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Dense as heck

Here's that warp on the loom. I beamed it with sticks,  despite the fact I don't believe in them. Sadly,  my wee loom has a tottie wee warp beam,  about the thickness of a broom handle,  so it's really the only way. Still,  it works for short warps.  Heyho,  we have to work with what we've got.  The loom is currently beamed at 60 epi and sleyed at 112 epi.  I'll really it after the festival two samples at something like 80 epi,  which is a more natural sett for thus yarn.  I'm trying to make denim,  so am upping the epi in a bid to increase the density of the cloth. 

I'm also going to try different samples with differing tension,  to see if I can increase the prominence of the warp floats.

A part of me is wondering whether this is a useful exercise as I plan to weave a proper quantity on the big floor loom in the new year and the characteristics of the loom are very different. 

For starters,  the shed us a good deal deeper,  which I'm sure has some kind of effect on the cloth,  but the tension is also a good bit different as well. Also,  if I succeed in putting a tension brake on it,  then I shall have more consistent tension control,  which ought to help.

I'm currently running on the theory that a lower warp tension will cause greater take up in the warp and increase the prominence of warp floats in a 3/1 twill,  also that a heavier beat will help too. 

These are things that I can't really control on the table loom. So,  like I say,  I'm not convinced that these samples will truly reflect what the big loom will churn out.  I've got to do something in the meantime though and it'll at least give me a rough idea. So there's that.

The coloured samples are from the last warp and are 2/20's cotton set at 42, 56 and 70 epi

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