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500 heddles

It's finally done.

I've made all the heddles i think i really need for the castletown loom, and i'm going to go in and warp it up on saturday. or maybe friday. friday might be better now i come to think of it.

anyway, i got some yarn for to put on the loom. a navy blue plain yarn, probably something like 28 worsted count i guess, and also a brown and white sorta flecky nep yarn. i think that's the right term, i really should know these things by heart now.

anyway, i'm going to warp it up at 20epi or so with blue predominating in a sort of tartan check. so, my rough calculations go like this:

500/20 = (5/2=2.5x10=25) 25"

or just over 2 feet. allowing for draw-in it could end up being exactly 2 feet wide, which is quite a nice width for a scarf. so i guess i'll make a 5 metre warp with that and get 4 scarves out of it if all goes well

anyway, that's that. making 500 heddles is no joke.

-andrew

Comments

Meg said…
Well done, you! And your descriptions suits me just fine. I get the picture.
12 July 2010 at 23:27
Andrew Kieran said…
my camera's still broken. i need to buy a set of tiny screwdrivers. and i always took lousy pictures anyway, me owning that phone is like the writers coronation street owning pens and word processors.

could be put to better use ;)

anyway, i've inherited my dad's old camera. i just haven't charged the batteries for it yet. it's smaller and can fit in my coat pocket without breaking, so it's all good
13 July 2010 at 01:07
Trapunto said…
What a job. Did you figure out how long it took you to tie each heddle, and multiply by 500? I always like to do that after a monotonous chore. I'm not sure whether knowing total time spent increases or decreases my sense of accomplishment.
13 July 2010 at 16:11
Andrew Kieran said…
nah. i did it in front of the telly in the evening. i guess it's not important, cos it's something you only have to do once for each loom.

also, timing the making of an individual heddle and multiplying by 500 would give an inaccurate result, as the time taken to make each heddle could vary by a second or two, and over 500 that'd skew your results quite significantly.

also, i was cutting the length up first, and then tying them (division of labour, innit), so i don't think i could reliably time the time

the better thing to do would be to time the making of the whole set and divide the time by 500, thus arriving at the average time it takes to make a heddle.

it remains to be seen whether i can put together a warping stand (i've got the frame) and warp a loom in one day though.
13 July 2010 at 22:32
DEEP END OF THE LOOM said…
that's is quite a bit of work, good on you!!! I can't wait to see what your first project will be.
14 July 2010 at 19:04
Dorothy said…
Hope your weaving with the flecky nep yarn is going well, great description I'm sure it's more use to me than a "name" for the yarn. You must be a fast knotter after 500 heddles.
17 July 2010 at 18:42
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