MARCH MADNESS

If you know me, and I think you do, you’ll know this post is NOT about basketball. Although I am fond of baskets and balls too, I don’t particularly like them together (unless you view a soccer goal as a great BIG basket, that’s a whole ‘nother deal entirely).

No, what I’m talking about is my continuing attempt to warp my loom back to front—while getting the very complicated threading correct. And, by complicated I mean placing the threads in order in shafts 1-2-3-4 (yes, I’m being facetious—it doesn’t get much easier than that). I’ve thought about where I went wrong with my earlier disaster and have determined that it was all because I was listening to the book Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy on tape while I was working.

SPOILER--Maybe I missed something, but I gotta say I pretty much hated that book in the same way I just can't stand Jane Austen stuff—on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on about what one should think about this or that and what others think about this or that and no one really doing anything but worrying about "society" and more THINKING . . . blah, blah, blah until finally Anna throws herself under a train and Levin finds God, but decides not to tell his wife. I hope I didn’t ruin the book for anyone. It was awful in a Great Gatsby kind of way and that’s all I’m going to say. Digression terminated!

I did cut off the offending 356 thread warp featured in my previous post because wasting the $16 I paid for the thread was a good investment in my shaky sanity. Anna Karenina aside, I am pretty sure about where I goofed up, so I wound on 6 yards of some gorgeous gold-ish rayon that may grow up to be a scarf or two.

This time I precisely followed the directions in the book Warping Your Loom and Tying on New Warps by Peggy Osterkamp. Even though Kelly said the contraption (consisting of a broom handle and yarn) looked like some Rube Goldberg project, I soldiered on. However, in removing the warp from the warping board onto kite sticks ( a procedure that is supposed to avoid the nasty mess of the previous warp) I twisted the warp into a rope. It seemed to me that the book said some twisting is OK-- or maybe it didn’t. After I got everything threaded and wove a few inches it became obvious that although the threading was PERFECT, the rope thing was not perfect. So, I untied and unthreaded, re-hung my broomstick contraption, and untwisted the ropey warp.

Now I’ve got to re-thread the heddles and re-sley the reed and re-tie the whole mess to the front apron rod and THEN—ta da – madness (hopefully) abated , I’ll (hopefully) be ready to weave . . . please—PLEASE may I be ready to weave.

BUT tomorrow I’ll detour to a pub for a bit of blarney, beer, and a bagpipe band, ‘cause it seems like the right thing to do.