Thursday's Child

Monday's child is fair of face;
Tuesday's child is full of grace;
Wednesday's child is full of woe;
Thursday's child has far to go;
Friday's child is loving and giving.
Saturday's child works hard for a living.
But the child that is born on the Sabbath Day,
Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.

I had that rhyme in a Mother Goose book as a girl, and I was born on a Thursday.  (Everyone out there is now shouting 'OF COURSE YOU WERE!!')

For example: Since I have this new lovely loom, and I finished Debbie Redding Chandler's recommended beginner sampler, and I went to weaver's guild on Saturday and we had a program on design, I'm now jonesing to weave off the rest of the warp that came on the loom and simultaneously figure out how to warp it for a double-woven shawl project.  I need the shawl ASAP, because it's getting cooler, and I just traded away my too-heavy Russian wool cloak.  Of course, to start a weaving project I absolutely need:

1. To figure out what yarn I'm going to use for warp and weft.  I have these narrowed down; but need to weigh and find out how much I have, and also cut a couple yards and mock up a color sample.
2. A warping board.  Bought it off Ebay, who knows when it's coming.  It's capable of 4.5 yard-long warps.
3. A wider reed (the one that came with the loom is only 15", though it's a 12-dent reed - my loom can weave 27"), and narrow sleying hook - Will order these today.

I also bid on:

1. A nice wooden boat shuttle from Ebay, but I won't find out if I got it until this afternoon.  I got a boat shuttle from the loom seller, and I much prefer it to the stick shuttles I have.  I need two, at least for now.  And I'd always like more...

In the meantime, there's a couple more yards of 1-2-3-4 threaded warp on the loom, and I have some trash yarn for weft, so I want to play.  Fortunately, at guild someone mentioned handweaving.net, which is an archive of weaving drafts.  You can search by types of weaves, books archived, languages of the books, and limit your search to the number of shafts or treadles your loom has.   It returns small clear images that allow you to see at a glance, 'ah, there's a 1-2-3-4 threading, that's a nice weave'.  So perhaps when I get back from this weekend, I'll have a chance to do that UNTIL my warping board and reed come in.

Though there's work to do in the garden, too...

UPDATE: Does anyone (Ann?) have tips about keeping many different colors/strands of warp untangled from warping board to loom?  This is something I'm pondering at night - how do you make sure one 4.5 yard piece goes in the right spot?  Maybe you put in all the strands of each color at a time?  Or is this one of those instances where you sley and thread the ends as they need to go, crossing as needed, and the crosses comb out when you beam the warp?  I need to watch that part of the DVD again.

Comments

[Ann Durham]

Which direction will you be warping--front to back (where you sley it through the reed first, then the heddles, and then on to the back beam, or back to front (where you wind it on the back beam first, then through the heddles, and then sley the reed?

[Juicy Couture]

I had this website saved a while in the past but my computer crashed.