Head Shots

 Thunder the little (pain in the arse) mule!

 Annie the old lady!

 Scout the pony!

Sirocco the Curious George of the bunch!

You will have to forgive us but  mom hasn't groomed us in a while.   She gets a little lazy in the winter months!  Now that it is mud season, she seems to really want to avoid us!  The farm hasn't changed much.  We have learned that we will be getting more chicks in a couple of months and they are going to kick the old hens out of the hen house and we will get to chase them around our pasture!   We still have the steers that we have to listen to when they get hungry, but I hear that we only have to put up with them for another year, I hope they don't get replaced with new ones!  (I think that is a moot point though)   Have a good week and mom will be back tomorrow with some other news to tell you.

Wordless Wednesday (Great Uncle)

Last lesson!

 Treadles with chains that are hooked to the harnesses.  Each treadle will have different harnesses attached.  No two treadles will have the same harnesses as another.  So, as you depress the treadle it will lift a number of harnesses with thread going through the heddles.

 Harnesses that have heddles attached.  As you can see, each harness has a number of heddles on it and will have thread going through them in a certain order.  (see previous lessons)  When a treadle is depressed certain harnesses will come up and others will stay down. You can see that harness 4 is up and harness one is down.

 This is what is called a shed.  As you can see some threads are kept down and others are lifted.  You then put through the shuttle that holds the thread and put that thread through the shed and then let the treadle go, and then I will beat the thread. Refer to other lessons if needed.

This picture shows that the threads are going through heddles that are attached to the harnesses and the harnesses have a group of heddles on just one harness.  The order of these threads is what helps to determine what the design will be, along with what order the harnesses will go up and down at different times when the treadles are depressed.

This particular loom has 8 harnesses and 10 treadles.  Lets say that I want to do a towel in plain weave.  First I would take all my threads and put one yarn through a heddle on harness one then two, then three until I get to harness eight.  My towel will be 18 inches wide and will be 12 inches to the inch. which means that I will have 18x12=216 threads that will be threaded through a heddle and that would mean that being as I am doing a plain weave structure I will have an even amount of threads on each harness.  216 divided by 8 equals27 threads on each harness going through heddles.  Now I would go down to my treadles and I would hook harnesses 1,3,5,7 to one treadle and then I would hook harnesses 2,4,6,8 to the other treadle because plain weave means that the odd harness will go up and the even would stay down on one pick(when I depress the treadle) and then when I let it go after putting my shuttle through the shed and beating it in I will depress the next treadle that will raise the even harnesses and the odd harnesses will stay down this time and then I will put the shuttle through the shed and beat that into the cloth.  As you weave your cloth, you will start to see your design.   Designs can be that simple or can be very complicated.  You can use any type of yarn you like but  some are easier to use for a particular design than others and so on.  This is just the basics you have lots to consider; yarns, how close you want your weave structure, what you want to make, what design to use, what colors to use and what colors will go well together, how to set up your loom!

Wordless Wednesday

Sunday Stills (the letter L)

The letter L for Lisa!

Wordless Wednesday (half-dutch)

Lesson #4

The top picture is what is called the heddles.   The threads are put through a heddle that is attached to what is called a harness, there can be a number of heddles on just one harness, this particular loom has eight harnesses on it.  Depending on the design draft, each thread gets put through the heddles on a harness in a certain order depending on the design.  For example, if I do a plain weave design and have 8 harnesses, then I will put a thread through a heddle on harness one then a thread through a heddle on harness two then a thread through a heddle on harness three and so forth until I get to harness eight, then I will start on one and keep going until I am done with all the threads.  The second picture shows the reed, which has slots(dents) in it that are evenly spaced, like this particular reed has 12 dents per inch, meaning that I can put one thread through each dent (space) and I will get 12 ends per inch or if I want to do 24 ends per inch then I will put 2 threads in each dent.  This is what makes your cloth with a close weave or I can make a really light fabric or lacy one.  The closer the threads are put together the tighter the weave structure of the cloth.  The reed also keeps the width of your cloth spaced correctly too.  Like the last project I did it was 12 ends to the inch plus I had the cloth 20 inches wide!  Which means that I had 240 threads total (12x20).  The last picture is the next step, which is to tie the warp onto an apron in the front of the loom, that will hold tension while I am weaving the cloth.   In this particular project, I did not have to thread through heddles because I am using the same design that I used on my last project plus the same ends per inch.  The only thing I had to do was tie onto the old threads in the back of the loom as I showed you on the last lesson, then once I am tied onto the old threads I pulled the new threads all the way to the front of the loom through the heddles and the reed.  If I had to do a whole new design then I would not tie onto an old warp, I would have to take each new thread and thread them through each heddle then take each thread and put it through the reed.

