s reverse it!
I am starting to weave a summer and winter coverlet. I was inspired by reading Carol Strickler’s American Woven Coverlets.
I am working with 1080 warp threads. The design is a snowball and ring and pine tree, repeated three times for this panel, which is 45 inches wide in the reed. I prefer to have my draft paper document the entire threading pattern. In this case I have reproduced the draft and printed it so that it depicts each of the warp threads as they are threaded in the heddles of the 8 shafts. I print the draft on standard letter size paper so that it fits on the cylinder and is easily read. This results in a very long strip, in this case 20 feet.
Not to oversimplify, but it is as easy as your A-B-Cs or in this case your C-B-As.
The “C”
I put one end of the long paper threading draft, on the Weaver’s Perfect Memory cylinder, which is sitting, on its side, on top of the shafts of my LeClerc.
The “B”
To control this long strip of paper, I wrap the other end of the paper draft around the ball winder and attach this tool, upside down, to the castle of my loom. As I thread, I rotate the cylinder so that the vertical pointer marks the next thread. The paper draft easily unwinds from the ball winder, as I rotate the cylinder of the Weaver’s Perfect Memory.
THE “A”
I hang the weaving pattern repeat abacus on the horizontal bar of the shaft closest to me. I am using the abacus so that I can keep track of the repeats in the draft. For example, I have to repeat 9 times the 1-3-2-3 pattern. The abacus has 11 beads. I move each bead to the left as I complete a set within the repeat. Of course, I always double-check, before moving on to the next sequence.
In this picture, I have secured the Weaver’s Perfect Memory so that it sits on top of the Loom Ledge, with the pins of the Loom Ledge nestled on the shafts of my LeClerc. The pins in the Loom Ledge keep the Weaver’s Perfect Memory from shifting position.
Send me a note; I’d love to hear how you adapt your weaving tools to keep track when you are threading the heddles.
