proud gran

Today my 5 year old granddaughter swam for her first swimming diploma. She did well. What a difference a year makes. When she started her swimming lessons a year ago, she did not enjoy the water.

spring!

What a difference the sun makes!
Today I could weave in this setting

And sitting at the loom I had this view. I'm enjoying this whilst it lasts as colder weather has been forecasted again. I had altered something to the loom to be able to fit the sectional warping to the beam but I now find that by moving the plank from vertical to horizontal on the stand, the loom has become unstable. It sways from side to side. Not good. Just the reason for a trial warp to see how it all works. The warp is only 14cm wide but I'm enjoying the network structure.

I'll finish the warp and see if there is anything I can do to make changes to the loom. For the moment I'm happy to weave!

Dobby problem solved

Just a quick update
After first calling Louet Holland and next Louet Canada, all is now working again. Jan in Canada guided me "hands on" through the inside of the interface box. Scary.
When a shaft stops working during weaving, it can be the connection to the solenoid.
After taking this connection apart and fitting it back on again the shaft is lifting again.
So, back to weaving. The sun is shining. What more do I want.
Thanks for replying to my cry for help!

Dobby problem

After overcoming the warping problems I now find that shaft 16 is not lifting on my Magic Dobby. I have a narrow warp on and used 16 shafts intending to weave some network. The first few picks I wove tabby to get started and all worked ok. Next I began with the network pattern and after a few picks noticed that I had warp threads that were not being woven. After some searching I found that the cause was shaft 16 not being lifted. Tried restarting the computer. Did the test with the interface and all the solenoids are working. I'm just baffled what is happening here. Thinking, small warp, test the loom and get on with the next warp. All very frustrating.
Any one any thoughts on this?

Struggling

I've been adding sectional warping to my Magic Dobby. Louet does not offer this for a Magic Dobby.
After reading that Marg Coe had added sectional warping to her Magic Dobby, I wanted to give it a go too. But rather than making it myself like she had done, I took the short cut and ordered the set for the David loom that should work.
I've put it on with some hurdles. I had to turn the stabilizing plank on the stand around (from vertical to horizontal) to create space.
Now that it's all fitted there is a problem: there is not much space left between the sectional warp beam and the top cloth beam. I've decided to put on a plain 8/2 Tencel warp and see if it will work.
I'm now going through the learning process of using my AVL warping wheel that I was able to buy 2nd hand in 2010. It had been waiting patiently to be used one day. I'm not doing very well so far, so might change plans and just make a very narrow warp, just to see and feel how the warp behaves. My plan was to make a 36cm wide warp.
Before this sectional warping adventure, I had been planning to start weaving with the lovely coloured wool/silk yarns that I bought last autumn. Hopefully the Tencel warp will give me the confidence in using this new setup, so that I can start next time with the wool/silk yarns.

a good life ends

Today I've had to say goodbye to my dear cat Scruffy. I'm so glad I was able to make the decision for him, to let him sleep forever and not let him suffer. He would have been 16 this Summer, but he was rapidly going downhill. It was not easy, but the best for him. He'll be greatly missed. He was David's cat and he looked after me these last few years. Hope his sister Sunny will stay with me for a bit longer.

exhibition

Last Friday I went to the opening of the latest exhibition in the Texile Museum in Tilburg.
The exhibition consist of work from 5 designers / design bureau's. They designed work through inspiration from the Museum collection. It was all very well presented, showing the inspirational pieces (nice to have some on show) alongside their new designs.
The exhibition runs until May 25th, well worth seeing. There are video's showing what inspired them, you have to see it all.
There were fantastic silk panels dyed with madder (shame they do not name the German dyer in the exhibition and on the website, only in the video is he named but I forgot)
What was so nice to see were blankets made from cotton that had been brushed after weaving, just like wool blankets are done. You wanted to stroke them but not allowed.....
Fascinating round bench with beautiful cloth on
Table linen, with embroidery. Very unusual
Fashion "embellishment". Flowers and plant embroidered on soluble cloth, only leaving the embroidery as end-result.
My descriptions do not do this exhibition any justice and unfortunately the museum website has not translated the exhibition in English yet. The collaboration of the designers with the Textile Lab has made this exhibition possible. All in all it's very inspirational.