Lesson on Scaleability
So, at May Crown, I bought the cutest little Inkle loom from Lynn the Weaver (I call it the Inklette) and proceeded to start weaving away. It's light, highly portable, but only makes about 40 -45" of weaving at time.
When working in silk or perle cotton, it makes fairly delicate little bands, which is what I wanted. (Please ignore beginner's bad selvage issues, these were what I had left to illustrate the sizes)
Thinking AHAH! If I have a similar design with more warping options, I can weave a much longer piece, The Harper made me this prototype which I call the Inklette on Steroids. I warped it up and it will actually hold over 9 feet of weaving. Cool, huh?
It didn't work. When it came time to move the piece to open up more sheds, the tensioning went all to hell and back. That and it took about 45 minutes to attempt to re-tension things each time you have to advance the shed (figure after about 8" of weaving). After a valiant attempt to work with the 87 thread pattern I had warped up I called it quits and began to salvage the thread. Only took me 7 hours to undo the resulting mess.
Since I know there are several of you out there who also bought one of these and by now have probably come to similar ideas on adaptability, I thought a caveat might be in order. Been there, done that, don't go the same way I did. Let me know if anyone comes up with a better option. Me, I'm gonna build a floor model loom now.
When working in silk or perle cotton, it makes fairly delicate little bands, which is what I wanted. (Please ignore beginner's bad selvage issues, these were what I had left to illustrate the sizes)
Thinking AHAH! If I have a similar design with more warping options, I can weave a much longer piece, The Harper made me this prototype which I call the Inklette on Steroids. I warped it up and it will actually hold over 9 feet of weaving. Cool, huh?
It didn't work. When it came time to move the piece to open up more sheds, the tensioning went all to hell and back. That and it took about 45 minutes to attempt to re-tension things each time you have to advance the shed (figure after about 8" of weaving). After a valiant attempt to work with the 87 thread pattern I had warped up I called it quits and began to salvage the thread. Only took me 7 hours to undo the resulting mess.
Since I know there are several of you out there who also bought one of these and by now have probably come to similar ideas on adaptability, I thought a caveat might be in order. Been there, done that, don't go the same way I did. Let me know if anyone comes up with a better option. Me, I'm gonna build a floor model loom now.