#countermarch loom

Metal weft with silk warp: movement & drape

scrunching it up was a mistake

i have found the problems i was anticipating or maybe they have found me.

sidenote: was hoping this colour would be a little more olive and a little less military, i'll see what i can do about that. that'll be interesting.

anyways since everything was going very well i decided to change the tie-up to a satin - because i can weave that now!! exciting!!

as you can maybe tell from the photo, it works. but i have trouble with the last shaft, which wants to have its neutral position lower than everyone else. it's pulling down. i suspected this might be correlated with the cords of the last shaft/last treadle holes being taught, while all others have progressively more slack towards the front. so in rest position, these last cords are what hold the treadles up from the floor, the treadles rest on these cords, ergo the last shaft pulling down.

my non-weaving friend suggested yesterday that this might be an issue of me being perfectionistic and having reached a workable shed, to work with what i have achieved. that this tie-up may in fact be impossible to improve. however, i strongly feel it is not good enough to have a solution that: has a single treadle sticking up too high (making it difficult to operate) as well as a shed that is just barely workable. countermarch looms became widely used because they could do the exact thing i'm trying to do here (says allen fannin)

He also describes the issue i'm having quite nicely when talking about the balance required for the countermarch system and then he says this:

"[...] the weight of the treadles equalizes the pull on the ties to both the riser and sinker lamms, thereby canceling the resultant movement of a differential force between risers and sinkers."

when talking about how the treadles need be ≥ the weight of the harness.

overall i still don't feel like i quite understand. i suppose i can try taking out all the connections to the last shaft and see what happens. ok have tried that, 1 is still hanging low, 2 has joined it. uhm. conclusion?

the way i understand the countermarch system now, or try to picture it, is as a scale. the sinking and rising of each shaft is related to a piece of wood with a hole in the middle: when at rest, it should be horizontal. when you pull down on one end, the other rises and vice versa. to control this, both ends are attached to an upper and a lower lamm - one will raise the shed, one will lower it. which is pretty cool! because now you can make connections between these lamms and the treadles to store any combination of rising and sinking shafts. once i have done that tie-up, i can now step on the treadle, which will pull down the combination i have selected, which in turn brings up the remainder of the unconnected combination of lamms. yay, shed!

so anyways, i'm spending a lot of time sitting and staring and contemplating pivot points and feeling how much force it takes to lift pieces at different points and sighing a lot and generally feeling a little like the worlds dumbest creature. but we'll see.

Sample 12ish

Crepe on cotton twine warp

Weft: Super greasy hand spun wool from a second hand shop

Sample X

Double weave

weft 1. undyed alpaca & merino mix

weft 2. wool covered paper yarn (harmony)

bitch pleats!

Sample Y

Double weave

weft 1 Black polyester monofilament

weft 2 Linen

more pleats! these really want to be in this position due to thick monofilament that is held under stress - even if you manually move them they move back. Interesting to see if they pull the white fabric once they're off the loom.

Sample 6

Double weave

Weft 1. Black wool

Weft 2. White wool

Weft 3. Human hair

Sample 3

Pique, mastered!

Weft 1: Wool + merino

Weft 2: Pantyhose-like tube