Warps and beads

We had a busy day today. It was our first Certificate of Acheivement in handspinning study group meeting of 2015 and we decided to start as we mean to go on by....er.....doing hardly any spinning.

We played with my new fleece picker (The Claw), the woolcombs and the hackle, all homemade over the Christmas holidays by Mike. We also ate biscuits and cake and Swedish chocoloate sweeties. The woolcombs were pronounced useable but very heavy. the Claw was pronounced awesome, and the biscuits, cake and Swedish sweeties were pronounced very tasty.

Linda showed Mike how to wind and secure a warp chain, a skill that has so far eluded him. Mike has tangled up several warp chains, wasting a lot of wool and getting very grumpy indeed. Linda showed us that it really is surprisingly quick and easy. The trick, it turns out, is in the winding and tying up of the Weaver's Cross.

Winding a linen warp on the homemade board.

Once you have that secured, you just need a few ties along the length of the warp, then you can take it off the warping board and chain it (think crochet chain). Once chained it is compact and tangle-free.

We still don't know how to put the warp chain on the rigid heddle loom. I've looked on YouTube but all the videos for warping rigid heddle looms use the direct warping technique. I've found videos for warping four-shaft table looms. It seems to involve a few more sticks than our loom currently has, and quite a lot of string. Linda couldn't show us that part because we already have a warp on the loom. I guess it'll have to wait until our next study group meeting.

The only bit of proper spinning we managed was a beaded yarn. We threaded some little seed beads onto silk thread, then spun a Shetland single with the beaded silk thread wrapped round it. This gives you a sort of plied yarn, but one of the plies is already plied, so it has zero spin twist, while the other ply has spin twist. It seems to me that it breaks all the rules of spinning.

Silver beads on a silk thread, spun with a Shetland single.

It would look better if the Shetland were blue.I can see that this technique has all sorts of possibilities. Luckily my daughter is a bead hoarder so I have plenty to play with!