Finished Project, and Future Planning

The second mixed-warp throw took longer than expected to mend. Those soft yarns just don't like to stay at the same tension as their neighbors, so I had quite a few floats to mend. Each time I thought "Ha! Got 'em all!" I'd take another look, and spot more.

After washing and pressing, I found a few more! But now I'm pretty sure I've really got 'em all, and took a picture:



Finished size: 31x100 inches. It was 34 inches in the reed, but I never managed to measure the length off the loom before finishing. Anyway, I like the cloth so much I've decided that if it doesn't sell, there's probably enough to make a nice cozy pullover top out of it.

As for future planning, AVL has sent me an engineering drawing of the jacquard loom, with dimensions marked to show the extra length they put into the frame to give enough room between the heddles and the warp beam to put me and a stool in there while tying one warp onto another. That set me to wondering whether/how it's actually going to fit into the studio. So with tape measure in hand, I started putting painter's tape marks on the floor and mentally moving furniture.

First, the work table (with storage underneath) will have to rotate 90 degrees so that the long side instead of the short side is parallel to the window wall.



The shelving unit in the foreground of the picture below will have to move. It'll occupy the corner to the left of the [rotated] work table.



The 24-shaft AVL will move to approximately the position now occupied by the little Glimakra (which will find a new home with another weaver). You can just see the Glimakra's breast beam in the foreground of the worktable picture. Because the 24-shaft loom is a lot wider than the Glimakra, the shelving unit has to be moved to make room to walk past the side of the loom.



There are two corners marked in the picture above; the one just beyond the far corner of the drawing (hard to see in this lighting) is the back left corner of the new loom. Because it's deeper from front to back, even though it's going to be closer to the window wall by 6 inches, it'll extend farther into the room by about 9 inches beyond the current position of the 24-shaft loom, whose bottom frame and cloth storage beam are visible in this picture. Also, the jacquard will be about 6 inches farther right, closer to the washer/dryer closet, whose door is visible in the picture of the shelving unit.

The mark to the left of the drawing is the new position of the back right corner of the [relocated] 24-shaft loom.

I need to swap the positions of the 24-shaft loom and the jacquard for two reasons: The jacquard needs 220-volt power, which is only available in the washer/dryer closet, next to the space were the 24-shaft loom is now. Also, there's a ceiling fan in the middle of the room that will clear the jacquard if it's in the space where the 24-shaft loom is now, but would not if I tried to put the jacquard where the Glimakra is now. And in the summer months, that ceiling fan is a must! Between the ceiling fan and an exhaust fan in a window (and occasionally an oscillating fan too), I've only turned on the AC twice this summer, and much of the summer is 100-degree-plus days.

Whew! It's gonna be tight. But I think it'll work. Can't gain any weight, though, or I won't fit through the slender spaces between pieces of equipment!