I still have more lessons.  So, stay tuned for the next lesson.

We are expecting 8 to 10 inches of snow, starting tomorrow and some places could even get up to 18 inches.  Here I thought the big snow amounts was done!  At least the good news is that after the storm it is supposed to get back up to above freezing and into the 40's again.

Take care all!

Can tell its a Monday

It has been a pretty tough few days.  I have an infection, and sooner or later I will have to have another root canal done.  (#4)  The niece had her baby girl, as most of you know from Facebook.  She was admitted back into the hospital with Jaundice.   The mother-in-law ended up in the hospital with a severe broken ankle, had to have surgery to put it back together with screws and a plate, it was not easy to do because she has osteoporosis, and her bones are pretty brittle.  She is 80 years old and not a spry young lady any more.  She has really sensitive skin and they are going to have to make sure she doesn't get an infection on top of everything else.   So, I will be back with lesson 4 on the weaving as soon as I can.   Hope you have a wonderful week.  The hubby and I are the closest to the parents, so it falls on us to do a lot of the running for them.  So, I will post again as soon as I can. 


Take care!

Lesson #3

The top picture is how the warp is wound onto the beam on the loom.  Once the warp is wound onto the beam, the I have to tie each thread to the old threads from the last warp that I did. (NOTE:) The only reason that I am able to tie the threads together is because I am going to use the same design that I used for the last towels for my dish(wash) cloths.  The only thing I had to do was take some threads out of the old design because my cloths are going to be narrower than the towels were.  I tie over hand knots and as you can really see now is the cross that I talked about and how they keep the threads separated for me and in order.  Once I have the complete warp tied I will pull it through to the front of the loom.   More in the next lesson.

Hope you are having a wonderful day.  I got the call this morning that the niece is in the process of having the baby.  Most of you know threecollie, and that is her daughter!   We are all excited and can't wait to hear the news that Peggy Ann has arrived!  Have a wonderful day.

Weaving: Lesson #2

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After the warp is wound, I have to take it off and put it on the loom.  I have been winding the warp by myself.  So, I have to put it through the loom from back to front then over the top of the loom so that I can hold the warp with tension while winding it onto the back of the loom.  1.  The warp is going from the back to the front. 2. You can see the warp going through the loom, I have to clear a path so that the warp doesn't get caught on the heddles and the last warp. 3. This is the back of the loom, you can see that the warp is attached to what is called the leash sticks.  These keep the threads and inches in order as I wind the warp onto the loom. 4. The warp is attached to the leash sticks, and the apron in the back of the loom and then you can see a board with nails that the threads are going through in the front of the loom, this is called the rattle, it keeps the inches in order and the warp spread out while winding it onto the loom in the back.  If you look at the last lesson, you saw some red threads that were tied to the warp at the cross, these are markers that tell me how many inches I have wound and they also help me keep the inches in order for when I have to put them into rattle on the loom.  5.  You can see where the warp is going through the loom and then over the top of the loom back to the back of the loom.  I hold onto the threads and there is a handle on the other side of the loom that I use to wind the warp onto the loom.  You can click on the picture to get a better idea on how the warp is attached to the loom, it is going through lease sticks then is also attached to the apron of the loom, when I wind the apron will go around the beam at the back of the loom.  I did 6 yards of warp.  I will have more tomorrow on the process.

Hope you are having a good week so far.  Take care.

Sunday Stills (cows)

The fellows are growing, but not very fast.  That is ok, though, I still have lots of beef left in the freezer for now.  Hope you all had a wonderful weekend.

Tomorrow I will have some more pictures of the weaving process.  Until then, have a wonderful evening.