Three Color Weft

So it's been three days since I've worked on the rigid heddle loom project.  Saturday was shot as we spent the day out in a park with friends in Monrovia in the heat.  We left the park about 3:30PM, went home to quick, cool showers and about 5:30 headed for the Hollywood Bowl where we met other friends and listened to the LA Philharmonic's Tchaikovsky Spectacular (with fireworks).  It was a LLLLOOOONNNNNGGGG night.  The next morning I drove back to Monrovia to set up what is called a Fiber Playday.  This is where myself and two other ladies (who started it) set up a table or two and have weaving and spinning stuff about in case someone would like to learn or try their hand at the fiber side of life.  Got home about 3PM from there and meant to lay down for an hour or so.  It was the "or so".  The weather here has hit over 100 degrees.  I decide to play on the computer instead of weave.

So here we are, Tuesday night and I've got the bag going again.  Now I've woven with random stripes quite often.  In fact I like doing random stripes of color and one color weft, but I decided to do a three color weft.<sigh>. 9PM, I look at my stripes and instead of going white, red, black, white, red, black; I went white, red, black, white, black.  Penelope time again.

But I decided to take a picture of what I've done so far.

Now the inkle band for the strap I really like how it turned out.  It was basically a 5, 3, 1, 1, 3, 5 warpping though after the 5th warp of the one color, I warpped one thread of the second color and then warpped one thread of the first color and then 5 of the second color.  Confusing right?  OK - here:  A,A,A,A,A,B,A,B,B,B,B,B,C,B,C,C,C,C,C,A,A,A,B,B,B,C,C,C,A,B,C,C,B,A,C,C,C,B,B,B,A,A,A,C,C,C,C,C,B,C,B,B,B,B,B,A,B,A,A,A,A,A,

Understand now?  It's fiber geek talk!!

The Penelope Factor

So let me tell you a story:

I have this old ridged heddle loom, well it really belongs to a friend, but I've been using and teaching off it
for about 2 - 3 years now, and the back beam and cloth beam have been badly warped from use (and tight tension).  Well, last May at the Griffin Dyeworks Fiber Retreat (shameful plug there), Woody, one of the  men there offered to repair it by making new beams. So at the Fiber Frolic (also sponsored by Griffin Dyeworks) earlier this month, he replaced the beams. Now, did I finish weaving on the project I had on the loom? NO! I didn't make the time and figured, I'd just retie the warp on the new beams.

I didn't realize just how badly the old beams were warpped. And because of the warpping, not all the threads went where they were suppose to when I changed sheds. Thus the Penelope Factor was born.

OK - for those of you who weren't into the Greek Classics;

In Homer's Odyssey, Penelope is the faithful wife of Odysseus, who keeps her suitors at bay in his long absence and is eventually rejoined with him. She waits twenty years for the final return of her husband, during which she has a hard time snubbing marriage proposals from 108 odious suitors. On Odysseus's return, disguised as an old beggar, he finds that Penelope has remained faithful. She has devised tricks to delay her suitors, one of which is to pretend to be weaving a burial shroud for Odysseus's elderly father Laertes and claiming that she will choose a suitor when she has finished. Every night for three years, she undoes part of the shroud, until some unfaithful maidens discover her secret and reveal it to the suitors

So I spent about 2 hours (over 2 evenings) taking out the weaving and re-warpping the loom. I had hope to finish the piece and deliver it to the new owner, but she will have to wait and few more weeks.